Yeast Activity

[Dutchoven]

Re: Yeast Activity

Living in Mississippi most of what I hear is Martha White...White Lily is big in East Tennessee...both make excellent biscuits...I could box some and ship to you guys...let me know...
Dutch

[CanuckJim]

Re: Yeast Activity

Brian,

White Lily is what I remember. A local friend of mine is originally from Nashville. He told me that years back Flat and Scruggs did the jingle for that flour. Next time he goes "down home" I'll ask him to bring some back. Then all I need is some greens, grits and floured corn. Haven't had any of that stuff since the last time I was in Charleston. Ditto a crawfish fry. Is it good for you? Who cares.

Jim

[BrianShaw]

Re: Yeast Activity

From the Fleischmann's ADY packet: "yada x3"

The "rules" are in my opinion a bit more flexible than they say. The jar (an old spagetti sauce jar) full of ADY in my freezer has been there 2 years and it is still quite vibrant. I use it directly out of the freezer and most often don't melt/proof it - it just gets dumped into the the flour pile and activated from there.

Sure, ADY is cheap enough to throw out... but there is a bit of Scottish/Yankee thriftiness left in me that compels me to keep using it if it still works... and it is still working into its third year in the freezer.

Thanks to all for the confessions re: white bread - that was my only bread-baking accomplishment over the holiday break. To kill the curse, I rolled cinnimon sugar into it and make what my wife characterized as "just as good as what comes from the store shelf". I suppose that is a compliment.

[BrianShaw]

Re: Yeast Activity

I'd use the biscuit flour available in the South (forget the name), but it's not available here.

White Lily? or Martha White? A long, long time ago when I did business in the South I'd bring an extra suitcase to bring back a supply of these flours. Oh, what I'd give to have a local source!

[Dutchoven]

Re: Yeast Activity

Jim
I so agree...some things are just sooo good...tried something quite interesting in the past few days in the modern oven...bavarian pumpernickel...the one that is really dense and moist and uses cooked rye berries...flavor was great but have to work on technique as the handling is quite different than that of what I am used to
Best
Dutch

[CanuckJim]

Re: Yeast Activity

Dutch,

I've had a similar experience with plain, white pan bread, rolls and, believe it, biscuits. I'd use the biscuit flour available in the South (forget the name), but it's not available here. There's plenty of room, as Drake points out, for all types of bread so long as it's real. I'm sure we've all had a yen for a Mars Bar, Almond Joy, Pepsi and whatnot.

Jim

[Dutchoven]

Re: Yeast Activity

We made yeast rolls for some of our customers here in the south for the holidays...simple, direct and very yeasty...they were really off our radar(to steal one of Jims lines)...made them at Thanksgiving and there was a higher demand for them at Christmas...go figure...and these are some of my best hearth bread customers
Dutch

[DrakeRemoray]

Re: Yeast Activity

That blast of sweet buttery-yeasty odor when you cut it open isn't going to please any bread snobs, but it's sure good eating.

There is room in my bread-snob-head for all kinds of bread...
At Thanksgiving, I made some of those potato-butter rolls from Bernard Clayton's book (I think they are called Lenora's rolls). They are a huge hit...
Drake

[dmun]

Re: Yeast Activity

I always thought adding sugar to yeast was punishable by death, guess I should read directions more often.

Yeasts love sugar like cats love tuna. If you want fast yeast action, give them sugar. If you want slower dough development, making them work to convert the complex carbohydrates in flour into the sugar they need, they will give you a bonus of complex flavors, as other things are happening at the same time as the long rise. Hence the cult of flour-salt-water-yeast only.

That said, on Christmas I made my old white bread recipe I've been making since I was a teenager, full of sugar and butter and milk. That blast of sweet buttery-yeasty odor when you cut it open isn't going to please any bread snobs, but it's sure good eating.

[Mojoe]

Re: Yeast Activity

From the Fleischmann's ADY packet: "Stir 1 envelope contents into 1/4 cup warm water (100 to 110 degrees F). To proof (foam Yeast), stir in 1 teaspoon sugar; let stand 10 minutes. If mixture doubles in volume, yeast is active. For non dissolving recipes: If yeast is added directly to a portion of the flour and other dry ingredients, heat liquids to 120 to 130 degrees F."

I always thought adding sugar to yeast was punishable by death, guess I should read directions more often. Same holds true for adding more water than what is called for... no foam.

[CanuckJim]

Re: Yeast Activity

RC,

As a general rule of thumb, you use more ADY than IDY in a recipe because IDY is designed to have more active cells per measure than ADY, hence its "instant" designation. As well, if the dough will be retarded, less yeast (either kind) is used because of the long, slow, cold fermentation. I, too, have noticed the discrepancies in the yeast and salt measures in various places for Caputo pizza dough. My forte is bread, not pizza, so I'd hope the very active pizza guys would chime in so we can eliminate problems and correct the docs.

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: Yeast Activity

Thanks Jim,
Good explaination. I've seen the bricks. Someow, I thought they'd have a consistency of Tofu. (yuk!)

[RCLake]

Re: Yeast Activity

I was reading the e-book on pizza making and yeast I was using was the instant yeast and then I switched to the active dry yeast. But the recipe in the ebook calls for 4 times the amount of yeast versus recipe in FB home page. That is 10 gr(2 tsp) versus 3gr(1/2 tsp). I'm going to try the higher amount and see if that works better and then I'll try Dave's trick with the sugar.
How much yeast do you use with 500 gr of flour?

[CanuckJim]

Re: Yeast Activity

Guys,

I'm not talking about wild yeast culture here, which I store in the refrigerator and refresh at least once a week. Instead, we're dealing with granular commercial yeast, either ADY or IDY. The bulk packs are in a brick because they're vacuum sealed. Once the brick is opened, you'll see that the yeast is indeed granular and loose. I store it in the freezer, not the fridge. The granules do not adhere to each other, even when frozen, so measuring is easy. I don't measure out portions, therefore, just keep the IDY and ADY in separate airtight Lock N'Lock containers. Really, stored this way, you can expect a shelf life of a year.

Fleishman's yeast is the most common in North America, but you can get bricks of SAF Gold IDY (French) and Red Star from mail order places like King Arthur Flour. The prices are premium, but the performance is premium, too. Even so, we're not talking about a lot of money, either way.

Jim

[gjbingham]

Re: Yeast Activity

to continue that question, if not portioned prior to freezing, how do you deal with the frozen block when you need to use it?

Thanks!