Fresh Brewer's Yeast

[james]

We get 25gr cubes of fresh brewers yeast in Italy, and Regular Active Dry and Instant Yeast are not to be found. It threw me for a while, but I'm used to it. Fresh yeast is called for by the VPN Association, but I am not sure how important it is. I had an email exchange a while back with Peter Reinhart on how much flavor or texture the yeast imparted in your dough, and he didn't think it was a big factor.

I would be interested in hearing from our bakers and pizza dough makers. What are you using? How important is yeast?

Here are a couple of photos.

This yeast has a strong smell. I'm making bread, and the kitchen smells like a brewery.
James

[Richard]

Re: Fresh Brewer's Yeast

Switch between ADY and IDY depending on when I need the dough to be ready. Prefer ADY when keeping in refrigerator for overnight or even two day proofing of pizza dough. Long and slow rise.

Have done away with the mix in water and wait for bubbles and handle the same way as IDY, except with a lower water temperature. As I use it up pretty fast and keep unused portion in freezer have not had a batch that failed to proof.

May happen someday but then again will only be out my time and 4 cups of flour.

[CanuckJim]

Re: Fresh Brewer's Yeast

James,

I've used brewer's yeast in the past, but it's very difficult to find here. When I was using it, I really didn't find that much of a difference between it and IDY or ADY, at least as far as flavor is concerned. Many of my breads use natural leavens, and are retarded overnight, so none of these is a factor. Some, however, depend on one or the other, and some formulas call for spiking a naturally leavened dough. For IDY, I have found that SAF Instant Gold yields a more predictable and faster rise than SAF Red Star or Fleishmans. For ADY, I have a source for "all natural" ADY that comes from New York State. It really doesn't have a name brand; I think the bakery attached to the store buys it in bulk and they sell some to customers. It's what could only be called ACTIVE.

Jim

[carioca]

Re: Fresh Brewer's Yeast

James,

I've used brewer's yeast in the past, but it's very difficult to find here. <SNIP>

Jim

Hi Jim,

do you guys over there get to buy home-brewing kits such as our (Aussie) Coopers 1.8 kg cans with a sachet of brewers yeast adapted to the type of beer in the can? Or are there home-brewing suppliers where you can buy the yeast by itself?

I've brewed a lot of different Coopers beers, including Munich Lager and Canadian Blonde (two of my favourites!) and at one stage just used a bit of the yeast left in the bottom of the fermenter - or else in the bottle once you've drunk the stuff - to bake 'yeast-assisted' sourdough bread. I can't say for sure that it made a very noticeable difference, though...

Ciao,

Carioca