Yeast- Instant & Active

[Loren]

I have a question about yeast. Do most to of you keep both types on hand?

Some recipes I have use the active dry, others use the instant dry. I bought Red Star from Costco and keep it in the frig, it is active dry, I have not noticed instant dry there but I will keep my eyes open. I remember hearing of a conversion chart but some say it does not work well.

Loren

[Breven]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

Funny you should mention that Loren. I just bought the Bread Baker's Apprentice, by Peter Reinhart. His recipe calls for instant yeast. I too have the Red Star Dry Active yeast and have been wondering if there is much difference.I saw the instant yeast at the grocery store, I'll pick some up. I plan to try his recipe this weekend- we'll see how it goes.

[Chef]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

active dry yeast should be put in lukewarm water before using. This will release the yeast and help it to work. Instant yeast can be applied directly into the other recipe ingredients (providing they aren't too hot) and will do just fine. After you put the active dry yeast in water and stir you can add it to your other ingredients.

Peter 's books are wonderful just follow the instructions exactly!!

[Loren]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

That is the exact reason I was posting the question. I recently took a class by Peter Reinhart and his recipes use instant yeast. He said there is a formula for converting the active/instant but it does not work well. I believe he said something about the 25% rule. I will have to look at my notes to see what I have written down.

So I assume most people do have both types of yeast on hand?? Dumb question I guess What's wrong another bag of yeast in the freezer, eh!

I will post some pictures from the class soon, you can see Peter with some nice foccacia. It is in the Get Cooking section.


Loren

[Wiley]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

I too have recently picked up the same Red Star yeast at Costco, but due to our incessant rain have yet to try it out.

However, I have used piomike's receipe (see below) with a slight modification of starting four hours before the baking; and at the two hour mark do a stretch and thirds fold (twice) and then divide and form into balls (and have the second rise in separate containers).

The point I want to make is I just dump the active dry yeast directly into the other dry ingredients in the food processor...no premix and activate with warm water as one does in making bread.

Total time to make and cleanup our food processor is 20 minutes, for enough dough for six 12 inch pizzas (double this receipe). Not a single failure so far (I have made over sixty pizzas using this receipe) and lots of compliments from friends including one who lives part of the year and owns a home in Tuscany. I've been using Stone Buhr bread flour and sea salt.

piomike's receipe:
quote:
2 cups bread flour
1 tsp quick rise yeast or 1/2 pack
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 cup warm water

in a food processor with the plastic blade. blend dry ingrediants add oil then turn on and add the water slowly. It is a wet dough. Turn out on a floured surface and knead 5-10 times put in a large oiled bowl, rise 2 hours in a warm place. thats it and it is great........ unquote

Wiley

[Loren]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

Thanks for the recipe, I will try it some day.

Seeing your location have you ever bought flour from Bob's Red Mill in Oregon. My cooking partner in a class at Ramekin's said it is very good. He said he called them and asked about one of the types of flours, they said they would send him a sample. They sent him a whole sack to try out!

I just bought some perfect pizza blend and a copy of Caputo 00 from King Arthur. I will probably try them out this weekend along with Caputo to see the difference. My usual flour is King Arthur and Caputo.

Loren

[christo]

Re: Yeast- Instant & Active

One kind only on hand. We use Red Star Active Dry Yeast and throw a half tsp in the bread machine along with the other ingredeints (500g flour batch size) and let it do it's thing. We don't do anything nice to the yeast like wake it up with a warm bath...

I typically go 50/50 on Caupto and KA bread flour, divide the dough in to fourths and throw it in the fridge to do it's thing for a few hours.

We finally have a consistently good working dough.

I'll have to make two batches and wake up the yeast nicely for one and see if we can tell a difference.

As I get better at handling dough, I also plan to move to a higher percentage of Caputo. I could be totally wrong but I thought the 100% dough being so silky smooth plus my technique so poor (overiding factor) caused me to blowout more often. I can really tell a positive difference in the feel/taste of the dough with Caputo and look forward to higher percentage Caputo doughs in the future.

Christo