The yeast shortage

[Italiancook]

A couple years ago, I wanted to try my dad's white bread recipe. I couldn't find the cake yeast called for in the recipe. During my search for it, I learned that over the years, cake yeast has been sold in differing weights.That info stymied me until I found the linked info from Red Star Yeast.

Yeast Conversion Table

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Italiancook.

[Mike Nolan]

The table wasn't appearing until I clicked on the top.

1 packet of yeast (7 grams) in a pound of flour is about 1.5%. I'm seeing a lot of recent recipes that are more like 1% yeast (based on flour weight.)

And I'm not clear if they're talking about active dry yeast or instant dry yeast, which are two different products (though with a number of similarities these days.)

[RiversideLen]

I've been cutting back on the yeast too, by 2 grams for my bun recipe. It's been working just fine.

[aaronatthedoublef]

Interesting about brewers yeast. I was at a bakery outside of Tuscany for a class and the baker there said he used "beer yeast" - he used the word "birra". I took that to mean brewers yeast but that was 20 years ago and my attempted translation. My memory of his bread is that it was great but that may just be because I loved that experience.

[Mike Nolan]

Brewers have been supplying yeast to bakers for centuries, but I wonder if the yeasts they use have changed over the years to be more productive for brewing than for baking, just like baker's yeast has been improved over the years.

The fact that brewer's yeast might be a little low in protease enzymes is something you can probably compensate for.

[aaronatthedoublef]

When I used to discuss this with friends who brewed beer they used to talk about using different yeasts for different beers. I haven't ever studied it and my brewer friends have stopped brewing. So much too learn.

[skeptic7]

There is a nice blog post on KAF about using less yeast.
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2020/04/30/how-to-bake-bread-using-less-yeast

I like monitoring the time it takes the dough to rise in a relatively warm environment vs a cool room. Nice experiments. If it wasn't for the storage, it might be worth while building an incubator just for yeast dough. I like preferments and sponges of various types better -- I don't have to worry about delicate ingredients like eggs or milk spoiling.

[BakerAunt]

Thanks for calling our attention to the article, Skeptic.

Most recipes are written for 2 1/4 tsp. yeast simply because that is the content of a yeast packet. The assumption is that most people do not want to open a pack of yeast and have it left open, especially as those little packets cost so much. With such recipes, I always would reduce to 2 tsp. I've since discovered that 1 3/4 tsp. works just as well.

One point the article does not address is the amount of salt. While salt in recipes is partly for taste and, I seem to recall, also for structure (I'm hazy on that), a lot of recipes are designed to deliver that one hour rise for the initial dough and another hour for the shaped loaf. Salt helps control the rise. Reducing the salt allows the yeast to work more effectively. So, if you are reducing salt in recipes, you can usually reduce the yeast as well.

[Joan Simpson]

Skeptic I enjoyed reading that article of yeast also,thanks.

[Mike Nolan]

The 2 1/4 tsp packets date back to the 50's when active dry yeast was a lot touchier than it is now. Unlike the incredible shrinking tuna fish can, it hasn't gotten smaller over the years.

[skeptic7]

Bread needs a certain amount of salt to toughen the gluten. Without salt the gluten is too expandable and will balloon out and then collapse. I've tried to cut back on salt, and find that 1 tsp/ 4 cups of flour is about as little as I feel comfortable using.

when I used packages of yeast, I always used the whole package. Now my yeast is in a plastic bag, tied shut, in a pint mason jar in the freezer.

[Mike Nolan]

If you've never made Tuscan bread (no salt), making it is an interesting project, you'll learn a bit about yeast doing it. The bread is a bit bland on flavor but good for dipping in strong sauces, which is what it's intended for.

See Tuscan Bread

Years ago a friend took me to a Basque restaurant in Reno, served family style, you ate what they brought and there were several groups at the same long table. They served an interesting bread there, a huge loaf that you ripped off hunks of, this recipe looks like it might be close. I love the bit in the instructions for how to know when it is ready to bake, I suspect the recipe needs to be sized to your Dutch Oven fairly closely.

See Basque Sheepherders Bread

[BakerAunt]

That's an interesting recipe, Mike. I always worry about recipes that add the salt to the water before the yeast is added.

I'm also wondering if the sheepherders really carried butter with them.

Also, if you let it rise until it pushes up the lid--that's one strong dough!--how do you then bake with the lid on?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

If you had a bale pot (the kind that hang over a fire), the handle probably holds the lid on somewhat, though if you buried the pot that should solve the problem. My Dutch Oven has a curved enough lid I think it'd stay pretty secure, but I could see some lids getting pushed off onto the oven shelf with a big clang.

As to the butter question, you can make butter from sheep's milk, but I don't know what it'd taste like, I see it for sale online but I don't think I've ever seen it in a store. Maybe they had some cattle on their drives as well?

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