What kind of yeast for bread

Maybe it's the fact that it's a living, breathing organism. Or the fact that if you don't treat it right, it dies, and so does your bread. To complicate matters, there's no such thing as a simple yeast purchase. And there are so many types of yeast: active dry yeast, instant yeast, rapid rise yeast, or, if you're a serious baker, fresh yeast. Understanding the difference, knowing which yeast is the best baking yeast, and where to buy yeast, is not easy. So we asked Susan Reid at King Arthur Flour to break it down for us, and she hooked us up with Yeast —a crash course on everything you need to know to dissolve your fears and start baking.

A yeast common in supermarkets. It's made by removing the water in live yeast and grinding it into fine granules. Its value, combined with quality, seals the deal for me.

For those of you who go WAY back, fresh yeast cake yeast was the staple of every bread baker's kitchen. These days, though, the familiar foil-wrapped cubes are available only in scattered grocery stores. So for the sake of simplicity, I didn't include fresh yeast in these tests.

Looking for more information on successful yeast-bread baking? PJ bakes and writes from her home on Cape Cod, where she enjoys beach-walking, her husband, three dogs, and really good food! Be on the lookout for counterfeit SAF yeast on the internet.

I have been using it for years, and then I got some on the internet and all of a sudden nothing seemed to work. Eventually, I looked closely at the package and realized it had no date on it. All SAF yeast has a date on it. Well, I started looking around in my small town, and I went online and saw Walmart had some. I hate going to Walmart, but I found a brick of SAF in February, and the date on the brick was January and when I used it all of my bread started ballooning like crazy--the way it was supposed to.

Naturally, when I went back for more, they no longer carry it. You can find more information about it here. Very interesting. I always wondered why my dough always took longer than the recipes recommended. I have always used Red star active yeast. I just bought some of your sah-instant yeast and I was going to wait until my Red star ran out. Your article has inspired me to try it on my next loaf. I've been using it for everything, and I get excellent results most times.

If I don't it's my fault, and not the yeast. I mostly make normal breads white, whole wheat, etc. What causes this? We're sorry to hear that you're having some trouble, Donna!

It can be tricky to say what's going on here without more details about the recipe you're using. Could it be that your dough is over-proofing, which can make for a really slack dough? We'd love to help but we'll need some more details, please do feel welcome to reach out to our Baker's Hotline folks so we can help! I wanted thank you for this post. I am constantly re-reading it probably OCD, ha,ha. I, for one, was not pleased with my first loaf of handmade bread due to that "yeasty" flavor and smell.

One question I have about the storage of yeast is this: does vacuum sealing and using an oxygen removing packet before freezing have any benefit. If you aren't familiar with the process I have a feeling you are , the vacuum resealing removes as much air from the package, or even Mason jar if you don't care for plastic near your food, as reasonably possible.

Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights.

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. In This Article Expand. Yeast for Baking. Yeast for Cooking. Yeast for Brewing. Featured Video. I often call sourdough starters "DIY yeast"—they're all the rage now, and I wholeheartedly love them. Yeast and bacterial spores naturally occur in flours, so depending on the type of flour you use, the ratio of water you feed into it, and variables in the surrounding environment temperature, air flow , each starter will be a slightly different mix of microorganisms.

Because starters are born out of naturally occurring yeasts, they contain different species of yeasts than what's found in baker's yeast. For example, saccharomyces exiguus is a wild yeast that can be found on various grains and plants—even in the air, floating by around us.

Sourdough starters often take a longer time to leaven a recipe when compared with the speed of commercial yeast and will also give your final baked good a different flavor profile: more sour, less sweet, and perhaps an earthier, artisanal je ne sais quoi. Starters can make a nice rustic loaf of sourdough bread , but they can also be used in a myriad of applications beyond just bread: pancakes, crackers, donuts, even cookies!

Baking soda, when used alongside an acidic ingredient—such as lemon juice, vinegar, buttermilk, or brown sugar—will also produce carbon dioxide and can be an effective leavener in baked goods like cakes and cookies. Baking powder, being part baking soda an alkaline substance and part cream of tartar an acidic substance , will undergo similar chemical reactions that produce carbon dioxide: once when it comes into contact with a liquid, and, if it's a double-acting baking powder, a second time when it is heated during the baking process.

While both baking soda and baking powder can help to leaven certain baked goods, neither has the strong lifting power of baker's yeast and both can leave a bitter, soapy aftertaste when used in large amounts. If you're inkling to bake something and only have baking soda or baking powder on hand, quick breads and soda breads are great alternatives. Kitchen Tips and Tools. Delish Shop. United States. Type keyword s to search. Today's Top Stories.