How to choose the right yeast for your bread!
What the difference between these yeasts?
I’ve gotten this question a lot lately the answer is quite simple. For simplicity sake I’m going to take 3 very common known yeasts that you can use and explain them here.
What is Yeast? - Yeast is by definition a “eukaryotic, single called microorganism” - aka a living thing… its classified as part of the fungus kingdom. There are about 1,500 different species currently recognized but for sake of simplicity like I said I’m going to focus on three.
Commercial yeast - Active Dry & Rapid Rise)
Sourdough yeast
Let’s jump into a little bit of history and fun facts about yeast before we get into everything.
Commercial yeast was brought to the market in the 1780’s & 90’s with the development of compressed yeast in England, Germany and the Netherlands. This process and type of yeast was collected from beer fermentation. This yeast was wet and it wasn’t until 1822 in Vienna when a dried yeast would become available.
In 1849 Boudin Bakery was formed in San Francisco because they received a sourdough starter from a local gold miner, who had brought a family starter with him. It is said that the bakery still uses the same starter for their bread today.
Bakers yeast which we are familiar with today came to the market in 1868 via the Fleischmann brothers. The two brothers came from Austria-Hungry and partnered with an am American business man - James Gaff and they built a yeast plant in Cincinnati Ohio. They created a compressed yeast cake which they patented. It was Americas first commercially produced yeast. It contained compressed grain, barley malt, and brewers yeast. They developed the two yeast that you see on the shelf today, Active Dry Yeast and Rapid Rise Yeast.
Fun fact* The Military during WW II used the Active Dry Yeast that was created by the brothers to make bread for the soldiers so that they could have a taste of “Home”.
Fleischmann’s specifically developed this yeast for the GIs. The yeast required no refrigeration and activated with warm water.
In 1984 the brothers created another type of yeast which we see today- RapidRise yeast. This type of yeast makes the dough rise 50% quicker than its traditional counterpart.
You see stable commercial yeast has only been around 155 years. Sourdough yeast on the other hand has dated back to 3700 BCE with a sourdough bread that was taken from Switzerland. Sourdough is said to have actually originated in Egypt several thousands of years earlier though.
Fun Fact* Rye bread is almost always leavened with sourdough because bakers yeast is not suitable as a leveling agent due to its lack of enough gluten.
So now that we know about the history of yeast and a little about the different types of yeast and how they were formed lets take a closer look.
Active Dry Yeast- It’s a dry form of yeast that uses warm water or milk to become activated to leaven your dough. Once activated you can then add in your other ingredients to make your dough.
Rapid Rise Yeast ( Instant Yeast) - It’s a dry form of yeast that does NOT need to be activated in warm water or milk to leaven your dough. This yeast you can throw into your bowl with all the other dry ingredients. I will also leaven your bread 50% quicker than its counterpart active dry yeast.
Sourdough Starter ( yeast) - Sourdough yeast is actually a make up of fermented flour and water. It takes on yeast from your environment referred to as wild yeast, and contains a bacteria called lactic acid. Th yeast is the main leavening agent in sourdough and adds to to flavor and aroma of the bread. The Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) that is in a sourdough starter is very important it acts as a shield against unwanted pathogens to develop. Due to the PH of a sourdough starter around 3.5 the environment can’t support these bad bacterias. This all happens because of the presence of the LAB. The lactic acid bacteria is also the reason why many people with gluten sensitivities can eat sourdough. Why you ask? Because an enzyme that is released but the LAB helps to break down the gluten over time.
Sourdough starter is very unique to each environment it is in and takes on different yeasts from the air and the microbes from the hands that are making it so therefore each sourdough starter is different! It’s important that this type of yeast is fed with flour and water to keep the fermentation process going and to create a healthy environment for everything to thrive.
So there you have it the three yeasts that you will commonly hear through this year during the #MakeBread365 challenge and also hear on your journey with baking. In short when you use a yeast bread recipe you can use one of two different yeast but make sure your prepare them in the correct manner and use the correct amount for whichever you choose. Sourdough yeast needs to be tended to and fed so that it can ferment and produce the strong leavening agent.
It’s my hope that you’ll be able to create amazing bread this year for you and your family and that you can join me on this journey of making bread this year and swapping out your go to at the store.
Samantha