free fresh yeast (merged)

BritBrat

Thanks for reply.

disolve in tepid water [again not critical, but not a pint either]

How much water? I though I would make slightly more than required but add correct amount of liquid as per instructions, so yeast would be a little diluted.

As for walnut size that's about what I came to before you posted, but to be more accurate 4g in weight.

I also came across this:

How much to use

Usually when following a recipe you will be told how much to use. Make sure that you are clear whether the recipe is referring to dried or active or fresh yeast as you will need different amounts accordingly.

Typically, the faster you want the bread to rise the more yeast you use. You can make fantastic bread with a very small amount of yeast if you are able to leave dough to prove for 24 hours for example. 1-2g as opposed to 30g for a short 2 hour ferment.

If the recipe says FRESH yeast and you only have dried then use 2/3 of the amount of dried by weight. Similarly if you only have fresh and it says use DRIED then use 1/3 more.

Ezmondino

An easy way to make bread rise more. Get a ceramic bowl and fill it with boiling water. Lay a cooling rack over it, and put a plastic container on top. Put the dough after kneeding into the container. Then get another ceramic bowl (like a breakfast cereal bowl) and put it inside the container and fill that with boiling water. Finally put the lid of the container on. The steam will help to grow the yeast once it has been added to the dough, but will not be so hot it kills the yeast. Should be ready in 10-15 mins.

When disolving approx 15g yeast you need about 1/4 point of warm water with 1 teaspoon of strong plain flour and 1 teaspoon of sugar. Water should be very warm, but not too hot you can't put you finger in it. I place the yeast on top of a radiator or in the sun if it's a hot day.

Hope I haven't taught anyone to suck eggs!

Ezmondino

Angelraesunshine wrote: »

what quantity do i use if i am changing a recipe of dried yeast to fresh yeast?

generally dried yeast is stonger than fresh yeast (as long as the dried yeast is reletively newly opened.)

For a recipe where I would use 25g of fresh yeast, I would only use 18g of dried. Having said that I tend to use abit more egg and oil with dried yeast.

Ezmondino

manchild wrote: »

Delia (S) says fresh yeast can be frozen for up to 3 months though I have not tried it myself.

Yes you can freeze fresh yeast, but you will need probably 1.5-2x as much as normal, it loses it's potency.

leebaker317

Im a baker by trade and yes you can freeze yeast but as its a "living thing" it wont be as effective as fresh. Can remember an old place i used to work at, we used to keep the yeast in a fridge but it had the tendency to freeze towards the back no matter what the settings. Sods law we always found the Slow yeast on a busy night, typical.

Years ago when i worked in a big supermarket chain bakery if bread/rolls were made on a monday they were left on shelves until close on the tuesday.

So my advice to all you shoppers go straight to the back if the shelves for the freshest dates. This also applies to smaller family bakers some keep fresh cakes for several days. Luckily i know what im looking at and know what to look for.

Hope this helps a few people


Oh and yes my surname is baker too, baker by name baker by trade.

The_James_Family

Asked at the bakery of my local Tesco if they had any fresh yeast, she looked at me as if I had two heads and said OH WE DONT USE THAT.

gubbo100

rchddap1 wrote: »

One problem I found when making bread by hand was that I didn't have anywhere warm enough to let the dough rise.

Try either putting it in your airing cupboard, on top of your boiler or in your oven on the lowest setting with the door open. For any of these you should have the dough in a large bowl with a warm, damp tea towel on top. Hope this helps

Ezmondino

The_James_Family wrote: »

Asked at the bakery of my local Tesco if they had any fresh yeast, she looked at me as if I had two heads and said OH WE DONT USE THAT.

I think some tescos don't do their baking on site, it's pre-baked and they just heat it up.

Enilu

I've been getting free fresh yeast from ASDA for a number of years. Asked last week to be told they don't give it out any more, head office have told them not to do it. Asked if I could buy it and was told no. Anyone else had any recent experience of this with ASDA?? :huh:

JessW1986

Actually, has anyone had a recent experience of receiving fresh yeast? Specifically from Tesco. Only just found this thread and as I'm ocnstantly running out of bread (but not flour lol) and love cooking I thought it was genius. So, yeh, does anyone know if they still do this?