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• Reputation: 265 Q&A: 9 0 0 90 5 0 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Expert: 2 topics Baking Week Cooking Tips & Tricks Follow Following 0 George De Pasquale

  2 0 The direct answer to your question is that yeast won't actually "die" as long as you keep supplying it with food and refreshing its environment by expelling the toxins around it, but I don't think that's actually your question. Indeed the bread will have more flavor- or more complexity of flavor- if you preferment some of the dough, but there are a few basic rules that will make life much better for you. Of course you could take a class (shameless plug) or follow a book- there are many, but a couple of basic rules: Since this is such a complex process and so open to nuance, I'll just stick to the question of preferment. YEAST: Any kind of yeast is fine, but it MUST be still sealed and still before the expiration date when you use it. If you decide to use instant (rapid rise) yeast, use half as much as the amount you use for active dry. Instant must be mixed into the dry ingredients before you add the water. Active dry must be soaked for ten minutes before using. The water should be warm in either case (blood warm, as they say). PREFERMENT: Rather than forcing the final dough into a super long fermentation, it's a better idea to preferment a part of the dough for a long time and then add that to the rest of the dough. So: take about a third of the total flour, a third of the total water, and an eighth of the total yeast and mix those together. This can rise uninhibited (covered, room temp) for ideally 12 hours or up to 24 hours, not much longer than that. Then mix that pre fermented sponge into the rest of the recipe, following the instructions on the recipe. Remember you've stolen some water, flour and yeast from the total recipe so adjust accordingly. PRIMARY FERMENTATION: I'm not a fan of fermenting at cold temperatures but it can make baking bread more friendly schedule-wise. When your final dough is mixed the dough temp should be mid-seventies. Cover and let rise until 1 and a half times its original volume, knock it back and let it rise again to 1.5 X the original volume and you're ready to shape it. If you're committed to slowing it down in the fridge, it's much much better to do so as a shaped loaf rather than as a bulk dough, for reasons I won't go into now. If you decide to do that, the shaped loaves go into the fridge right after you shape them. Then let rise as normal and bake. Hope this helps. George De Pasquale answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 3 months ago | Report 2 comments by Russ Campbell, NWEBS and George De Pasquale… 0 0 Cooking is such an art as well as science. I enjoy the process of touching and working with the food we eat, even in the simple recipes my lifestyle has fallen into. This was a nice reminder of the living feel of handling and kneading bread dough (this was way before home bread machines even existed) when I was committed to making my own bread each week. Time makes so many changes in our activities. Thank you, George. Russ Campbell, NWEBS commented 3 months ago | Report 0 0 Exactly- it's that "conversation" you have with the food while you're working with it that I think is so inspiring. It's something you don't get from chucking a pre made package of stuff into the microwave! Thanks for the comment! George De Pasquale commented 3 months ago | Report Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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• Reputation: 2052 Q&A: 53 0 4 955 58 3 Classifieds: 0 0 what's this? Follow Following 4 Griffin

  2 0 Oh, ADY isn't the best way to go. It's finicky about the temperature of the liquids in the bread dough and half of the yeast is dead in the packet anyway--it's just what happens to it in the processing. Yeast is a single cell organism, and it will live and grow and make CO2 as long as there is sugar around for it to eat, not too much metabolic byproduct (which is alcohol and CO2, mostly) surrounding it, and the cells aren't too crowded (yeasts make clumps when they divide, and the cells in the middle can die if the clumps aren't busted up periodically by kneading and punching down).How long that is depends on how much sugar is in your dough, the temperature of the dough while mixing and proofing, yeast brand, and so on. Several things to try: 1) Switch to instant yeast. It doesn't care about the liquid temperature as much, most of the cells are alive in the packet, and it's much easier to work with. 2) Use a sourdough starter. There's plenty of sites on the interwebs that will tell you how to start this, or you probably know someone who has a sourdough that they'll share. If you make bread more than once a week, your starter (once created) will last pretty much forever as long as you keep feeding it. 3) Do your rises in the refrigerator. Cold slows yeast cell metabolism, so they get a longer "growing season" as it were, and you won't need to punch down the dough as often. Slower rise=better flavor. 4) Try this method for bread. You add very little yeast and a lot of water and time, and away you go. Griffin answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 3 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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  1 0 The yeast is living off the simple sugars that are part of the dough (your ingredients) and produce the carbon dioxide that is what makes the bubbles in the dough. When you punch it down you deflate those bubbles, re-exercise the dough and ask the yeast to continue growing to produce more gas and have the dough rise again. If the dough is warm it will rise rather quickly. When I was making my own bread I seem to remember having it rise at least twice in just a matter of a couple of hours before dividing into loaves, allowing it to rise finally in the pans and then bake. I think you are expecting too much from the yeast and it is running out of food to continue to live and grow. Is there any reason you are letting the rising periods extend so long or the number of cycles you are taking it through? Russ Campbell, NWEBS answered in Cooking Tips & Tricks 3 months ago | Report Comment on this answer Enter your comment or ask a new question preview THIS IS A PREVIEW: Click "Post" to submit it or "Edit" to make changes. edit Please wait… This could take a minute if the tubes are clogged.

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