Growing baking yeast

[~gd]

Sorry Pat but yeast does not produce sour dough, the sour is caused by bacteria of the same type that is used for lacto fermenting as in fermented pickles

Sorry but this is incorrect. Sourdough culture is generally a whole complex stew of things including both wild yeasts (Saccharomycetes) AND lactobacilli.You missed the point the SOUR is the product of the bacteria. Even wild yeast Saccharomyces exiguus don't (are unable to) produce acid

Pat you must have worked in a lab to know about Laminar flow hoods, but all you really need is a air lock bubbler that lets the gas out but lets nothing back in to a closed system

Nope, that won't keep your culture 'clean' (pure, without getting invaded by other microorganisms). It is, obviously, better than nothing, but you WILL get wild colonization over time. When you draw off yeast to use, and when you feed the culture.You seem to be thinking that I maintain a liquid culture. It is possibe and many brewers do so but I was writing about baking yeast, those cultures developed to produce CO2 fast rather than alcohol. These tend to die off fast in liquid. instead you filter off the cake in mid ferment and store in under freezing conditions. Probably before your time but before powdered yeast, yeast was available as cakes. I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker's_yeast to get a basic knowledge of baking yeast

I don't see where wild colonization is a *problem* -- the only downside of sourdough type cultures is that they work slower than packaged bakers yeast, but as long as you account for that, they are perfectly good and IMO much tastier -- but you have to be aware that it will HAPPEN.Only if you are sloppy!

Pat

 

[patandchickens]

You missed the point the SOUR is the product of the bacteria. Even wild yeast Saccharomyces exiguus don't (are unable to) produce acid[/b]

It seems to me that the point is that, when you let wild things colonize a yeast culture (as is prohibitively hard to prevent), you will get both wild yeasts and wild lactobacilli, and it will therefore BE in essence a form of sourdough culture. (And sourdoughs with minimal or briefly-no yeasts in them don't work as well in baking, btw, IME, compared to those with reasonable yeast population)

You seem to be thinking that I maintain a liquid culture. It is possibe and many brewers do so but I was writing about baking yeast, those cultures developed to produce CO2 fast rather than alcohol. These tend to die off fast in liquid. instead you filter off the cake in mid ferment and store in under freezing conditions. Probably before your time but before powdered yeast, yeast was available as cakes. I suggest you read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker's_yeast to get a basic knowledge of baking yeast [/b]

Thanks very much, I have already have basic-enough knowledge of it

It is very simple.

When you open the culture -- and you HAVE to, at some point, to use or reculture from it, and in some circumstances also to feed it -- other stuff gets in.

That stuff grows.

Then it's a more complex culture than just the Fleischmann's packet stuff you started with. In particular, since wild yeasts and lactobacilli WILL colonize at these moments, no matter how careful you are, unless you have a fairly sophisticated setup (which *can* be made at home, but really, "why" ), you WILL in time end up with something that I see no reason not to call a sourdough culture since it contains everything that a typical sourdough culture contains.

(again, please observe I am not at all knocking sourdoughs, I love 'em, it's just something to be aware of if you are planning on culturing yeasts on, since as the culture evolves away from the Fleischmann's-packet type, it will behave less and less that way in baking, and thus require slightly different methods of use, a la the slower longer rises of sourdoughs)

As far as I know, yeast is still available (albeit from specialty suppliers) in the form of yeast cakes; certainly it was when I was a kid in the 70s.

(e.t.a. - note that the methods described in some earlier posts on this thread, while perfectly fine [if they work for you in your particular house/location], are not 'making' yeast, they are just capturing and growing up some wild yeasts [as well as other things], thus the results are apt to be a bit unpredictable because it'll depend on how much of exactly which yeasts happen to land in your bowl; and of course if you culture them on for a while they will be sourdough cultures.)

Pat

 

[BarredBuff]

I might be mistaken but you can use potato boilings as yeast. I might be wrong but I think you can do that.

 

[patandchickens]

I might be mistaken but you can use potato boilings as yeast. I might be wrong but I think you can do that.

Potato water, or any of these other schemes, will capture whatever wild yeasts are floating around in your house air, and provide a good quick culture medium for them, so that IF you happen to have an appropriate menagerie of wild yeasts floating around in your house you can get some degree of rise out of that type of thing.

It is not guaranteeed though, it depends on your house and luck; and just to clarify, the potato boilings (or etc) are not serving AS yeast, they are just CAPTURING and multiplying-up wild yeasts for you to use.

It is fundamentally the same concept as creating your own sourdough starter, it's just quicker and much less diverse.

Pat