My two tins of dried yeast (expiry dates in 2008 and 2016) have resulted in partially-risen loaves at best, even after lengthy attempts to revive them with sugary water. My results have been tasty enough but either very dense or lighter but with a bicarbish tinge. I found some alive yeast in the Newington CWS last weekend, produced one nice airy loaf last night and am currently following Instography's Facebook tips for maintaining a yeast colony without going the whole sourdough in order to preserve what little yeast I have so that I can post a couple of sachets to my parents. What is everyone else doing in the absence of being able to pop to the shop any time you like? Is anyone filming their sourdough starter's attempts to escape containment in timelapse?
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Leisure
(OT) loaf in the time of corona
(78 posts)-
Posted 4 years ago #
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@wingpig
Was that hint carved in iridium or tungsten?
I doubt the yeast colony thing is much simpler than caring for an existing sourdough starter - happy to leave a sample of Bunny hanging in the stickbush.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Similar themes here
"Yeast, baking powder and other things that react
Monroe raises the stakes here: “I’ve personally used yeast that is 10 years out of date. But it’s not been opened, and was stored away from direct light in cool conditions. It didn’t rise as well as normal yeast would. If you’re using old yeast, I would always recommend using 1.5 times the amount the recipe states, leave it for an extra hour, and if you’re really running low on flour, make a quarter batch, then if it doesn’t rise, or doesn’t go so well, you can work it into a soda bread and you’re not going to waste half a bag of what is currently quite a precious resource.”
Baking powder and bicarbonate of soda typically have shelf lives of one to two years, but storage is more important than numbers, and there is a school of thought that says bicarb lasts for ever. Yup, for ever."
Posted 4 years ago # -
Yeah, I posted that article to my dad yesterday as he's a fan of ignoring dates on anything where it's unlikely to be fatal. He once brought home a box of home office rations including chocolate which was dated ten years before.
@iwrats Didn't want to hint again on Twitter as I got the impression I'd perpetrated some sort of faux pas. Doesn't launching a sourdough use up a fair bit of precious flour?
Posted 4 years ago # -
@wingpig
Not at all! Fire at will.
My starter is small. 40g of street flour at a time and no loss as it all gets used in the end. I do not do the discarding thing.
Remove starter from fridge.
40g of flour in, let it warm up, come to life.
Half of starter into warm water.
Make pizza base/flatbread after overnight rise.
Remaining 40g starter into fridge.Posted 4 years ago # -
We've, err, been going to Margiotta and buying bread when we want some bread.
Um.(My parents have been using a bread machine for years. They were a little concerned that they were going to run out of yeast, so when Dad found some in a shop he bought two boxes, bad man, and then when he got home he found another box... so if anyone wants to go and burgle two poor, defenseless old souls for their yeast...)
Posted 4 years ago # -
We have an old-ish half tin of yeast (I didn't think it was that old as I opened it only maybe 5 moths ago and store in the fridge) and some expired sachets (2017, Mr Bill had them in Hong Kong to make skillet focaccia).
Both are a bit sluggish. I tried reviving them with some warm water, flours and dried apricots. It was quite active but didn't result in normal (quick) rising/proofing time.
Now I just use the amount as per recipe but give an extra long proof time: 24h for hot cross buns last weekend (overnight bulk proof, about 10h for shaped buns). But that's ok, nice flavour develops with time.
Also need to revive the sourdough starter.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I've just injected Bunny with Dettol in case the culture gets COVID-19.
Posted 4 years ago # -
But that's ok, nice flavour develops with time.
Pretty much the key fact in about two-thirds of all cookery?
Posted 4 years ago # -
At the start of the current disruption I revived my sourdough starter from a fridge-induced hibernation that I think could be measured in years rather than months. It's now living in a big jar on the kitchen worktop and is much happier. It builds up a fair head of steam whenever I feed it and then, after 12 hours or so of fun, settles back down again.
Right at the start I baked 3 sourdough loaves, two of which were particularly spready, due I suspect to a combination of following Andrew Whitley's "the wetter the better" recommendation, the flour not being particularly strong, and it being early days for the still sleepy starter.
I moved onto using the starter as a addition to some dried yeast-powered bread which has taught me about over-proving and is now a decent loaf. However, I've recently acquired some extra strong Canadian flour so I'm going to give the full sourdough another go this weekend.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Question, does anyone know if you could treat, "real" yeast like a starter. So I've got 10g of dried yeast, could I make some kind of self sustaining broth/flour/sugar mix that I can feed and then use when I need to bake. Presumably this should work? Just the amounts will be a total unknown?
I do love making sourdough but it does take a long time.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@chrisfl I did initiate a starter with fast-action yeast a few years back[1]. It worked OK but was a messy eater at first - when you fed it it was a toss-up whether it escaped its container! It was quite temperature sensitive too; much happier hotter. My current starter seems happy enough at 17C; the yeast-based one only really got going above 21 degrees. Flavour wasn't too exciting, probably because once it did get going it was fairly rapid.
I guess eventually it would be taken over by whatever the local microbes are, in my case the likely the contents of the yeasty plume from the North British Distillery and it would calm down and the flavour would get better.
Cheers,
-D
[1] Reason was I had a sourdough-off where I initiated several starters in a variety of ways then got some friends round to compared the results (as pizza bases) in a booze-soaked carb-heavy party.
The winning starter (which still lives on as "Mother") was a simple flour and water mix.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Cheers @MediumDave - I have a great sourdough starter created from flour and water in January 2010! which has survived some quite long periods in the fridge! Has a really nice vanilla edge to edit!
Interesting to note that something might be possible, for quicker bakes, once my flour supplies arrive if yeast starts to get low!
Posted 4 years ago # -
thread title of the year.. so far..
there should be an annual award
Posted 4 years ago # -
A good selection of flour is available currently from Goldenacre Wines but I'm struggling to get yeast from anywhere.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I can trade yeast for self raising flour anyone?
Posted 4 years ago # -
A friend sent me a link to this eBay listing for pizza flour. However, I'm after wholemeal so I did a search for that - never having thought of looking on eBay before. Then I found this - £8.50 plus postage for 1.5kg of flour looks like shameless profiteering, especially since they seem to have had half a dozen or so to sell, so not just a spare bag that they happened to find at the back of a cupboard. I suspect that such characters are partly responsible for the disappearance of flour and yeast from the supermarket shelves. Frankly, I hope they end up stuck with a damp shed full of the stuff.
(Said friend has also just dropped off a 1.5kg bag of Allinson wholemeal flour that she did find at the back of a cupboard, free gratis and for nothing. Which suddenly makes me feel a whole lot better about the world.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Funny Daily Mash Headline (maybe already discussed?) Woman buys flour on the dark web
Posted 4 years ago # -
The Refillery apparently will be stocking fresh yeast. And Gembo, if you can get plain flour you can make your own self raising with baking powder.
(again, The Refillery seems to have flour in stock on the regular)
(shame the pavements there are so narrow and bicycle parking is rubbish)
Posted 4 years ago # -
Saw the appearance of the yeast. The size of four blocks of butter, apparently. Was going to hit them for some more flour this weekend but might hang off as our oven looks like it's out of action until I can persuade my wife to not try and get a fancy pyrolytic one to replace it as we don't have the wiring to support one.
Posted 4 years ago # -
@iratessheep, it is just for crumble i made one the other week with bicarbonate pinch into white bread flour so yeas plain flour no problem
Well for me but youngest would prefer self raising for her baking
Posted 4 years ago # -
They are selling it 1kg at a time? crikey.
Not sure I can get through that
Posted 4 years ago # -
Unenthusiastic reviews from my deputy bread consumer about the Good Store's brown bread flour, but they only gave me 1kg so it's almost gone. Creates a loaf very similar to the cheap ISB wholemeal loaves in Tesco, though mitigated with linseed and sunflower seeds. Allinson granary flour much tastier but running low. Picked up some from the Refillery on Monday which I've yet to test.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Pure sourdough with 50:50 extra strong Canadian flour did a magnificent job at the weekend. Very pleased with it.
Did a nice yeast-driven, but with a couple of ladles of sourdough starter in it, tin loaf yesterday. Very happy with the results on that. Regular practice does indeed prove (less im)perfect.
For those searching strong flour, one option is Fhior who are doing food deliveries selling stuff from their suppliers. It includes strong flour. I don't know how much it costs I'm afraid.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I have obtained a sack (14kg) of strong white flour from Mungoswells Mill in East Lothian. Took a week or so to arrive (it was over Easter and their courier was on a break). Friends in a village in Angus have set up a community network and one of them went over last month to the mill direct and collected 230kg.
Posted 4 years ago # -
The Refillery lists Mungoswells flours on its web site, but at a fairly steep markup vs the prices on Mungoswells own web page. OTOH Mungoswells own online shop is hardly ever open, and their delivery costs for small quantities are high.
I would question whether driving from Angus to Drem simply to buy ingredients that suit ones personal tastes when, presumably, perfectly edible food is available from local shops, is actually 'reasonable' per the regulations. (Driving from Edinburgh to Fife was enough to lose the CMO her job, after all.)
Posted 4 years ago # -
(the trip to Drem was before lockdown started, apologies, I didn't make that clear).
Posted 4 years ago # -
@LivM: That's fair enough then - and apologies if I sounded a bit censorious.
I have just in the last five minutes ordered a 16kg bag of extra strong wholemeal from Mungoswells, having popped by their web site on the off chance to check if their online shop was open. The quick way to tell if the shop is 'open' is to click on the basket icon: if it says that the shop hasn't been properly started yet (or words to that effect) then you need to come back later.
Posted 4 years ago # -
McGills Butchers in Currie have opened a bakers next door (no candlesticks in the cafe 2 down though) McGills also own Malones the bakers at slate ford so they have a regular supply I have discovered. Plain flour today, self raising tomorrow
Posted 4 years ago # -
Morrison's on Gilmerton Road are selling 15kg sacks of flour for £9. They're also decanting it into 1kg bags, which are 60p each.
Posted 4 years ago #
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