Italian Bread Is Too Yeasty! Help!
Hi Everyone!
I have been working on perfecting my Italian Bread. As you can see below, the appearance is good and the crust and crumb is great! What's not working is that the flavor is off. It's too yeasty and I suspect the culprit is too much active dry yeast. Can someone look at the recipe below and let me know your thoughts?
First rise is 3 hours followed by 10 minutes of kneading. Second rise is another 3 hours followed by 10 minutes of kneading. Then I slap the dough down for about 5 minutes, divide the dough, and shape. The final rise is on a peel for 40 minutes. So I don't think that there's an issue with too fast of a rise. I'd love to use fresh cake yeast but nowhere here in Arizona sells the stuff.
Here's the recipe:
Yeast/ Active Dry - 2 tsp
Water/ Lukewarm - 2.75 cups
Sugar - ¼ tsp
Flour/ King Arthur/ All Purpose - 5 cups
Salt - 2.5 tsp
Olive Oil/ Extra Virgin - 1 Tbsp
Can you please let me know your thoughts? I really appreciate it everyone!
-Tony
Explosive oven spring with tearing usually indicates that the final rise didn’t go far enough.
You might want to try the poke test on your next bake. When you think the dough might be ready, press your index finger into the dough up to the first knuckle, then pull it back out quickly. If the impression fills in almost immediately, the dough needs to proof longer. If the impression fills in (mostly) within a few seconds, the dough is ready to bake. If the impression does not rebound, or if the loaf collapses, the dough is overproofed. If the dough is really sticky, you may want to flour your finger so the dough doesn’t cling to it.
Paul
pmcool, Yes the impression only fills in partly within the first few seconds so I think we're ok there. Are you thinking that the final rise needs to be longer?
The amount of oven spring, especially since it kept on after the crust had set, indicates that the dough hadn't reached optimal fermentation/expansion before baking. Which, in turn, suggests that more time for the final fermentation is needed.
The other thing to consider is that the kneading and slapping before shaping would have knocked out most, if not all, of the gas that had been formed in the prior fermentation stage. That, too, suggests that more time is needed for the dough to reinflate.
Question: did you bake the pictured loaves with steam for the first few minutes?
Paul
Hi Tony, your loaves are beautiful! They look very Italian!
Active dry yeast might contribute to the noticeable yeasty smell, indeed. It's because each granule of ADY is covered in dead yeast cells. It's them who smell 'yeasty'.
If you don't like it, try switching to instant dry yeast. It doesn't smell yeasty at all because it contains very few dead yeast cells. 1.5 tsp of instant yeast granules would be enough for this amount of flour in the recipe. Just make sure to use a measuring tsp and swipe the excess of yeast with the knife, it should be about 3g of instant yeast per tsp. A total of about 5g of instant yeast for those two gorgeous loaves would be perfect.
Mariana,
Thank you! And thanks for the suggestion! Very interesting. So as I understand, is that it should cut the yeasty smell/flavor due to fewer dead yeast cells?
There's a very specific flavor that I'm looking for. Being from St. Louis, we have a wonderful Italian culture there. In the Italian specialty stores, they all have the exact breads that I'm looking to replicate. I can taste them now! Are you familiar with this style of Italian bread? I feel like I'm close but need the yeast taste to mute down.
Viviano's-Bread.jpg
Tony, we have similar Italian breads in Toronto and I agree that their aroma is different from French breads and they are definitely not yeasty at all! It's their most peculiar characteristic, this lack of yeasty aroma or "yeasty taste".
If you can, use SAF Gold instant yeast for all of your Italian baking. It will definitely help you achieve your goals. It smells fresh on its own but it will also never overferment in your bread dough even if you accidentally overdose or your kitchen is too warm.
Amazon has it, KAF has it, but many other places as well.
“ it will also never overferment in your bread dough even if you accidentally overdose or your kitchen is too warm”
I use SAF Gold from time to time. Your statement above interest me. Please explain more about the Osmotolerant Yeast as it relate to over fermentation.
Thanks,
Danny
Danny, it has to do with the gassing power of yeast, in how much CO2 it releases over time, in tests, over 2hrs at 80F. SAF Gold behaves as traditional compressed (fresh) yeast, perfectly suited for preferments, for sponge&dough methods and lean European breads with longer than 30-60 min fermentation times at room temperature, as in the example above where there is no added sugar, well, barely, and bulk fermentation lasts for about 6.5-7hrs.
In such dough SAF Gold releases 1.5 times less gas than SAF red instant yeast, for example. It just does not overferment, does not destroy gluten, does not overacidify it, does not release excess alcohol, etc.
In terms of the recipe above that has about 8-9hrs of total fermentation time before baking it means that even in 12-14 hours of fermentation it won't overferment and it won't smell or taste yeasty in baked loaves.
I am not talking about osmotolerant yeast, as in your question, though. I am talking about SAF Gold instant yeast. I have no experience with or knowledge of different osmotolerant yeasts and differences between different osmotolerant strains produced by different yeast manufacturers worldwide. They are all different in some way or another.
I started baking with SAF Gold because I was looking for something that behaves as traditional fresh yeast in bread dough. It's perfect. I know what osmotolerant means but I don't bake items with high% sugar in my breads and never needed SAF Gold for those reasons. My quest was the opposite, to find the perfect yeast for lean and very lean doughs.
It looks like SAF Gold is "osmotolerant" yeast according to info from KA. This is interesting as it might be what I need for my long preferment biga. Thanks.
SAF Gold Instant Yeast - King Arthur Baking Company
Mariana, maybe I am confused. The King Arthur site states , “Sweet breads can be agonizingly slow risers. Why? Because sugar attracts water, and when it's in bread dough, it pulls water away from yeast - leaving the yeast thirsty and unable to grow. The special strain of yeast in SAF Gold is "osmotolerant" - it requires less water. So it's able to grow happily despite sugar's attempts to leave it "high and dry."
I am interested to learn more…
Always appreciative of your expertise and time you invest in sharing your knowledge.
OH! Just read where Ming asked the same question. And like Ming, I am interested is long fermentation.
Update -
HERE is some more information from King Arthur. Scroll down to, “Which SAF yeast to use, Red or Gold?”. As far as I’ve been able to learn SAF Gold is Osmotolerant. And it is fast rising, which doesn’t seem to be good for long ferments.
I plan to mix up a couple of pizza doughs today. They will retard from 1-2 days. Should I use SAF Gold, since I am learning that it is good for long fermentation.
Yes, Danny. SAF Gold was specifically developed for pizza crusts and other hearth breads.
Please see this spec sheet for SAF instant yeast, Gold label.
https://liveorder.valleybakers.com:8080/valweb45/Images/VBASpecSheets/13701.pdf
If you are switching from SAF Red to SAF Gold in your recipes, then you might want to adjust the dosage. How to recalculate between two yeasts is shown here:
https://lesaffreyeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Red-Star-Organic-Yeast-Baking-Tests.pdf
In this test bake they compared performance of three fresh (compressed) yeast strains and two instant yeast strains (SAF Red and SAF Gold). And you can see that regardless of the amount of sugar in the dough SAF Gold is needed in the same amount, approximately 1.6% (flour weight based), whereas SAF Red must be increased from 1.17% to 2.73%.
You can use this table to recalculate the amount of SAF Gold needed, if previously you used SAF Red in your pizza dough. Here, the researchers have already adjusted the amount of yeast needed to reach constant CO2 gassing power.
Haha, did we post at the same time? If Gold took less amount to reach the same amount of CO2 than Red then wouldn't Gold work faster than Red? Sorry my head is not working in full capacity at the moment.
Ming, see the first line in that table, for 0% sugar dough please. Do you see that you would need only 1.17% SAF Red? This yeast has strong gassing power in lean, sugar free dough.
See that in the same dough to have the same bread with 0% sugar you would need 1.8% SAF Gold? It's 54% more than SAF Red! Why? Because in lean dough SAF Gold is slower.
As you begin to add more and more sugar to the dough, the amount of SAF Red yeast must be increased, all the way up to 2.73% which is a lot, nearly 3% of instant yeast is a huge amount of yeast. Sugar suppresses that yeast even at the modest levels of 2% or 6% sugar. Whereas SAF Gold stays at 1.6% more or less even at 15% sugar in the dough.
Yeah Mariana I saw that in detail after posting the question. Thanks again for this useful info. I will definitely try some SAF Gold next.
https://lesaffreyeast.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Red-Star-Organic-Yeast-Baking-Tests.pdf
I tried opening both in Chrome and Safari - cannot open the page in either one. I am using an iPad.
Can you open this webpage, Danny?
https://lesaffreyeast.com/product/red-star-organic-block-yeast/
At the bottom of that page there is a section "Downloads" where you can click and open that same technical report about test bakes with different yeasts and their differences titled "Organic Yeast Baking Test Results".
Yeah Dan it would nice to have some clarification as for which one will work slower. I am using Fleischmann's bread machine instant yeast, and it seems to work really fast even with only 0.1% of flour mass, like I only have about 2 hours of window from mixing to baking using 50% whole grain flour.
Ming, SAF Gold is slower. Its gassing power at 20C is only 37-42ml of CO2 in 90 min of fermentation whereas SAF Red releases 118-142ml CO2.
Here you can see their tech. data sheets: SAF Red, SAF Gold
Fleischmann's strain is very similar to SAF Red. They are interchangeable in bread machine baking.
Okay thanks Mariana for the insight. I would like to try SAF Gold next. It does not cost that much but having 1 lb of it will probably take me forever to use up. Nonetheless, it is certainly great to have a slower working instant yeast for those of us that do not use sourdough. How did you find all these valuable data out of nowhere :)? Cheer!
Thank you Mariana! I have some SAF Gold Instant Yeast on order. In the meantime, I was able to find some Red Star Instant Yeast that I'm in the process of making the same recipe with. I kept everything the same except for adding the yeast directly in with the initial ingredients. After the first 3 hour rise, it did smell noticeably "less yeasty". I have it in for the second rise now. I will take pics and let you know how it turns out. I really appreciate your help!
Ok Tony, I am happy that you see the difference with instant yeast right away! Good for you! Let us know if you like the bread better as well, ok?
1lb of instant yeast is a lot, so yeah, it might last you for a while, so keep it in the freezer if you can.
On the other hand, who knows. Your bread looks so yummy and, if you bake it regularly, using 1.5-2tsp at a time, you would run out of yeast sooner than later. It will take you about 100 bakes to use it all.
Hi Mariana,
I was able to pick up some SAF Instant from Restaurant Depot but I used the Red Star Instant to make the loaves below. As you can see, they turned out great. The instant yeast definitely helped with any excess oven spring. Very happy with the results! But oddly enough, they were a little tough on the crust. Do you have any recommendation for softening that up?
One of my favorite bakeries back home stated that their dough contains "some olive oil and dairy to soften things up, and instead of steaming the oven to maximize crust you brush the crust with water before placing it in the oven which keeps it softer and chewier." I'm already using olive oil and I brush the crust with water before applying the sesame seeds. My question is: do you think they are using some milk in the recipe to "soften things up"?
I appreciate the help!
IMG_6166.jpg
IMG_6167.jpg
Tony, thanks for showing us more of your beautiful loaves. They look amazing!
If you want to try an Italian bread recipe with milk, try this one
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/recipes/italianbread
It was the first Italian bread I tried on my own and it is so awesome, I baked it for years, both in our restaurant and at home.
In my experience, there are three causes of tough chewy crust
1) not enough kneading time
2) wrong yeast or wrong amount of yeast
3) baking time too long, especially at higher temperatures.
Make sure that when you knead, by hand or in a mixer, that it is indeed 10-15 min of non stop kneading each time. Set the timer if necessary. Do not slack. It is important. Not enough kneading is the main cause of tough crusts.
There was a thread about tough crust and kneading here, please read, to learn a bit more about it
Chasing thin, crispy, not thick/tough crust
Too much or not enough yeast might cause coarse crust as well. Wrong yeast... Well, I am glad that you liked you Red Star yeast, but I had poor luck with it. It does not work well in my baking. I only tried this one, though. Red Star label have many kinds of yeast and they all look and behave like instant yeast, like tiny thin vermicelli, just different strains: active dry, quick rise, platinum, organic instant, etc. See if with a different yeast your crusty loaves come out better.
Also, it looks to me that you baked the last two loaves a bit longer than the previous batch. They are darker and the inside of the cut is substantially browned as well. May be that made their crust thicker and tougher. The longer bread sits in the oven and the higher the temperature, the thicker and harder bread crust will be.
You illustrated the proper degree of baking here: when the outer crust is yellow and the open side is white or barely begins to change color.
At that point you may contunue to bake if you wish, but open the door for a minute and change your oven setting, to lower the oven temperature to 350F, to avoid overbaking bread crusts.
Try reducing baking temperature and time just a little bit and see if you like it that way better. Every oven is different, so it is hard to recommend something specific. Find what works from experience.
"First rise is 3 hours followed by 10 minutes of kneading. Second rise is another 3 hours followed by 10 minutes of kneading. Then I slap the dough down for about 5 minutes..."
Mini Oven,
That's what the recipe calls for. It has perfect texture but that's not the issue.
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/60629/what-making-oven-spring
Note the shaping in the videos. I wonder if the solution to that post lies with the dough recipe on this post. Like these two posts could be combined. Plus the right yeast.
To making 2 preferments, each time building up to the final dough and then putting the sugar and/or fats in the final dough. Building up strength, flavour and % of pre-fermented flour.
I've seen Italian recipes doing this with sough.