March 12, 2023 - 8:57am
Hybrid doughs health benefits
In the book “ FLOUR WATER SALT YEAST” by Ken Forkish he mentions hybrid levaining doughs which include a small amount of commercial yeast added to the final dough mix. My question is does the addition of the yeast reduce or eliminate some/all of the health benefits gained when baking with a straight sourdough starter?
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So long as you gave the starter enough time to do its thing you shouldn't be penalized for giving it a kick at the end.
I routinely will judge the activity in the morning (after an overnight preferment) and add the rest of the flour/water/salt/yeast to make the final ferment predictable.
Will do just as well without any added yeast. I've never had any issue with leaving the yeast out.
I have made many loaves that have both starter and IDY. I don't see anything wrong with adding yeast to a dough and I can't think of a reason why any health benefits would be lost. The Lactobacillus spp. responsible for most of the health benefits would still be present in the dough.
King Arthur Baking has a blog entry on adding IDY to sourdough:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2022/01/13/adding-yeast-to-your-sourdough-bread
Another recipe that I recently tried and really like is the Approachable Loaf from the WSU Breadlab. It uses a small levain and IDY:
https://breadlab.wsu.edu/the-approachable-loaf-and-the-breadlab-collective/
I don't think your question was ever answered. So the answer is: No. The addition of the commercial yeast won't affect the health benefits of the sourdough culture. That small amount is usually added to give a boost to the initial rise as sourdough takes a lot longer to rise than regular commercial yeast. The two yeasts aren't competing with each other as there is no bad effect from commercial yeast.