April 5, 2020 - 11:50am
May have used expired yeast
Hello, I made a pre-ferment this morning that doesn’t seem to be rising as it should (it did get a little bigger but is taking a long time) and now I’m wondering if my instant yeast was expired or dead. Do I have to throw the dough out or can it be used?
Thank you!
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how would you describe it?
Funny,
I made my first poolish yesterday only to find this morning only a very minor rise as well as the whole batch flattened.
I looked at the yeast expiration date and it was 2012. I thought I got rid of my old yeast but I must have thought the year was 2021.
I used correctly dated yeast this morning, composting the old batch, and the new batch is now bubbling like crazy. It's either the water, the flour or the yeast, or you didn't keep it close to room temperature during it's fermentation time.
I'd certainly guess your problem was the yeast.
Gary
If it tastes like wet flour chances are good all you need to do is add some more yeast but you can pretty much skip over the poolish part of the recipe and use the full amount of yeast in the dough. I often let dough sit or soak (long autolyse) overnight without yeast, then add it when I'm ready the next day. You can still bring out flavour and a bit of dead yeast gets eaten by growing new yeast. No need to dump the dough.
Mini
Thank you for responding-I’ll remember that for next time. It smelled yeasty (not sure if that’s a word!) and I went ahead and used it without modifying anything. The bread turned out fine. I had tried proofing a little of the instant yeast I didn’t use and nothing happened, which is why I thought it was expired, so I don’t know what went on but am happy to have tasty bread.
I do think yeasty is a word. As yeast gets old, but still smalls yeasty, you may have to add a little more for the same reaction as new yeast. As others have said, slowing it down only makes the bread taste better. Right now any yeast that works can be better than no yeast at all..:)