Apple Yeast Water Not Working?
With two failed attempts to get a yeast water going with organic raisins (must have some preservatives not listed), I finally got one working with fresh organic green apples. I got this apple yeast water ready after about 7 days of incubation at around 85 F. It was bubbling and foaming so I transferred it from a mason jar to a larger plastic container to put it in the fridge. After three days in the fridge, I did a test run creating a 40 g of 70% hydration dough ball, and to my surprise it expanded horizontally (very flat) with a 1.5X size increase at best in 8 hours at 85 F. To say that I am disappointed is an understatement, as I have read here recently someone created a new apple yeast water in a week that would triple with a first levain build. My very weak SD starter was able to expand upward somewhat at the beginning while this seemingly strong YW seems to be able to expand too flat to be true. What’s up with that? Is this all it could do? Will it improve in the fridge over time?
I saw faster and stronger growth with the second build with my RYW and yours may have grown more upward if it was in a smaller jar. I would say do the second build before writing it off.
I got a second build going tonight, can't wait to see it tomorrow morning. Thanks.
When you pull on /stir the risen dough that you have there ? Is it full of bubbles ? I would definitely get a smaller more upright sided container for it to climb and definitely do another build with YW /flour. Take some of the product then that you do the second build with and build it. You have what looks to be a very viable product. I wouldn't give up on it at all. Mine is years old and the starter I made with it over time is very strong and is what I keep to build from as well as just making a new YW/flour levain. My stored starter is a low hydration but see below about building a levain. Don't give up for sure ! Don't add sugar or water or anything to the container with the fruit. Add a couple 2"sq slices of orange peel and store it all in the fridge and just work with it as is. It will be fine. c
Here's a link to the pictures of two levains from yw /flour levains at 100%. I wouldn't try 70% at all either. It likes to be on the wet side especially when new. I always make ALL my levains at 100%. Should get very bubble. https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/70160/yw-challah
I peeled the fermented dough ball back earlier that had been 24 hours later which is turning into goo, it got some bubbles with a strong spoiled fruit smell, so there was definitely yeast in the dough albeit not very strong. It will probably not gonna work well for me if I have to build a 2-stage levain every time I use it, as I would like to ferment a biga directly with the YW liquid. Let's see how it develops with some time idling in the fridge. Thanks.
Why is it all thick and dried out on the surface? Should be covered with a “ shower cap” type covering. Not tight lid but something to keep it from drying out. Also the odor means it was hungry . Went too long without feeding it.
Your YW will get stronger as you keep it and change out the fruit as needed ..
It’s definitely strong enough to rise bread with that activity showing. It needed food and to be wetter.
The plastic jar did have a loose lid over it, I put it into my proofer where I set it around 90 F to incubate other liquid starters so it was pretty hot in there for this poor little levain ball to thrive. It was just a quick test run as I will probably need to get serious about evaluating it by monitoring it closely as it could have doubled in less than 8 hours. This is how I used to culture my SD starter with a relatively stiff dough ball so it should work the same way with this new YW starter. Nonetheless, I will let it sit the fridge for a couple of weeks and will replace the apples accordingly to see how it evolves over time. I will have to remember to pick up some oranges for the peels this weekend when I go grocery shopping. Thanks for all the tips.
Is peeling the apples still a thing? All of the RonRay links seemed to mention peeling being necessary, especially for apples that are not organic.
Perhaps once a yeast colony is established having the skin in there is no longer needed?
My understanding is that if the fruit were sprayed with pesticides or fungicides at some point there may be some residual on the skin which is why we peel.
I see. It was fine in my case with organic green apples, as it was bubbling and foaming like crazy which I had assumed was from the work of yeast. Thanks.
It seems that your Apple water was not ready yet, Ming. The yeasts were starving.
Yeasts need freely available highly digestible sugar, so fruit waters need sugar added along with the fruit to make sure the yeast cells multiply.
Pure glucose (dextrose) is the best, but any other sugar or syrup (honey, molasses, liquid malt extact) would work too. Apple cubes do not release enough sugar into water to generate enough yeast cells. Grating apples or slicing them very thinly (use mandoline) would work too by making more sugar and nutrients (vitamins and minerals from apple juice) available to yeasts.
The rule of thumb is 3-5% sugar (per each 100g water add 3-5g of sugar) and the amount of yeast in the solution will be equal to half of the weight of sugar added.
When the fruit water is ready, it will have a thick layer of white foam on top and very active bubbling in the water itself, gas bubbles "boiling". Its pH should be 3.5-4.5. You can strain that water and add more sugar (3-5% again) and water to that fruit to make another batch.
If you store your yeast water refrigerated, add another 3-5%sugar to the solution to sustain yeasts in their dormant state. They are cold and slow bit ain't dead and need food.
A good guide for fruit waters for baking is here
I've been musing about trying yeast water. This video is very helpful. Thanks Mariana! And thank you Ming for posting your experience, that will be helpful to learn from as well!
Mary
Great. Hope you will jump on the YW bandwagon soon. Thanks.
Hi Mariana,
I subscribed to her channel, so I saw that video, those young ladies were always interesting to watch.
I was just wondering about that, as yeasts must consume something to stay active like consuming flour in our SD starters. For fresh apples, I would think that there must be enough substance there for the yeast to consume, maybe not quite enough. I did think about putting an apple in a blender to smash it up to make apple paste for the YW. Adding sugar to the solution did seem unnecessary to me but I can’t think of a good reason why it wouldn’t help. I just bought a bag of organic cane sugar this week to feed my liquid SD starters and I will feed some to my baby YW to see what happen. Thanks for the suggestions.
By the way, the second levain build did a little better, perhaps doubled from 9pm to 6am, but it did spread out flat like the first one did, I just can’t see how it can raise a real dough if it couldn’t do it with this small dough at this point.
Hi Ming,
When our levain gets all sticky like that because it sat for too many hours at warm room temperature and its gluten has deteriorated, we cannot even see the true leavening power of yeast in it.
The solution is twofold. One is to make the next levain extra stiff and use only a small portion of the previous levain to seed it. This way you do not add too much of the damaged gluten to the fresh batch of dough.
Another solution is to dilute that slimy/sticky levain, adding a lot of water, drain water and use a portion of that water with microbes in it to mix the next levain.
I tried both methods and they both work.
I saw a video on YouTube today where a baker uses unsweetened apple water to make sourdough. For him it was a two step ten days long process. The first five days for the apple rinds to ferment in water. The second five days - for a batch of bread flour and apple water mix to sit undisturbed at 27-30C until it becomes sourdough culture. It's a long process and not the most effective one, but fairly popular among French bakers.
So do not be surprised too much that your "starter"/leaven is too slow at that stage, Ming. It is simply too young.
Yeast water, including apple yeast water, is way faster, sometimes it takes only a day or two to prepare a batch of highly concentrated yeast brew from a piece of fruit, a spoon of sugar and plain water. The goal is yeasted bread, not apple wine or apple vinegar, so we use methods for harvesting wild yeast cells from the apple skins and sugar to make them grow as fast as possible. As is shown here by a professional French baker: two days for the apple yeast water (10% honey added, i.e.3% glucose from honey), one day for the apple water levain and you can bake with it!
Hi Mariana,
As always, your insightful feedback is greatly appreciated. Good catch there with the stiffness of my levain dough, as it was more like a 80% hydration than a real stiff dough, as I just did a quick math in my head to get a small dough ball going. Next time I will make sure it is around 60% or less to be stiff and strong from the getgo. Also, I only kneaded it for about less than 2 min so it was not a very strong dough to begin with. Like I said it was just a heat of the moment quick test run, as next time I will need to watch it closely every two hours so I get a better idea when it would double and to proceed for the second levain build. Regardless, it looks I have a good YW culture going, it just needs more time to mature. My end goal was to use the YW liquid to replace all the water of a biga preferment and then replace all the water of the final dough with a liquid SD starter (in development now) so I won't have to use any instant yeast.
Haha, I also subscribed to this French baker/instructor, I am a big fan of his baguette making, but I had not seen this video before. Thanks for the link.
I just noticed that the gluten of this degraded dough was very shiny, perhaps that is what Caroline was talking about the YW being a good dough conditioner. Can't wait for my baby YW to get stronger so I can make some baguettes with it.