Just ordered a pound of SAF yeast last week. I keep a tightly closed glass jar of it in the fridge with the rest of the package folded down, taped and in a freezer zip bag in the freezer. I've never had a problem with it that way. It's always fresh and plenty active.

My problem is that I can't find a supplier locally. I did find a couple of small bags at an organic food co-op but that is a half-hour drive away. So I had to order online.

Isn't the bulk a great buy! I keep my in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator. Haven't ever had it go "blah" on me, but I use a lot of yeast.
Teresa, have you asked your local grocer to get you some bulk yeast? I asked ours, who happily complied, and now the store can hardly keep it in stock!

I keep mine in the freezer in a tupperware container. Just remember that it needs to come up to room temp before using.

Teresa, do you have any bulk food stores in your area? I have several and yeast is fairly inexpensive, especially compared to the grocery stores.

Tami

I am another that keeps it in an air-tight container in the freezer.

I buy two of the one lb packages attached. BJ's has it for $6.00 for the two pkgs. I Keep one in the freezer and the other pkg is put into canning jars and kept in fridge.

I once bought bulk yeast from the bulk bin at my local bag-it-yourself budget grocer. It had an awful taste. Bitter or something. I tossed it. But that's another issue. Bad batch? Bad brand? Who knows, it was in the bulk bin.

I keep the 1 lb SAF in the freezer all the time. I don't even worry about the dates on it, have never had it go bad. Right now there's part of a pkg in the kitchen freezer and another full pkg out in the garage freezer.

Room temp? I just dump it in right from the freezer, so far have never noticed a difference.

Nancy

I buy it in one pound bags and pour it into a glass jar and just keep it in the fridge. I don't freeze it.

It isn't necessary to let it come to room temperature. And if you know that your yeast is fresh there is no need to "proof" it either. I never proof my yeast.

Ann

I also buy the "two pack" at Sam's club, I put one pound unopened into the freezer and pour the other into a glass quart canning jar, like Shirley does. That jar gets stored in the refrigerator.

I use it right out of the refrigerator and into the bread machine, I never worried about it coming to room temperature and like Ann T, I never proof yeast. I make all my own bread and so I use yeast plenty fast enough, I've never had a batch go "bad".

Annie

Annie, At one time BJ's carried the SAF brand. I don't remember the manufacturer name on it though. BJ's now carries Fleishman's in the two pkg. If I had to buy yeast in the strip pkgs, I would not bake as much as I do. I have kuechen rising now. This is my fifth time yeast baking this week. Wonder what I can bake tomorrow.
Come to think of it, what I save on yeast, I give to National Fuel.

LOL, Shirley, I think my gas bill for my baking probably is more than I save on yeast too.

Sam's Club has Fleishman's, I don't remember what they had before.

Oh, and BTW, I'm happy to see you here again, I've missed you.

Annie

I keep user-friendly amounts of SAF-Instant and Active Dry yeast - reusing brown glass yeast jars - in the refrigerator. I keep the bulk amounts in the freezer. I generally vacuum-seal the package and all in a FoodSaver bag. That's one food item I wouldn't want to accidently break open in the freezer!

-Grainlady

grainlady, I use SAF-Instant and Active Dry yeast and Rapid Rise yeast interchangeably. I never noticed a difference. I go way back when yeast was sold in a single cube or a triple cake and had to be refrigerated. It had to be proofed before mixing. I haven't kneaded bread dough in 8 years, since I got my Breadman which holds at least 6 cups of flour. That will make 3 nice sized loaves of bread or 4 kuchens.
I just made 4 kuchen,[cinnamon sugar poked into each loaf before the 2nd rise] A Sour Cream coffee cake and 30 BBQ burgers to take to my DIL's family who lost their father last eve. I'll stop at the store and get Costanza rolls. They are the best in this area, if you like store bought rolls. I didn't have time to make home-made rolls.

shirleywyn5 -

This is one subject near and dear to my heart. When I teach bread classes, if nothing else, the students go home knowing the differences IN, and different uses FOR, the different types of yeast - as well as how to substitute them one for another.

And for all the yeast "rules", there are exceptions to the "rules" - as you have just shown. If it works for you, then stick with it. It's usually the "what happened?" moments that can be blamed on using the yeast incorrectly or using the wrong yeast.

Here's the "rule":
When you use SAF-Instant in a recipe that calls for Active Dry Yeast, you should reduce the amount of yeast by 25%. SAF-Instant is a "super" yeast and performs much faster and is stronger than active dry yeast.

Many bread machine cookbooks, which give you a choice in yeast types, will state one amount for Active Dry Yeast, and a different amount for a fast-acting yeast. "The Bread Lover's Bread Machine Cookbook" by Beth Hensperger is a good example of this. The recipes in my Zojirushi Operating, Instruction and Recipe Manual also indicates different amounts of different types of yeast for the same recipes - using the regular setting and active dry yeast, or the quick setting using a fast-acting yeast.

This makes for potential problems when people use a fast-rising yeast in a recipe that calls for active dry yeast. They follow the recipe and allow dough to rise to-the-clock, per recipe instructions, and end up with over-proofed dough because of the rapid rise from the faster-acting yeast.

Another thing they learn in my class - dough doesn't know how to tell time! Dough rises according to the ambient air temperature, hydration, humidity, and the strength of the yeast. "Double" happens when the bulk of the dough goes from it's measure to double that measure - not by time.

That's why I never let dough rise in a bread machine, because it's timed. I control the rise in a dough rising bucket. When I place dough in the dough rising bucket and it fills it to the 1-quart line, when it reaches the 2-quart line I know the dough has doubled.

Because I use mostly whole grain flour I mill at home, the dough doesn't have the extensibility that breads using commercial flour has. Therefore, I need to allow most of my breads to rise to just under "double" or my yeast will be spent by the time the dough hits the oven and I'll get a nice 100% whole wheat "brick". I get excellent oven-spring if I don't over-proof the dough. My loaves of 100% whole wheat bread are as light, and high-rising as any loaf of white bread.

If the author of a recipe was in an 80F, 78% humidity, kitchen when they compiled the recipe, the dough may have risen in 30-45-minutes for them. I know from bread science and experience it's going to take a LOT longer in my 62°F kitchen. A long, cool, rise creates a lot of flavor that you'll never achieve with a fast-rising dough or when you use the Quick Cycle in a bread machine. You also get changes in the crumb and the crust with different types of rises using different types of yeast and different mixing methods for breads.

SAF-Instant is a type of fast-rising yeast - along with Bread Machine Yeast, Quick-Rise and Rapid Rise. They are designed to make bread faster than with active dry yeast.

They work quickly by being able to mix them directly into the dry ingredients, rather than having to proof the yeast in water/sweetener first. When making bread by hand and using a fast-rising yeast, you can eliminate the first rise of the bread dough (in most cases) and allow the dough to rest for 10-minutes, instead of a complete rise before you form and pan the dough. It's THE time saver of breadmaking.

When you make bread in a bread machine on the Quick Cycle and bake it in the bread machine, you MUST use a fast-rising yeast, NOT active dry yeast.

Hope that makes a little sense. I take a lot of time teaching about yeast in my classes, so a short post on a message board only covers some of the main points, nothing that is indepth.

-Grainlady

Thanks for that explanation, Grainlady! I learn something everytime you post!

Teresa

That's probably why I just baked two bricks yesterday. It called for instant yeast, I used SAF from the freezer, fairly new, and eyeballed the rising. I don't think I overproofed, let it only rise for the time mentioned in the recipe. I was tempted to let it rise longer as it had not risen above the pan at all. I baked them and they came out the same size, no oven spring at all. I'll have to tweek it if I use it again but I think I'll use active dry yeast, I don't seem to have a problem when I use that. My breadmaking is not quite a science for me yet. I hope I live long enough. I may have started a little late, well?

Thanks Teresa.

terrapots -

It sounds like you used the correct yeast, but you may have:

a. Over-proofed the dough (allowed it to rise more than double) during the first rise (bulk fermentation) and it didn't have any "umph" left for the final proof after it was panned - especially since you didn't have any oven spring to the loaves. If the dough is under-proofed, you generally get oven-spring but the sides will shred (crack open).

b. Allowed the dough to rise in a temperature that was too warm, thereby killing some of the yeast.

Do you pre-heat the oven for a bit and then put the dough in the oven to rise during the 1st rise? It's easy to have the warmed oven TOO hot when using this method. Most people don't check the internal temperature of the oven. When you place the dough into the oven, the yeast on the outside of the dough will quickly die if the ambient temperature 140°F or hotter. The temperature should be below 90°F. If you use your oven for a proofing box, just use the light in the oven for warmth (turn it on to warm the oven when you first start making your bread) and check the temperature. In my oven, it's between 80°-85°F on the opposite side of the oven from the light - which is a great temperature for dough rising.

c. Your yeast may not be active. I once purchased a new package of SAF-Instant Yeast that was well before the use-by date that wouldn't rise at all. When you use bulk yeast, it's good to test it. Especially if you don't use it very often and it's in storage a long time.

To test yeast:

In a 1-cup glass measuring cup place 1/4 c. warm water, 1 t. sugar, 1-1/2 t. yeast. Wait 10 minutes. If the yeast is active, the mixture should be up to the 1/2 c. line.

If the rise isn't to the 1/2-cup line, then you know the yeast isn't active enough to raise dough to double.

Helpful hint: when proofing yeast in water/sweetener, add the yeast to the water, not the water to the yeast. The activity of water being dumped on the yeast can actually kill some of them. If you vigorously stir the mixture, you can kill some of the yeast.

If you're like most people you use a slant-sided bowl for the dough to rise in. The slanting sides is an inaccurate way to judge when the dough has doubled. It's much smaller on the bottom of the bowl and gets larger as it goes up. It's easy to under- and over-proof dough in a slant sided bowl because you're not exactly sure what or where "double" is. And once again, dough doesn't know how to tell time, so the instructions in the recipe for rising times is just a good (or bad) guess.

I'd suggest using a dough rising bucket to help gauge when dough has doubled in the first rise. You can find them at restaurant supply stores or on-line from King Arthur Flour or other on-line sources. They call them food storage containers at restaurant supply stores. They come in both square and round models at the restaurant supply stores - I have some of both. I normally use a round 2-quart size (usually 2-1/2# dough), but I have them in several sizes for larger amounts of dough. As long as it has a tight fitting lid and straight sides, you're in business for a dough rising bucket. It's the perfect environment for dough rising. No drafts, hold and provides it's own moisture, etc.

If you happen to have an empty plastic ice cream bucket, that would work. The dough rising buckets/food storage containers have graduated measurements on the side, which makes it nice to use. If you use another type of straight-sided plastic container that doesn't have measurements on it, just use a ruler to measure the dough.

Handle the dough with oiled hands. Pat it into the bottom of the plastic container and put on the lid. Measure where the dough is up the side of the container with a ruler. Take that measure and double it and place a piece of masking tape there - make sure you remember (or mark) whether the top of the tape, or the bottom of the tape, is where the dough will be double. When the dough rises to that mark, that means the dough has doubled in bulk. If the dough measures 1-1/2-inches, then it's double at 3-inches - if it measures 2-inches, then it's double at 4-inches, and so on.

You can place the dough in the dough rising bucket in the oven with the light on, as a nice warm spot for the dough to rise. Start checking the dough to see how much it's risen after 20-25 minutes. It may only take 30-minutes to double.

-Grainlady

My yeast is always stored in freezer, and used straight from there.

Actually, as a food professional, myself, I can assure you that you have a lot of leeway with yeast. First of all, yeast is yeast--it's all the same, just some is finer milled for quicker dissolving (got that right from the folks at SAF). Also, according to my friends at SAF--the best place to store yeast is in the freezer where it will last almost indefinitely, and no need to defrost--anything as fine as yeast defrosts almost instantly once it's combined with the other ingredients, so don't waste your time letting it sit out.

As to amounts? You can really play around with the amount of yeast you use in most recipes. Look at that popular no-need recipe--it only calls for 1/4 teaspoon (about a ninth of a packet!) but it rises for many hours, and turns out beautifully. On the other side of that coin, you can even double the yeast in many yeast recipes--if you don't mind the taste of it--to shorten the rising time. We like the flavor extra yeast gives to breads and other yeast products, so I usually add more than called for, and let the bread rise for a shorter period of time.

More important than the type or precise quantity of yeast, is that the baker understand the procedure and adjust their time accordingly. Truly, bread baking is one of the most flexible, least fussy types of baking there is. Yeast doughs will forgive all kinds of variations and mistakes. Just learn what the ingredients do and how, and you'll be able to adapt most recipes to your own preferences and available time.

My dry yeast is on the freezer door. I usually get enough for a year, no problems pulling it out and using right away

Cake yeast, I wait till it is on sale and freeze that also, usually like to use up in 3 months.
I still like cake yeast for bread making, but it's pricy

azzalea, I agree completely. Bread is very flexible and forgiving and people have been making it for centuries without anything except flour, yeast, water, salt and two hands.

I also use active/rapid rise/instant yeast interchangeably in all my recipes, depending on what I have. However, I never just toss the ingredients in the bread machien and walk away, I check the dough to see if it's too wet or too dry. The measurements I use today might not work tomorrow depending on everything from humidity to brand of flour.

I never pay any attention to "let rise one hour" or whatever time frames. Again, depending on environmental factors, my bread could rise in an hour or in two hours.

I like the "yeasty" flavor in some of my breads and the longer risen flavor in others. Some recipes I use a starter because I like that "not quite sourdough, but still fermented" flavor.

Once in a while I have a spectacular failure, but it's mostly because I neglected to watch the dough and it rose, then fell, and did not rise like a Phoenix from the ashles, LOL, or I got in a hurry and tried to rush it, or I forgot it and left it rise in the garage for three days. Ahem. Yup, I did that.

My current loaf is a high fiber recipe from Clayton Bernard. Readinglady sent me his bread book and I love it, it also has Makayla's beloved "sugar bread", that Frisan loaf with the sugar cubes.

The high fiber loaf has wheat bran, all bran, whole wheat flour, some 10 grain cereal. It's pretty sturdy, LOL, and I've found that a little more yeast than the recipe calls for gives me a bit lighter loaf and a yeasty flavor that blends well with the assorted grains.

What kind of yeast did I use? Darned if I know, it's in the refrigerator in a glass canning jar and I threw the package away a month ago. (shrug) It works fine, whichever it is. tonight I'll use it to make Makayla's "sugar bread" and when I get back from vacation I'll make some of those "rise all night in the refrigerator" cinnamon rolls for work. It'll work for all those things, as long as I pay attention.

Annie