# cake or compressed yeast...



## abax (Jul 26, 2018)

for bread baking. The dry yeast is a dud and I'd like to start a sour dough
culture, but I can't find any of the block, fresh yeast anydamnwhere.
Anyone know of a place online to buy fresh yeast????


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## Bob in Albany N.Y. (Jul 27, 2018)

I don't know where to find fresh yeast any more. Used to be in the refrigerator section of any grocery store. As far as I know it may still be there. We bake english muffin bread all of the time and use the dry yeast. Why won't it work for you? We warm the liquid up to between 110 and 120 degrees and then just add it to the dry ingredients, which also includes the yeast.


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## xiphius (Jul 27, 2018)

Wegmans (grocery store in the mid-Atlantic states region) still sells fresh yeast in the fridge section. That's the only place I've seen it in a long time though. 

Dry yeast should work fine if you prime it first - mix it into a bit of lukewarm water with some dissolved sugar or honey and let it sit for 20-30 minutes until it gets really foamy... then add this mix in as part of your water/liquids. I've never had a problem with dry yeast when doing this.

I also bake a lot of bread. I love rye, but it's impossible to find a halfway decent, commercially available, loaf around here...


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## abax (Jul 27, 2018)

Oh, it works more or less, but it doesn't taste the same as cake yeast
to me.


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## abax (Jul 27, 2018)

Yup, that's the way I mix dry yeast, but it just doesn't taste the same in old
bread recipes. Very strange that in this very small town I can find quite
good rye bread...not as good as home made though. I have to order rye
flour from King Author flour co.


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## Linus_Cello (Jul 28, 2018)

Maybe ask an independent bakery if they sell, or recommendations where to buy?


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## Paphluvr (Jul 28, 2018)

I haven't bought cake yeast in over 8 yrs. The thing that surprised me was that it was so hard to find, expensive compared to active dry yeast, and has a very short life. I keep my active dry yeast in the refrigerator in a sealed container and it's good for a year. Do you make your breads using a poolish or a biga? Also, a lot of newer recipes use overnight fermentation which seems to give the bread much more flavor, too.

I just looked at the Red Star web site. It says that cake yeast is sold in limited markets in the mid-west and north-east. I didn't check Fleishman's.


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## xiphius (Jul 28, 2018)

abax said:


> Oh, it works more or less, but it doesn't taste the same as cake yeast to me.



Ah, gotcha... when you said it was a dud, I thought it just wasn't working at all for you.



abax said:


> Yup, that's the way I mix dry yeast, but it just doesn't taste the same in old bread recipes. Very strange that in this very small town I can find quite good rye bread...not as good as home made though. I have to order rye flour from King Author flour co.



Yeah, I feel you... fresh yeast does impart a slightly different flavor. I also get my rye flour from King Arthur. I have only ever found a few bakeries that make a good rye loaf though... and I no longer live near any of them .

I saw that you were looking for fresh yeast to make a sourdough starter... if the unique flavor means that much to you, have you considered the following options:

1) Make your own starter from wild yeast - there are many strains of wild yeast that exist naturally and can be found in high concentrations on fruit peels. Often, the strains of yeast associated with certain fruits produce metabolic byproducts that smell like the fruit they are associated with. My mother is microbiologist and had a culture collection of yeasts she had isolated from various fruits back in the day, including one that smelled exactly like fresh blueberry pie! I know a lot of old school bakers make starters by fermenting fruit peels with flour, then discarding the peels before using the starter for baking (a classic rustic baking technique). This also gives you the opportunity to experiment with different fruits and find the unique flavor profile you like.

Example link - she grinds up the whole apple... but you can also just peel the apple and throw the peel into the flour mix... the peel can then be removed and will prevent unwanted addition of crushed fruit to a recipe. I have done similar experiments with various fruits in the past and the results can be quite nice!

2) Are you aware of Carl's Friends? I have never tried it, but a friend who also bakes once told me about it. Apparently it's an exchange, of sorts, that passes around a sourdough starter culture that has been in continuous use since the mid-1800's. I don't know if they still do it or not, but supposedly they distributed it for free to anyone who sent a self-addressed, stamped, envelope. It is sent in a semi-dry form that you have to restart and culture though. I never got a chance to try it, but the results were supposedly pretty good.

Best of luck!


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## abax (Jul 30, 2018)

Fleishman is the only dry yeast I can find here. I'd like to try Red Star. In
passing, King Arthur does sell a sourdough starter, but I did sourdough
baking for years from a self-made starter and it was very good, however,
I finally got quite tired of the upkeep every week. I don't really want to
make that commitment again. "Feed the *****" as Anthony Bourdain
says in one of his books!

I'm not quite sure what a poolish or a biga is! Generally I make Challah and
sometimes rye, sometimes whole wheat.


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## Paphluvr (Jul 31, 2018)

abax said:


> Fleishman is the only dry yeast I can find here. I'd like to try Red Star. In
> passing, King Arthur does sell a sourdough starter, but I did sourdough
> baking for years from a self-made starter and it was very good, however,
> I finally got quite tired of the upkeep every week. I don't really want to
> ...



Poolish, biga, levain; they're all different methods of doing pre-ferments which are then used to finish the dough. 
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-ferment
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biga_(bread_baking)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough#Starter


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