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For the last few months, I have repeatedly run into difficulties with ADY in envelopes. Some of the envelopes have worked exactly as I'd anticipated, while others have struggled to come to life, even after an hour of rehydrating. What I imagine is happening is that, somehow, despite keeping my yeast in the refrigerator, it has begun to lose efficacy to varying degrees. Perhaps some envelopes are 80% ok, and others are only 5% ok. Maybe some are 100% and some are wholly dead?

Getting frustrated with this, I am wondering if there is some way to get out in front of it. What I want is to be able to start with yeast in a more or less known "good" state. Or at least some way to get closer to averages that I can work with consistently.

The solution that I am imagining would be to borrow some ideas from the realms of "starters", whether that be like a sourdough, or a poolish, or a biga. If I were to make some kind of "fresh yeast" cake, utilizing all of the yeast in an envelope, with a certain amount of flour and water, it seems I should, eventually, acquire signs of growth, indicating that my yeast has become ready to use in a more consistent manner than the initial envelope.

But, that still leaves a number of open questions.

  1. How do I account for this new yeast variety in calculations? How much "Homemade Fresh Yeast" equates to a certain amount of ADY?
  2. Can I store this yeast for any amount of time? How long?
  3. Does this technique actually get me anything but more work? Maybe I'm just moving the uncertainly somewhere else.
  4. Other questions I've not even thought of, but which you have :D

I have spent a good deal of time researching how this might be done, but I've come up with nothing, unfortunately. Not sure if I'm just searching poorly, or if I am breaking new ground (doubtful).

Edit: Added Context

However, there's a follow-up concern. While my question relates to dough in particular, it's specific focus is that of pizza. The doughs that I am presently experimenting with are 24-hour or longer (sometimes as long as 5 days) ferments. In such efforts, the amount of yeast I am adding is ridiculously small (a few tenths of a gram, or even less).

My main concern is that, with so little yeast being there, to have some of it not really active will really interfere with the plan. My pizza dough is usually timed to an expected dinner time, so, when I'm calculating for the dough to be ready to throw at 5pm on Saturday night, I really want the dough exactly right. There is no real room for fudge factors.

The problem is consistency. I am finding that one bake comes out really well, but the next time, following the same recipe is basically a failure (which is bad, when its supposed to be dinner :D !)

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    How long are you storing in the fridge? The wrong location in the fridge might also play a part - make sure to not store at the back where the cold air might freeze it. We buy a ~450 g/1 lb sealed bag and then dump into a jar when opened and keep in the fridge for months (at least 6 mo I would guess) and it never fails. Surely the solution is to test the yeast before adding to your dough - ~100 ml water (3.5 fl oz), tsp/5g of sugar, add yeast, mix. Incubate 5-15 min, if no sign of activity get a new packet.
    – bob1
    Commented Oct 22 at 21:57
  • The particular envelopes in question (which have now been tossed out) were on the older side, not yet at their expiration date, but getting close. But, in line with my edit above, the tiny amount of yeast that I'm using, I'm very nervous to botch dinner entirely with yeas thats only partly good.
    – reidLinden
    Commented Oct 23 at 13:38
  • If using warm water to rehydrate the yeast, yeast is quite picky about the temperature of the water. Don't remember the temps exactly, but 105F is good, over 110F is bad.
    – crip659
    Commented Oct 23 at 16:37
  • My recommendation is to acquire a digital kitchen scale and a large package of yeast. The envelope of yeast contains ¼oz of yeast. That's very easy to measure out by weight on the scale. Once the package is opened, I recommend storing in the freezer.
    – NjyReading
    Commented Oct 26 at 13:31

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You're overthinking this. Active dry yeast will keep a certain length of time in the fridge, and longer in the freezer. I buy a small can of easy bake yeast (active dry yeast but smaller grains) and keep it in the freezer. I've found that it's still active up to a year, although after 6 months I have to add more for the same results. If you want to buy packets instead keep them in the freezer, again 6 months should be fine and they may last longer. You may need to add an extra packet as time goes on.

There's no way to estimate the viability of a packet of yeast with any reliability, this is because you cannot account for the variability of what happened to the yeast before you bought it. If it was stored in a hot place before being sold it could reduce the viability of the yeast whereas another packet stored appropriately will have more oomph.

Using active dry yeast from the store in some sort of starter sounds like a winner, but in practice it doesn't work. I tried this in the pandemic when yeast was non-existent, I found that the first couple of replications it worked fine, but then the yeast lost potency. The yeast strain in the packet isn't bred for that, it's bred for performance.

Sourdough is something you should try if you like baking bread, it does give a different consistency and flavor than bread baked with packet yeast, so it's not a solution for yeast potency.

The solution for you would be to buy fewer packets, more often, and keep them in the freezer.

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  • I would say that buying yeast from a large chain supermarket would help with the supply-chain variability, because they will tend to store products in a controlled climate.
    – Sneftel
    Commented Oct 23 at 10:25
  • I do keep a sourdough, and have reasonably good results with it. Also, the idea to keep the yeast in the freezer, rather than the warmer top of my fridge door (the butter compartment) seems good to me. There is another concern, however, and I've added that as an edit of the original question, as it should have been part of it in the first place.
    – reidLinden
    Commented Oct 23 at 13:20
  • @reidLinden That might be the problem - the fridge door undergoes big swings in temperature as you open/close the door. Better to keep on a shelf inside, somewhere in the middle preferably.
    – bob1
    Commented Oct 23 at 19:31

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