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.
- How do I account for this new yeast variety in calculations? How much "Homemade Fresh Yeast" equates to a certain amount of ADY?
- Can I store this yeast for any amount of time? How long?
- Does this technique actually get me anything but more work? Maybe I'm just moving the uncertainly somewhere else.
- 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).