Why is yeast proofed

Heat the water to approximately degrees F 40 degrees C. We recommend testing the water temperature using a thermometer.

Once you've done this a few times, you'll get a natural feel for how warm the water should be without being too hot to kill the yeast culture. Whisk the sugar into the water to help it dissolve.

Why sugar? Yeast eats various sugars and excretes alcohol and carbon dioxide. Alcohol and carbon dioxide are what the pockets in bread are filled with as bread bakes. In other words, sugar makes a feast for the yeast. Once the sugar has been evenly distributed throughout the water, add the yeast. Stir gently and let it sit. And you can do it with almost any recipe. Here's how. View our privacy policy.

Blog Tips and Techniques Active dry yeast Do you really need to dissolve it first? Recipe in this post. Really — you don't need to dissolve ADY in lukewarm water before using it? Let's put it to the test. An hour later, the dough has risen. I don't see any difference — do you? Let's shape some dinner rolls.

The rolls rise for an hour. I still don't see any difference. Nor is there any difference once they're baked. Now, what about that "proofing" stuff?

But I did put a packet of Fleischmann's to the test. Were you expecting foamy? But it's definitely puffy. And that's proof enough the yeast is alive. Tagged: bread active dry yeast yeast baking. Filed Under: Tips and Techniques. The Author. View all posts by PJ Hamel. Comments I am making a large batch of dough for pizza crusts.

Bless you for your advice Reply. Your email address will not be published. About text formats. Lines and paragraphs break automatically. Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically. Email The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly. Blog Recommended Posts. How to give any bread a chocolate makeover Considerations for off-roading in the land of cocoa.

Can my bread be saved? You're ready to divide the dough, which is the first step towards shaping your very own loaves. To divide the dough, lightly flour the top with AP flour, scrape around the sides with your dough spatula to free it from the bowl and quickly flip the bowl upside down.

The dough should flop out in one large blob, and what was at the bottom of the bowl should now be on top. It'll also be really sticky. This is good, like so:. Lightly flour your hands, bench knife, and the counter top on which you will be shaping.

With your bench scraper, decisively cut the dough in half, pushing the halves away from each other with the bench knife, making sure to keep the bench knife's blade firmly flush with your counter's surface. Pre-shaping is all about giving your dough a heads-up about what shape it's going to be later, and giving the gluten a little time to get situated.

Think of it as a dress-rehearsal for the big show. For us, our final shape is going to be round—a boule—and so our pre-shape is going to be round as well.

To pre-shape, we're going to perform a series of folds similar to what we did during the bulk rise. We want to do this in as few motions as possible, making those motions decisive and clean, without being aggressive. It'll look something like this:.

Once you've folded your dough into a neat little package, gently flip it over with your bench knife to let the smooth side face you. For the moment this is the top of our loaf-to-be. The place where the different sides of the dough meet and meld is our seam, which should end up on the bottom. Like this:. Most important here, is to not over-think this.

Just try to get some tension on the surface of the loaf. If we mess with it too much now we're just going to push our hard-earned gas out of it. Pre-shapes—like rehearsals—aren't meant to be perfect. Lightly flour the tops of the rounds and cover with a towel. Allow the pre-shaped loaves to hang out on the bench for a while—anywhere between fifteen and forty minutes will do the trick. By letting the tension we built during our pre-shape relax, we'll be able to create even more tension during our final shape, all without tearing the surface of the loaf.

This helps make big, beautiful bread. This is our bench rest. While this is happening, we should ready our proofing baskets or bowls, which will help support the structure of our loaves during their final proof. Start by choosing something the right size. These are going to be big loaves of bread, but we don't want to get crazy.

The proofing baskets—called bannetons—that I use at home and at The Cleveland are made specifically for 1. If you don't have bannetons use a medium serving bowl or colander, the size vessel you might use to serve potatoes for four during dinner. Once shaped, our loaves should fill the basket a little more than halfway, which will leave adequate room for the final rise. To ready your baskets, choose two large kitchen towels made of smooth cloth. Don't use anything fuzzy unless you plan to eat that fuzz—it will stick to the bread.

Using rice flour although plain old AP flour will work fine, just go a little heavier , brush the towels with a light-to-medium coating of flour. We don't want to go too light or the loaves will stick; too heavy and we'll be eating clumps of burnt flour off our crusts. Place the towels in the proofing baskets or bowls and go about your business. We're making what's called a boule: a big, round loaf.

That means that our final shape will be the same as our pre-shape. We know our loaves are ready for final shaping when giving a gentle tug on the rounds shows some stretch and does not immediately pull back. Take a look:. Once our dough has shown us that it's ready to be shaped, flip the rounds so the seam side is now facing up again, and once again perform the folds listed above, gently developing tension along the rounds' surface.

Use flour to keep the dough from sticking to you and the bench, but not so much that the dough won't stick to itself. Too much flour will keep our seams from holding, or will show up as clumps of unincorporated flour after baking. It's best to just flour your hands and scrape underneath the loaves with your bench knife to prevent sticking. Once you've folded your dough appropriately, cup your hands together and pull the dough towards you to generate tension along the boule's exterior, rotating the boule a quarter turn between pulls.

Like with the pre-shape, we want to use as few motions as possible. If the dough surface begins to rip, you're pulling a little too hard. It's not a disaster. Just stop. Remember: We're proofing our boules in round containers. All the little imperfections will smooth out there. Even more to the point, shaping bread isn't fine art.

We're going to eat it. Shaping is about tension and structure, not aesthetic perfectionism. Let the rounds rest seam-side-down for just a minute or so to make sure the seam holds together. Then, using your bench scraper with a quick, firm motion, flip the boules carefully into the baskets, making sure the seam side is facing up. What's facing up in the basket will become the bottom of our loaves once they're baked. Cover the boules in the baskets with towels and place them in the fridge, where they will undergo their final fermentation, or final proof.

During this time, the loaves should nearly double in size. Proofing our loaves in the fridge also called retarding will slow down their final rise, giving our loaves more flavor. Also, retarding loaves during their final proof makes them easier to handle and score before baking, which will improve the crumb, crust, and appearance of our baked loaves.

And with that, it's time to begin preheating our ovens and talk about how to bake all of this hard work into something beautiful. But that conversation will have to wait until our next installment, which will be all about baking and scoring.

Happy proofing everyone! And keep the questions coming.