Bread Yeast To Brew Beer

[Fourstar]

do you mean like cheap supermarket bakers yeast? or one of those fancy shmancy sourdough yeasts?

Just so you know, Sourdough yeast is your everyday 'wild yeast' that infects your brewery. If you want sour beers or a Bindi special... Go for it!

As for bakers yeast...... yikes i think ive got the butters "i need links in my sig" Syndrome

 

[ollave]

do you mean like cheap supermarket bakers yeast? or one of those fancy shmancy sourdough yeasts?

Um ... those fancy shmancy sourdough starters are an interesting mix of flour, water, yeast, and bacteria.

If the bacteria in a sourdough starter turns out not to be a problem for brewing (maybe it will hate wort, who knows) I would still be concerned about how long the ferment would take: commercial bakers' yeast can bulk ferment and prove a loaf in a couple of hours (give or take); a sourdough starter will take (in my experience) 10-12 hours. (Yeah, some starters are faster, some slower, and they work faster in warmer weather and slower when it's cooler. Sound familiar? )

If someone tries this experiment, please do report what happens ... it'd be fascinating to know. With my only having one(*) home brew (kit at that!) completed and bottled (passable after one week in the bottles, but nothing to brag about) I think I need more experience before trying esoteric experiments.

BTW, the other way round -- using brewers yeast to bake with -- has a long history. Search with your favourite search engine for barm, or for a modern discussion see Dan Lepard's commentary on his Barm Bread recipe which uses yeast from bottle conditioned beer. (I'd link to the recipe, but I don't think Dan has published it online; it's from his book The Handmade Loaf which I heartily recommend to anyone interested in bread baking of any type.)

[ Edit: forgot to mention but yes, as the previous reply says, sourdough yeasts are "wild", and probably from the flour(s) the sourdough starter is created and maintained with, plus of course your regular yeast mutational drift. You might discover the next great commercial ale yeast ... or a monster! ]

Cheers!

(*) OK, sometime in the early to mid 90's I brewed an extract brew at some commercial place that provided ingredients, equipment, and supervision/instruction. The resulting beer was tainted -- a metallic flavour is the best I can describe it -- and when the guy running the place couldn't taste it (or refused to admit to tasting it, perhaps) I didn't go back. Getting way off topic, I found a couple of those bottles in the back of the cupboard a year or two back, and tried 'em: yup, hadn't improved in the meantime. (Hadn't got any worse, either, so the beer lasted longer than ten years in the bottle!)

 

[Katherine]

Just so you know, Sourdough yeast is your everyday 'wild yeast' that infects your brewery. If you want sour beers or a Bindi special... Go for it!

As for bakers yeast...... yikes i think ive got the butters "i need links in my sig" Syndrome

If you're sanitation is up to scratch in your brewery, you are safe as the bacteria in your sourdough is the same bacteria in the air...as you said. Just don't use the same spoon that your mix your starter with to bulk prime....

 

[staggalee]

wWe`ll be doing home pizza tomorrow nite, so the bottom line for me is: YES you can use dry beer yeast in place of bakers yeast!!
It had better work...don`t make me come down there :lol:

stagga.

{sundried tomatoe, goats cheese and red onion on a tomatoe/garlic base}

 

[Katherine]

wWe`ll be doing home pizza tomorrow nite, so the bottom line for me is: YES you can use dry beer yeast in place of bakers yeast!!
It had better work...don`t make me come down there :lol:

stagga.

{sundried tomatoe, goats cheese and red onion on a tomatoe/garlic base}

one of our best breads was using a left over deliverence yeast as we didnt have any baker's yeast... it went down well with triple cream brie...

 

[KingPython]

wWe`ll be doing home pizza tomorrow nite, so the bottom line for me is: YES you can use dry beer yeast in place of bakers yeast!!
It had better work...don`t make me come down there :lol:

stagga.

{sundried tomatoe, goats cheese and red onion on a tomatoe/garlic base}

What I've found personally is that it doesn't 'prove' but rises a lot once in the oven obviously. The base itself tastes a bit yeasty which is a good thing imo.

I think once I bottle my mead I'll make my decision then and there

 

[Airgead]

Read the packet of an Ale yeast and write down the specific yeast name. Take a packet of bakers yeast and write down the specific yeast used there. Take both names and compare them side by side. Ale yeast = Bakers yeast. It's the same yeast. What's actually different is the isolated strain of yeast in each packet on the shelf. Specific strains put off certain flavours, ferment best within certain temperature ranges, eat through simple sugars or complex sugars better than another strain, of exhibit many other traits that made it dsirable to continue producing while other less desirable ones are discarded. Makes it easier to market one over the other. Same on the bakers yeast market. But it's really the same yeast we are talking about.

It may be the same species but it certainly isn't the same strain. What you are doing with bread yeast is like walking into the brew shop, grabbing a random packet of yeast off the shelf and fermenting with that. Only it probably wouldn't turn out as good as that. you have no control over your fermentation characteristics. No idea of the temperature requirements. No idea of the alcohol tolerance. No idea how well its been stored or how old it is.

Frankly, given that a packet of dry brewers years is only, $4 or thereabouts and you can re-pitch to get several brews out of it, why would you bother? Ok, a packet of bread yeast might only be $2 at the supermarket but is it really worth the hassle? For $2? Given that you are chucking in a good few $ worth of grain/hops/honey, is it worth the risk?

Seriously, if you really need to save the $2, there are plenty of people who will give you a starting pitch and you can keep a bit of slurry in the fridge from batch to batch.

On the other hand, brewers yeast makes fantastic bread.

Cheers
Dave

 

[KingPython]

Cost isn't the issue, it's just an experiment. Like I said before it'll be on a whim if I do this.

 

[Bribie G]

Back in the days of the Queensland Beer strike I opened a LHBS in Maryborough which was an offshoot of the already popular one in Bundy. Until then virtually the only source of supply was a local chemist and the normal recipe for Maryborough Bitter consisted of:

1 tin of Saunders Malt
1.5 k of raw sugar preferably free if you knew a driver for the mill
one ounce of old brown Pride of Ringwood Flowers
A sachet of Tandaco Yeast.

The locals would bring in a bottle of their little baby for me to try and I never hit on one that didn't taste like a glass of wheelie bin washings. We eventually got the bulk of the customers onto Wander Yeast from a honey dispenser, hop pellets that would come in fairly fresh from Brigalow at the time and either Brigalow or Edme yeast, the Edme being far superior.

A few hold outs still used Tandaco, proudly washing and washing it after every brew and repitching and it was dreadful stuff. Best of luck but I'm confident it will be a one off experiment.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Ah the memories, eh Bribie? :lol:

Andrew

 

[warrenlw63]

That sounds like the stuff my one-legged uncle used to make. I'd be transfixed as my old man would open one in the sink and the contents would shoot upwards like a Saturn V rocket. (was around the same time too) :lol:

Needless to say my old man would mutter things best not replicated and deem the beer to be "shit".

Warren -

 

[Sammus]

Just so you know, Sourdough yeast is your everyday 'wild yeast' that infects your brewery. If you want sour beers or a Bindi special... Go for it!

Um ... those fancy shmancy sourdough starters are an interesting mix of flour, water, yeast, and bacteria.

The bacteria is lactobacilli. Yes there is some flour in there too, but that wont really influence a lot. but saying its just a mix of bacteria and yeast makes it sound way less interesting! the yeast part comes in all different strains (there are some websites where you can buy like 20 different strains of sourdough yeast, much like wyeast brewers yeast). So I'm sure those yeasts would give different flavour profiles as well. It's not like its just no-name dry bakers yeast mixed with vinager.

 

[Bribie G]

Ah the memories, eh Bribie? :lol:

Andrew

Memories? My kit n kilo days of last year are now ancient memories to me. :lol: Pitch at 28, let's make this a strong brew and put in an extra 500 of dex, nah just double it to 2 kilos .... don't know how I ever survived thus far to do AG :huh: :huh:

 

[Sammus]

Just so you know, Sourdough yeast is your everyday 'wild yeast' that infects your brewery. If you want sour beers or a Bindi special... Go for it!

BS. Saying all sourdough yeast is infectious wild yeast is like saying the same thing about wyeast. Yes some people make sourdough starters with wild yeast by just leaving flour out and seeing what happens, but certain styles of beer are brewed that way too. Some of them good, some of them not. You can also buy purpose 'bred' sourdough strains, a huge range of them at that.

Um ... those fancy shmancy sourdough starters are an interesting mix of flour, water, yeast, and bacteria.

The bacteria is lactobacilli (lactobacillius?). Yes there is some flour in there too, but that wont really influence a lot. but saying its just a mix of bacteria and yeast makes it sound way less interesting! the yeast part comes in all different strains (there are some websites where you can buy like 20 different strains of sourdough yeast, much like wyeast brewers yeast). So I'm sure those yeasts would give different flavour profiles as well. It's not like its just no-name dry bakers yeast mixed with random infectious bacteria. Lacto is used in lambics and stuff at least, so it has its place in brewing.

 

[ollave]

BS. Saying all sourdough yeast is infectious wild yeast is like saying the same thing about wyeast. Yes some people make sourdough starters with wild yeast by just leaving flour out and seeing what happens, but certain styles of beer are brewed that way too. Some of them good, some of them not. You can also buy purpose 'bred' sourdough strains, a huge range of them at that.

A difference is that "just leaving flour out" (well, a couple of weeks of repeatedly tossing most of the nascent starter away and feeding the remainder with more water and flour) is expected to create a usable sourdough starter, and there don't seem to be huge concerns about the starter dramatically changing character over time (weeks, months, years) although the bacteria (and presumably yeast) strains may well change. In a post by Dan Lepard on his web site (in a thread about what constitutes "San Francisco Sourdough") he noted:

...
Yes, I'm sure what you observe is correct because if the cultures are from different sources and kept separate then they will maintain different characteristics. But I would also say that, if after a year of regular feeding, these cultures that you keep are compared under a microscope to the original culture, changes would be identified - even though these changes may not markedly affect the flavour or gassing power of the current starter you have.
...
I had one renowned sourdough culture tested at NCYC in Norwich and we couldn't find any of the bacteria listed on the packet in it. But that doesn't mean it won't make an excellent sourdough starter.

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In contrast beer yeast seems very fragile (at least, based on all these discussions!), and to have (much) more responsibility for flavour in the brewed beer than the sourdough starter does in bread. There are bakers who maintain multiple starters, but it's not (so far as I can tell) common; usually maintaining one is enough work.

Time to relax and have a home brew; it's Friday and it must be beer o'clock!

 

[manticle]

Just like in the mushroom industry you can order so many different types of say bog standard white button mushrooms to grow out. They are all white button mushroom just different isolated strains with slightly different growing or fruiting parameters that let them be marketed against all the other strains. Mushrooms are a good example as they are very closely related to yeast cells for comparisson reasons.

Not saying you're wrong about the yeast but what mushrooms other than field, swiss brown and button are the same basic spore?

Portabello, enoki, shitake, truffle etc are all very, very different from each other.

 

[Sammus]

A difference is that "just leaving flour out" (well, a couple of weeks of repeatedly tossing most of the nascent starter away and feeding the remainder with more water and flour) is expected to create a usable sourdough starter,

My experience and research leads me to believe that this is an old wives tale. I, nor anyone I know that has tried (there has been a few), has ever had a usable sourdough starter by leaving out flour/water. Every serious piece of advice I've read on making sourdough says that the 'leaving it out' method is a sure way to waste time and ruin your dough, and recommends purchasing one of the many purpose built cultures out there for good results.

All said and done, I don't have a huge amount of experience with sourdoughs, I've tried on several occasions to start my own culture, as have a few friends, and we've all had terrible results, so I just resorted to making regular bread and buying sourdough.

One day I'll invest in a proper culture :beer:

 

[ollave]

My experience and research leads me to believe that this is an old wives tale. I, nor anyone I know that has tried (there has been a few), has ever had a usable sourdough starter by leaving out flour/water.

My experience is, um, otherwise: I've successfully created a starter and bake with it. It can be done.

The process I used was pretty much this one:

Sourdom's How to make your own starter
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... except that I was less fussy: no rye flour; nothing labeled "organic", just wholemeal flour and water. You do have to be persistent: the starter will smell outright nasty for a few days along the way before it settles down to a nice regular yeasty smell. It will also smell good before it's lively enough to bake successfully; patience is required.

Results (mine, so yes I'm to blame for the irregular shape of this loaf):

 

[ollave]

I, nor anyone I know that has tried (there has been a few), has ever had a usable sourdough starter by leaving out flour/water. Every serious piece of advice I've read on making sourdough says that the 'leaving it out' method is a sure way to waste time and ruin your dough, ...

Er, I trust you don't mean leaving flour and water out and then trying to use that directly (without a regular cycle of feeding and discarding to build the starter) to bake with? I wouldn't expect that to work, no ...

 

[Airgead]

My experience and research leads me to believe that this is an old wives tale. I, nor anyone I know that has tried (there has been a few), has ever had a usable sourdough starter by leaving out flour/water. Every serious piece of advice I've read on making sourdough says that the 'leaving it out' method is a sure way to waste time and ruin your dough, and recommends purchasing one of the many purpose built cultures out there for good results.

Absolute rot. Probably put about by people selling sourdough starters.

I have started a few starters by leavign out flour/water until it starts to ferment then building it up (remove 50%, add back flour and water). Fred, my current starter does a fantastic job and was one I made this way.

Cheers
Dave