Adding yeast to sourdough bread dough

About adding yeast to sourdough bread

Author Elena Zheleznyak, 🔗

It is somehow not customary for us here to bake yeast bread, it is tacitly considered something eeeem ... not as honest and not as wonderful as sourdough bread. At some point, I began to treat the yeast from the store with a slight prejudice: I do not like how the dough smells during fermentation, the taste of simple yeast bread seems too simple and insipid, and the bread itself leaves heaviness in the stomach. Sourdough bread is much dearer and closer, it is your own, you nurture it, cherish it, create it, it is not just bread, but an idea, creativity.

But I got carried away a little, I want to say that people who are familiar with bread firsthand, and in general, are eminent bearded bakers actively use yeast in their sourdough bread and this does not cease to be considered sourdough. How is this so? They're just messing around! But no, it turns out that imported bakers quite allow the introduction of a small amount of yeast into the sourdough dough (up to 3%, if I'm not mistaken). They do this as a safety net, primarily because they need a stable result, and not just an experiment.

Home bakers, who do not bake large batches of bread and are not in a hurry, may well try to bake without yeast. Many have done this more than once and have become convinced that everything works simply with leaven. I try not to use it, because the attempt itself and the experiment are interesting, I wonder: is it weak without yeast, but will it work only with sourdough? And, you know, it almost always worked out, sometimes even the dough came as quickly as the recipe with yeast suggests. But more often than not, you still had to wait a little longer.

Experts say that adding additional yeast to the dough has a positive effect on the taste and looseness of the bread, which makes bread better and tastier with yeast. Of course, nothing prevents you from checking this statement in practice, using the example of wonderful bread, which is remembered and loved by many - doctor's bread. The original recipe for these loaves, which, according to GOST, involves the use of baker's yeast, not sourdough, but we will bake two versions and both sourdough, but in one additional yeast will be added, and in the other the bread will be purely sourdough.

Obviously, yeast primarily affects how long (or rather, how quickly) the dough will ferment and ferment. The bread recipe assumes the addition of 1 g. dry yeast is, in general, a lot, about a third of a teaspoon or even a little more.

I baked the first version of bread without adding yeast, the dough after autolysis and kneading fermented for about one and a half to two hours and the same amount was allowed to stand. I baked and turned out to be a superbread: light, like a feather, with a ringing crust, brittle, fragile, thin, and under it is a soft warm cloud of crumb. The taste is incomparable! I still didn't understand if it was sour, but the brew with yeast didn't seem so tasty to me.

The "doctor's" version with yeast, in general, did not differ much in work from the previous attempt, only the fermentation was a little shorter (an hour), but about the same lengthy proofing - an hour and a half. Looseness, in my opinion, did not change much from the presence of yeast, the bread is just as lush, with the most delicate crumb, the same picturesque.

The conclusion suggests itself: in sourdough bread recipes, where yeast is added in small quantities and during kneading the bread dough itself, they can be omitted, and this will practically not affect the quality of the bread.But if the bread is originally yeast, and the sourdough is used as a second brew or just an acidifier - you should not neglect the yeast, the result really depends on them. You can't go wrong here: just look at the recipe and mixing features and everything will become clear. If the bread dough is put on yeast and contains from 20 to 60% of all flour put according to the recipe, the bread can be considered yeast, where the use of yeast is necessary. If the sourdough is put on sourdough, and yeast is used in scanty quantities during kneading the dough, they can be neglected, especially if you are confident in your sourdough and are in no hurry.

Separately, I would like to dwell on yeast. The refusal from them is largely dictated by their dubious security. Among the sourdough bread lovers, there are very principled bakers who do not use yeast because they believe it can be harmful to health and cause various diseases. They are afraid that a huge variety of different chemicals are used in the production of yeast, which cannot but affect the safety of modern yeast and, accordingly, the health of bread-eaters. In general, if you google on the topic "GOST baker's yeast", you will find many interesting links, some of which lead to absolutely fantastic tables and lists of substances that are used in the process of producing yeast in production. And these substances are just scary in places: detergents, lime, defoamers, formalins, and a bunch of chemicals with terrible names. Of course, I would like to see natural products that are produced in a natural way without the use of chemicals on the table. Alternatively, there is bio-yeast or organic yeast that is produced naturally, grown on organic cereals, fruits and spring water, in everything pure and natural. For example, German Bioreal is a good yeast, which, according to manufacturers, is exactly how it is produced, plus the finished product does not contain gluten. I have already tested them both in pure yeast bread and in sourdough bread as an additive. The impressions are very positive: the dough comes up quickly, ferments actively, that is, in use they practically do not differ from the most ordinary store yeast, only completely safe.

on the photo the Bioreal yeast in the process of activation before mixing.

I mainly use them for muffins and pies, white toast bread, quick yeast baked goods, they regularly raise the dough every time.

In general, having such yeast at hand, you can safely add it to bread, if you want it to go faster, or bake pies made of yeast dough. Another thing is that a successful sourdough bread is much tastier than any yeast