Dry yeast: types and method of application

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Yeast is a natural, single-celled microorganism used in baking bakery products and in making beer and wine. It is thanks to their participation that the dough is loosened. This process improves the taste of the finished product. Yeast enzymes cause alcoholic fermentation in the dough. The result of this reaction is the production of oxygen dioxide. This element contributes to giving the dough a porous structure, loosens it. During their life, single-celled organisms consume sugar, thereby contributing to its conversion into carbon dioxide and alcohol. The dough, as a result of this process, acquires a bubbly loose texture and a characteristic sour taste.

Yeast is a living microorganism. In this regard, they should not be doused with water, the temperature of which exceeds fifty degrees, and also frozen several times. The microorganisms that make up the yeast cannot withstand such procedures and die.

Modern food industry produces three types of product intendedfor baking bakery products. These include:

- pressed fresh;

- active dry yeast;

- instant (high-speed).

Compressed yeast is a fresh product. They have a light color that has a grayish or yellowish tint. A characteristic sign of the freshness of this product is the absence of mold, as well as various types of stripes and dark spots on the surface. In this case, the yeast should have a specific smell, vaguely reminiscent of fruit. Before use, the necessary part of the product is dissolved in warm liquid.

Dry yeast can be in the form of grains, vermicelli, granules or powder. Mixtures of all these types may also be commercially available. The color of such a product is usually light brown or light yellow. Dry yeast can be produced as active or fast acting products. Their difference lies in the drying mode and methods of application.

Active dry yeast is produced in the form of round granules. In order to activate the microorganisms in the product, it must first be dissolved in a liquid. In order to knead the yeast dough, dry yeast, softened in water, is mixed with flour and all the ingredients necessary to obtain finished baking.

Instant (quick-acting) dry microorganisms do not need an activation process. Such yeast is mixed with flour without first softening in liquid. This greatly speeds up the process of kneading the dough.

Alcohol yeast is also produced by the food industry. This product is intended for the production of moonshine at home. Such yeasts are able to cause the most active fermentation processes due to the fact that they are not destroyed by alcohol. The microorganisms contained in this product have been bred to produce high-quality home-made alcohol. Its taste, according to connoisseurs, is an order of magnitude higher than the taste of moonshine made on the basis of ordinary baker's yeast.