FROZEN YEAST DOUGH - WILL IT SURVIVE?

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Rummaging through our basement refrigerator (inherited from my late in-laws and mostly used for retarding my doughs), I rediscovered a bag with whole grain pita dough.

After bulk fermentation I had pre-shaped the dough (made with instant yeast) into balls, placed those, individually wrapped, in a ZipLock bag, and then in the freezer.

The date on the bag was 9 months ago!

My first impulse was, of course, to throw those snow-encrusted (and suspiciously dark looking) packages into the trash. But then my curiosity and scientific instinct won, and I decided to give the Ötzi-Pitas a chance, and find out whether there was any life left in them - after all this time.

Whole grain pitas made with fresh dough

I placed them in a warm spot in the kitchen, and, while baking my usual breads for sale, checked now and then on them.

After 3 hours nothing had changed. Again I was tempted to end their misery, but decided to wait a little longer.

Fife hours passed - it appeared as if the dough balls had grown a tiny bit.

Six hours, seven, eight - very slooowly more growth.

After 10 hours the rolls were about the size they normally are, when I shaped and proofed them for 60 minutes (after their overnight stay in the fridge.)

Gescheckte Ötzi-Pitas: geschmacklich einwandfrei

I started rolling them out, the dough now reacted as elastic as a fresh one, but the surface of the pitas was darker, and somewhat mottled.

In the oven the defrosted pitas did not swell with a few large bubbles that merge before puffing like a balloon.

Instead, they showed many smaller bubbles that didn't quite manage to join into one large gas pocket.

The Ötzi-Pitas didn't look as nice as fresh ones, but otherwise performed amazingly well. And their taste was not different than fresh ones!

Facit: if you don't give up, and are patient enough to wait, the surviving, more frost resistant yeast cells are still able to do their job, albeit very slooooowly.

Discovery site basement freezer

MY PANTRY - ALL ABOUT YEAST

I use a lot of instant yeast!

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Fresh yeast, the default yeast for German bakers, is not an ingredient easily found in US stores. Fortunately I always preferred dried yeast - for its convenience and greater reliability - even when I was still living in Germany.

American recipes usually call for dry yeast, and people even have two kinds to choose from: instant yeast and active dry yeast (German stores only offer instant yeast: "Trockenhefe".)

Compared to instant yeast, active dry yeast contains less living cells (but more than fresh yeast), and has to be activated in water before using.

Instant yeast - the equivalent of German Trockenhefe - has the most living yeast cells, and normally can be added to the other ingredients without much ado. Only with some baking methods (like stretch-and-fold) it is better to dissolve it first, since the dough goes into the fridge right after the last fold.

Fresh yeast always has to be mixed into a pre-dough, together with flour, water and sugar, and needs to ferment for about 20 minutes, before it can be added to the dough.

In principle it doesn't matter too much what kind of yeast you use, as long as you follow the instructions on the package. But people usually develop a preference for one or the other.

Some bakers - more prevalent in Germany - consider fresh yeast the holy grail, and look down their noses at everything else. 

Active dry yeast - the usual supermarket 3-pack

American                                                                                           German           
Fresh yeast, yeast cake                                                              Würfel Hefe, frische Hefe

Instant yeast, rapid rise yeast, bread machine yeast                         Trockenhefe

Active dry yeast                                                                                       n/a

Yeast Equivalent Formula
100% fresh yeast = 50% active dry yeast = 33% instant yeast (for lean bread doughs)
                                                                  = 40% instant yeast (for rich doughs)

For example, if a recipe calls for 42 g fresh yeast (frische Hefe), you can use 21 g active dry yeast or 14 g instant yeast (Trockenhefe.)

You can use your calculator - or this neat online yeast conversion tool by Breaducation.

Yeast Type                                            Weight                Volume          Amount of Flour
1 yeast cake (Würfel Hefe)                       42 g                      -                    17.6 oz/500 g
1 sachet instant yeast (Trockenhefe)     0.25 oz/7 g*        2 1/4 tsp              17.6 oz/500 g
                                                                                         2 tsp                       1 lb/454 g   
1 sachet active dry yeast                        0.25 oz/7 g       2 1/4 tsp.              1 tsp per cup

(* Some German supermarkets also offer 11 g instant yeast sachets.)

NOTE: In my experience you often don't have to use that much yeast, you might be perfectly fine with less - especially if you don't deal with a rich dough with eggs, milk, butter and sugar.

Not easy to find - fresh yeast