Homemade yeast

Take yeast from freshly prepared beer, pour it into any kind of linen or clean napkin (cloth), surround with a thick layer of ashes on all sides, and squeeze tightly. The ashes will draw out all the moisture and a thick dough will form from the yeast after 24 hours. Shape this dough into thin, flat cakes and dry them out on course sieves in the sun or in a moderately warm oven. Grind them into flour and store in small sacks in the open air.

Homemade yeast

Take 6 glasses coarsely sieved wheat bran. Pour 4 glasses in the bran into a stoneware bowl, add just enough boiling water to make a thick porridge, and beat with a spoon for 2 minutes. Sprinkle a large handful of bran on top, cover with a napkin (cloth) folded in half, and leave for 5 minutes, not longer. Add just enough boiling water to mix in the bran that was sprinkled on top, beat thoroughly, sprinkle on the remaining bran, and recover with a napkin for 5 minutes in order to ferment. Add boiling water for the third time, but be careful not to let it overflow; use just enough for the bran to form a dough as thick as that for bread. This time do not cover thei a napkin, but mix with a spoon or spatula until it cools. Pour off the liquid, squeezing the bran in a napkin. Add 3/4 glass hops to this liquid. (Pour 1 glass boiling water over 2 lots of hops, cover, let settle, and strain.) After all this has cooled, add 3 or 4 spoons of old yeast. Divide this mixture into 2 bottles, filling them not more than 2/3 full, stop the bottles with paper, and set in a warm place for 5-6 hours. After the yeast has risen, cork the bottles and store in a cold place. This yeast will not keep very long and quickly sours. Therefore new yeast must be prepared frequently, using 3-4 spoons of the old. Add twice as much of this yeast dough as beer yeast.

I am sorry, but I cannot find a definition for how much a "lot" of hops is. This is a very old translated recipe. I think it is another word for "pinch", but I am not 100% positive.

Another homemade yeast

Mix together a big pinch hops, a full teaspoon yellow honey, and 1/2 glass water. Bring all this thoroughly to a boil and reduce it slightly. Pour into a jar and, after it has cooled slightly, add 1 1/2 glasses fine wheat flour. Mix and set in a warm place. The yeast will be ready in 2 days. If 1/2 spoon old yeast is added, it will be ready the next day.


 Post subject: Homemade Yeast:






- One ¼ ounce packet of yeast equals 2 ¼ teaspoons.

- Measure accurately -using too little or too much yeast can have negative effects on bread baking. Too little yeast caused a heavy, dense loaf of bread, but too much yeast produces a loaf with a porous texture and overly yeasty flavor.

- Dense, low-gluten dough like those made with rye flour will rise better and faster if you increase the amount of yeast slightly.

- Dough rich in sugar (or other sweeteners), fruits or nuts often requires more yeast.

- Correct liquid temperature is the most critical variable when baking bread. The ideal liquid temperature is 90° to 120° F. If it is to cold yeast will not activate as well and to hot can kill the yeast.

- Storing yeast in freezer will make it last longer.



Yeast is just not a product you can stow away and forget about until you need it in a few years. After all, this single celled microscopic fungus is a living organism so if it's not alive at the time you need it, you‘ll get no action. When we incorporate yeast into our bread dough, beer wort or fruit juice it begins to ferment madly (we hope) and produce several by-products. If you're baking, the by-product you want is carbon dioxide which is trapped by the dough and subsequently causes it to rise. In brewing or vintning what is wanted is the ethyl alcohol and, if the drink is to be carbonated, the carbon dioxide as well.

Almost all yeasts used for these purposes are in the same genus (Saccharomyces or sugar fungi), but several different species or strains within species have evolved and some are more suitable for a particular task than others. It's entirely possible to use grocery store bread yeast to brew beer or ferment wine, but the flavor may leave a great deal to be desired. It's also possible to use yeast from ale brewing to make bread. From my limited experience with trying it myself the results were pretty much indistinguishable from bread yeast.

Types of Baking Yeasts

Leaving aside the brewing and vintning yeasts that are outside the scope of this FAQ I am going to concentrate on bread yeast. It comes in two generally available forms; compressed or fresh yeast and dried yeast which is further broken down into active dry yeast and rapid acting also known as rapid rise or bread machine yeasts. Although both of the dry yeasts are in the same species they come from different genetic strains with different performance characteristics and are processed somewhat differently from each other.

COMPRESSED DRY YEAST: Compressed yeast is only partly dried (about 70% moisture), requires refrigeration and keeps even better in a deep freezer. If kept in an air- and moisture-tight container to prevent desiccation this type of yeast will keep for a year in the freezer (0ºF, –17ºC or less), but only about two weeks in the refrigerator. Unless your kitchen is quite chilly it will not keep on the shelf. It should not have a mottled color or a sour odor. Compressed Yeast is generally available in 0.6-ounce and 2-ounce foil-wrapped cakes. For traditional baking, dissolve compressed yeast in warm (90°-95°F, 32º-35ºC ) liquids. A 0.6-ounce cake will leaven up to 4 cups of flour (about a pound). A 2-ounce cake will leaven about 12 cups or roughly three pounds of flour.

ACTIVE DRY YEAST: A granular powder with about an 8% moisture content, active dry yeast can be found in either single use foil packets or vacuum packed foil covered one pound ‘bricks’. In general bread making active dry yeast is typically dissolved in water (105º-115ºF, 40º-46ºC) along with an equal amount of sugar to give it time to resuscitate and actively begin growing before being mixed into the dry ingredients. Bread machines, however, are often different in this regard and you should follow the directions your particular machine’s manufacturer gives. Mine calls for putting the dry yeast atop the other dry ingredients completely out of contact with the liquid ingredients until the machine mixes them together. One envelope (roughly 2 ¼ teaspoons) is sufficient to leaven about four cups or roughly one pound of flour.

RAPID ACTING & BREAD MACHINE YEAST: A more finely granulated powder with a lower moisture content than standard active dry yeast the rapid acting version is designed to raise bread as much as fifty percent faster. This lends it to the ‘quick’ or ‘rapid’ cycles of many bread machines that eliminate one rise cycle of the bread dough to facilitate faster production. This form of yeast is also generally mixed with a small amount of ascorbic acid which acts as a dough conditioner to give improved rise performance. Rapid Acting yeasts often perform poorly in recipes calling for long fermentation periods. Because of its finer granulation it does not need to be dissolved in liquid first and should be added to the dry ingredients instead. In the case of bread machines follow the manufacturer’s directions. One envelope (roughly 2 ¼ teaspoons) is sufficient to leaven about four cups or roughly one pound of flour.

Interchanging Yeast Types

Can fresh, active dry, and rapid acting yeasts be used interchangeably?

Yes, to a certain extent.

To substitute Rapid Acting yeasts for Active Dry yeasts reduce the amount of Rapid Acting used by 25% from the amount of Active Dry the recipe calls for then add the dry yeast to the dry ingredients before mixing.

To substitute Active Dry for Rapid Acting increase the amount of Active Dry by 25% over what the recipe calls for of Rapid Acting yeast and dissolve in warm water (105º-115ºF, 40º-46ºC) with an equal amount of sugar before mixing in with the dry ingredients.

Once 0.6 ounce cake of fresh, compressed yeast is roughly equivalent to one pack of active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons) or to about 1 3/4 teaspoons of Rapid Acting yeast.

NOTE: Substituting one yeast type for another can be done, but will oft times require a bit of tweaking. If at all possible use the yeast type specified in the recipe. If you can’t be prepared to make adjustments where necessary.

PROOFING YEAST: Although it’s generally not necessary anymore if you are concerned that your yeast may be dead due to age or poor storage conditions any type of yeast can be tested for viability by proofing. This is nothing more than mixing a small amount of the yeast with an equal amount of sugar in warm water 105º-115ºF, 40º-46ºC for dried; 90°-95°F, 32º-35ºC for fresh). Within about five to ten minutes active yeast will become bubbly and begin to expand (at normal room temperature). Yeast which only slowly becomes active can still be used, but you will have to use more. If there is no activity at all, the yeast is dead and should be tossed. If you’ve stored your yeast in half-way decent conditions, or better yet in the freezer, proofing will usually not be necessary.

NOTE: Rapid Acting yeast loses its fast rising capabilities if dissolved in liquid for proofing, and will require two complete rises like standard active dry yeast.

STORING YEAST: All of the dry yeasts will last for months on the shelf, until the expiration date which should be clearly stamped on the package. If packaged in an air/moisture tight container and kept in the freezer it may last for several years though one year is the general recommendation most often found among various authorities. I’m presently (12/2003) using yeast stored in my refrigerator freezer in a tightly sealed canning jar with a “Best Used By” date of June, 1998 that is still going strong. The larger packs of yeast should be transferred to an air and moisture tight container after opening. A canning jar with a decent lid will suffice.