Can't find bread-baking yeast in the stores? Collect your own!

[mainer]

I love it when people with ancient knowledge share it on Twitter. Here's how to collect your own yeast for baking purposes, Sorry, it's from Twitter, so you have to follow his thread to get his entire instructions.

Link to tweet

[handmade34]

1. crazy shortage of yeast...

sourdough starter is relatively easy... rye flour is best for start...

[central scrutinizer]

8. I started with organic wheat and rye berries

Ran them through my hand crank mill. Day 1: 1/4 cup of orange juice (using this instead of water raises the acidity and retards the growth of bacteria), 1/4 cup of the milled grain, let it sit at room temperature. Days 2-14: 1/4 cup of orange juice, 1/4 cup of milled grain, half of the previous day’s mixture. It should start bubbling in a few days but the additional days of feeding help make it more complex and robust. After this initial period, I only use water and flour to feed it. Once established, it’s pretty resilient and can survive many days of neglect in the refrigerator.

[safeinOhio]

2. There is always Beer Bread.

Taste great too. No yeast.

[Lulu KC]

3. No yeast

is the only thing standing between me and the bread my husband would be baking. it's better that he not bake it. I would prefer not to be sentenced to muumuus for life after this is over.

BUT this is so interesting! How can we not try it?

[Hotler]

4. Guinness beer bread. Yum.

Use Guinness out of a can, it has more carbonation.

[womanofthehills]

5. I always have sourdough starter in my fridge

About 3 months ago I started baking my own bread.

[TheBlackAdder]

6. When I read the OP title, it reminded me of a dirty joke told back in middle school! 😂

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Wow. I make wine, not as much as I used to, but a hint, go to a wine place, perhaps they'll have...

yeast there. Or, perhaps a beer place or wine place (a Mom and Pop place), might have yeast there.

I hope those DUers that make or sell wine/beer/etc., take advantage of this market opportunity to sell their excess yeast. There are (if your geographic area is like the STLMO area), there's a lot of small Mom and Pop (mostly Pop) beer places all over the country, that'll have yeast on hand. That's the yeast that they can do for the country (ha ha heh, I had to get a joke in here).

I do have lots of yeast (well, not tons of it), but I do use it, to make wine and sometimes bread if I feel like it.

Also, a hint to extend your yeast supply...always when you make a batch of bread (or in my case, wine), I always reserve some of the mixture to the side for later use (e.g., saving the yeast mixture for later batches of wine).

Take care.

[MuseRider]

9. I still have a little left

I have been baking bread since we first started the "stay at home" orders in my state. I love doing it but in a pinch I use a bread machine. I am very glad that my old machine, from the late 70's?, finally broke down right before Christmas so I have a nice new one. I never thought about yeast being hard to find.

I have tired sourdough starting but never was able to keep it going. It looks like times will force me to try all of this again! A good thing to know. Thank you!

[Retrograde]

10. It's not hard, but it does take time

My husband decided to make sourdough bread last summer - it took about 2 weeks to get the first usable batch. Plus, you have to tend it regularly to get it started, and then to keep it going.

I've made "injera" with wild yeast and teff flour (quotes because I didn't have the proper grandmother to show me how to turn the batter into proper flatbreads - they tasted OK but weren't that thin, large stuff you get at Ethiopian restaurants) which was quicker, but still took 3 days.

[Demonaut]

11. spit in the dough, we all are loaded with yeast