Converting Sourdough Panettone to Commercial Yeast?
Hi All,
I was on a panettone baking kick this holiday season, and I had great luck using Ignio Massari's recipe here (in Italian) that uses fresh yeast and 4 different doughs.
https://blog.giallozafferano.it/pastafantasiae/panettone-con-lievito-di-birra/
Inspired, I tried using my stiff starter (Lievito Madre) to try Massari's traditional recipe, and it seems that my starter wasn't strong enough, as I couldn't get my panettone to leven. I used this recipe:
https://www.lievitonaturale.org/dolci_panettone_Massari.php
How can I convert Massari's traditional 2 dough Lievito Madre recipe to using KAF Gold yeast? His starter is 60 grams. His other recipe with 4 doughs uses a total of 2 grams instant yeast (or 6 grams fresh yeast).
And would rising times change, assuming a constant temperature of around 83 degrees F?
Separately, any advice on how to strengthen my Lievito Madre?
Thanks!
I may have found a potential answer, but I'd still need to test it and I'd still like to hear other's opinions.
The conversion from stiff starter (45% - 50%) to liquid starter (100% and what the Italians call licoli or li.co.li) is .66. Meaning, for every 1 gram stiff starter in a recipe, to use a liquid starter you would only use .66 grams, adding the missing weight in flour on the side.
Then, the general rule of thumb I've heard is for every 100 grams of liquid starter, use 5 - 7 grams of commercial yeast.
So, Massari's traditional recipe uses 60g of stiff starter. Multiply that by 1.33 (the inverse of .66) and you get about 80 grams of liquid starter. From there, multiply 80g by 5% to 7% and I get to 4g - 5.6g of instant yeast, which is about the same as Massari's commercial yeast recipe.
To be further consistent with what Massari's commercial yeast recipe does, I'd probably build a stiff 45-50% hydration "biga" by adding 1 or 2 grams of yeast overnight, then adding the remaining yeast to the first dough.
Does that sound about right?