Forkish Loaves taking Forever to Rise
I recently received Evolutions in Bread, by Ken Forkish, and have been using FSWY for years.
Yesterday, I made his Rye Pecan Raisin loaf, and instead of a three hour rise, it took six. I ended up baking it, and it was delicious.
This morning I am trying his 50% Einkorn loaf and I'm headed for a 6-7 hour rise it looks like, instead of the recipe's predicted 3-3 1/2 hours.
I weigh everything, I use a thermometer, and my proofing room is about 77 degrees.
I am using Costco flour, as opposed to Bread Flour, and I have Active Yeast instead of Instant Yeast (which the recipe calls for). From what I understand though, Active & Instant are somewhat interchangeable, perhaps a 15-20 minute delay on the rise with the Active instead of the instant.
Can anyone suggest an issue I might be having? The yeast is from a brand new jar of Fleischman's.
Could it be the Costco flour?
Thanks!
I've read of yeast problems where some jars and packages wouldn't work well. I don't remember if Fleischman's is among them. Try another jar or packet of preferably a different brand and see if that changes things. Also, with active dry yeast it would be better to bloom it in warm water first, so you could try that.
I see from the label that Costco's all-purpose contains malted barley, and also has a reasonably high protein content, so I wouldn't think the flour would be an issue.
Ok, thanks, I appreciate the response.
I would blame it on the flour. Have had bad experiences with this Costco product. Enjoy!
Thanks!
I use Costco’s Organic All Purpose flour in the green and white bags all the time and it works really well, so it probably isn’t that, although they do have a hotel flour that I don’t think is very good for yeast breads.
I’ve never had much luck substituting active dry yeast for instant at a ratio of 1:1, especially in recipes that don’t use much yeast to begin with, like Forkish. I would probably just up the yeast by 1.25 from his 3 grams and use 3.75 grams. I hope you have a digital scale for those small amounts.
If that doesn’t work I would test the yeast in 110° water with a bit of sugar to see if it is still active.
That difference in the amount wouldn't cause the OP's symptoms. At most it would add an hour or hour and a half to the fermenting time. I still suspect the yeast, period.