Yeast water is a natural fermentation product involving wild yeast. It is made by soaking something fermentable - usually fruit or vegetable, but can be tea or even tree bark - until fermentation happens spontaneously. Yeast, when dry, is inactive. When you hydrate the yeasts, they come into action and are hungry. The yeast that were already on the whatever-it-is that you're trying to ferment are there because that is a food source for them. When you wet that thing, the yeasts wake up and start fermenting it.
When you get the ferment going good and strong, you can use the yeast-filled water to ferment other things, like bread dough, beer, wine, whatever. To use it for baking, you would mix it in to your dough in place of some or all of the water in the recipe, and usually in place of commercial yeast or sourdough, but it can be used along with those for an added boost.
you ARE TERRIFIC! Thanks for the quickie but very clear and concise response. I have the highlands bread club here in california and have been using my own starters but now I have an added thing to try! What do you enjoy baking? your high rising gluten girl!
YW Primer in the search box and much of what you seek will be found there or go here directly. RonRay has a great string of YW posts as well.
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/35473/yw-primer
Yeast water is a natural fermentation product involving wild yeast. It is made by soaking something fermentable - usually fruit or vegetable, but can be tea or even tree bark - until fermentation happens spontaneously. Yeast, when dry, is inactive. When you hydrate the yeasts, they come into action and are hungry. The yeast that were already on the whatever-it-is that you're trying to ferment are there because that is a food source for them. When you wet that thing, the yeasts wake up and start fermenting it.
When you get the ferment going good and strong, you can use the yeast-filled water to ferment other things, like bread dough, beer, wine, whatever. To use it for baking, you would mix it in to your dough in place of some or all of the water in the recipe, and usually in place of commercial yeast or sourdough, but it can be used along with those for an added boost.
you ARE TERRIFIC! Thanks for the quickie but very clear and concise response. I have the highlands bread club here in california and have been using my own starters but now I have an added thing to try! What do you enjoy baking? your high rising gluten girl!