I have read that fast-rising instant yeasts like RapidRise are no good for cold proofing because they lose rising ability after a fast initial surge of activity. I have read this on a pizza forum, and I think also here on TFL. On the pizza site the writer said he had tested RapidRise, instant but not rapid rising, and active dry yeast and that the differences were clear.
This didn't make much sense to me. The rapid rising variety supposedly is processed with extra yeast nutrients to allow for very fast proofing. I didn't see why, once those nutrients were used up, that the yeast wouldn't perform like any other.
Today I put it to the test. As in 10 days in the refrigerator. And RapidRise performed like a champion.
The dough is the recipe for Lebanese pizza dough, right out of the Man'oushe book. It's essentially 65% hydration, all purpose flour, a little oil and sugar - a nice everyday, go-to dough. I made a batch, bulk fermented it for a few hours, portioned it into 4 parts, and put three into the refrigerator.
Today, after ten days in the refrigerator, I had two pieces left. I took one of them, formed it into a very small batarde, and let it warm up for an hour, then slashed and baked with steam at 450 deg F/230C. You will see from the pictures that you could not ask for a better rise. And it tastes very good, too. Not like a good sourdough, but a little mellow and buttery.
I'm not going to worry about cold proofing with any kind of instant yeast.
And the last piece of dough, the one left over after the batarde test, what happened with it? Chili pizza!
Another myth is you can’t use ady without reconstituting. I’ve not experimented with that though.
According to this King Arthur page, ADY has been reformulated and no longer needs to be activated by pre-soaking:
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2015/09/25/active-dry-yeast
https://artisanbreadinfive.com/2013/10/22/the-new-artisan-bread-in-five-minutes-a-day-is-launched-back-to-basics-updated/
The original premise was to make a large batch of simple yeasted dough and then refrigerate for up to a week (i think). Each day you take off a piece of dough, enough for one bread, roughly shape, proof and bake.
Right, and I know the book. The specific matter in question here is whether there is something about the RapidRise variety (and similar products) of IDY that cause it to perform badly after refrigeration. One fellow in a pizza forum claimed that IDY varieties supplied to commercial bakeries were not formulated to have an extremely fast early rise, and (he claimed) that they did fine with a cold retard unlike (he claimed) super fast-rising instant yeasts for home bakers of the RapidRise style (also, IIRC, instant yeasts sold for bread machines, and for the same reasons).
If this were correct, it would be an argument for using active dry yeast rather than quick instant dry yeasts if you plan of refrigerating your dough. But from my little experiment, the RapidRise does perfectly fine.
SAF IDY works great for multi day cold fermentation.
So I have read elsewhere. I can't get it in my local supermarket and I hate to pay shipping charges for a few ounces of starter, so I'm happy to stick with RapidRise if it will do the job, which apparently it can.