King Arthur, Reinhart, White Bread and Yeast

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CountryBoy on 23 Apr 2009 at 14:53

I spoke with KA today and asked re the tripling of a recipe for white bread. In this case the white bread with DMS of Reinhart on p. 266 of his Bread Bakers Apprentice. I wanted to triple the recipe and was asking re the amount of yeast. The original recipe calls for 4 3/4 cups of flour and I wanted to triple that to 14 3/4 cups. But how much yeast if they call for 2 tsps to go with the 4 3/4 cups of the recipe? The KA rep said that the rule of thumb is up to 12 cups of flour the amount of yeast is 2 tsps for bread that is going to be placed in a pan and is not artisan or free form. Could people please clarify their view on the question? Doesn't the flour need more yeast to handle the increase in flour?

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Maverick on 23 Apr 2009 at 16:30

If you triple the recipe, you triple all the ingredients including yeast. This is the basis behind baker's percentages. You can make any amount of dough as long as the proportions stay the same.

just tripling the amouts does not always work.  you want the proportions of the ingredients to stay the same - and that doesn't always happen when you are using imperial measurements.  that's why weights need to be used with the percentage.

Yes, I did mean by weight. But shimpiphany makes a good point to clarify this fact. If measuring by volume (as seems to be the conversion used in the original post), tripling the volume can compound any errors in measurement that may result.

tripling imperial measurements will always keep the proportions the same unless your mathematical abilities fail you. For instance:" 4 3/4 x 3 = 14 1/4 rather than 14 3/4 as stated above. If working with fractions proves tricky, convert to metric.

i believe reinhardt has the baker's percentages in the book, so use that, or use the weights to calculate the % of yeast to flour, then use that to calculate the amount of yeast for your tripled recipe.  i've set up a basic spreadsheet that allows me to just plug in these numbers, might be a good idea to do the same as it will work for all your recipes.

Does anyone care to comment on the KA perspective of the

the rule of thumb is up to 12 cups of flour the amount of yeast is 2 tsps for bread that is going to be placed in a pan and is not artisan or free form.

 

Perhaps they meant 2 tsp/bread? Of course in this case it would be easier to say 1 tsp of yeast for every 2 cups of flour.  Or perhaps they did not include S&H?

The BBA lists the baker's percentage on all recipes so you can calculate the amounts  yourself, CB.

Wild-Yeast has instructions at her [url=http://www.wildyeastblog.com/2008/04/13/bakers-percentage-3/][u]blog[/u][/url].

So does King Arthur Flour [url=http://www.kingarthurflour.com/professional/bakerspercentage.pdf][u]here[/u][/url]

If you run into any hurdles, am sure there's plenty of people here who could help.

I remain curious...

Does anyone care to comment on the KA perspective that the rule of thumb is up to 12 cups of flour the amount of yeast is 2 tsps for bread that is going to be placed in a pan and is not artisan or free form.

I have seen this suggested elsewhere, and KA do have considerable experience and expertise.

I believe KA's theory is that by the time you shape or bake your final loaf it may be overproofed if too much yeast is used. I suppose the reason behind the loaf pan distinction may be that you have a more confined space and it can bubble over. However, I find it strange that they would make the distinction. Yeast is one of those components that is completely adjustable to help things fit your schedule. Less yeast means longer rise time, and more yeast means shorter rise time. This also affects flavor. However, with an enriched bread, longer rise times are generally not really needed for flavor. If you want the timing to be the same as the recipe, then scale the yeast accordingly. If you want to leave yourself more time just in case, use less yeast.
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Maverick on 27 Apr 2009 at 08:56

While KA shows that scaling all ingredients following bakers percentage as linked by LindyD is fine, I found this in a document on their site that may explain it better than I did above: Up-sizing Unlike many baking recipes, you can increase the size of most bread recipes simply by doubling, tripling, etc. all of the ingredients. The exception is the yeast; if you increase the amount of yeast at the same rate you increase everything else, you may find yourself with a lot of dough on your hands and not enough time to deal with it. For example, by the time you’ve shaped the eighth loaf, the first may be well on its way to doubled in size; eventually you’ll start feeling like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice! Most home bread bakers prefer to stick with 1 tablespoon of yeast, for up to eight loaves, and just giving the bread a longer, slower rise. Not only does this improve the flavor, it slows down the rising dough so that you can work with it more effectively.