I find that Granny Smith or another tart apple is best. I moved my starter from AL to Va back to AL and then back permanently to Va. No loss no harm as far as how it acts it’s dependent on what you feed it seems not where you are.
I use a clean clear plastic qt container with snap on lid. I fill about 2/3 full and feed a 1” pieces chopped 1/2 GS or other tart apple. Leave in a very warm area till fizzy85-90 degrees. This is after you have one going. As far as starting one there are different methods but it’s basically stir well a couple times a day to get O2 in and keep it warm.
The biggest mistake folks make is this is sn aerobic process not anaerobic. Do not leave it sealed up hoping to get giant overflowing fizziness! That’s alcohol at work not yeast. There is a forum where everyone wants to show off their enormous amounts of carbonation. All wrong. A slight fizz you can hear is plenty.
Feed before using with fresh apple and then take out what you are going to use..Return to fridge and leave apple or not. Makes no difference. If apple pieces sink replace. When white gunk builds up in the bottom of the container gently pour out the clear YW and discard the dead yeast cells and replenish water/ apple.
You can’t really make a mistake. Bread made with YW will rise best at higher temps. It will be fresher longer and no sour taste. It will rise enriched doughs well.
does apple water starter taste anything like apple in the final bread? If it was like Calvados, where there is a hint but not a profound apple taste, I'd be really excited.
There is no taste or an overt sweetness in the final product. The only fruit that I have found that has a profound influence on taste is banana. I make a banana SD bread from TFL that was posted a long time ago. It uses banana YW and SD. The flavor is amazing and the vibrancy of the YW is wonderful as far as rising power.
The main function for me of YW is the lack of a sour flavor and then extended tenderness of the crumb and the much longer freshness of the bread as compared to SD. I make my Challah with YW and it is tender and flavorful days after it is made as compared to all of the Challah which are only good for French Toast or croutons etc after 24 hrs.
Give it a whirl and see how you like it. Only takes a week. Make sure and put some YW and flour together to test its viability before using. It should double for sure overnight but if very warm will double in a couple hours.
got me going with my apple yeast water a couple years ago, and I've had my culture going since then. I replenish just like she describes above, by changing out the chopped Granny Smith when the old pieces sink. Works great.
I also tried an experiment that has been working well... I made up a 100% hydration starter with the YW and bread flour and it sits in the fridge right next to my trusty sourdough and the YW. So if I'm feeling lazy it's already ready to feed once and add to dough. As a preferment, it smells nice and yeasty without the alcoholic tang of the sourdough, and rises bread like a champ. She's right though, whether I use the starter or the straight YW it rises best with heat. My oven has a "proof" function that works perfectly.
During the summer it gets too hot in the house to run the oven. So all three of these cultures sit in the fridge for several weeks (up to a couple months) in between feedings, and they always do fine.
But I have a separate container with a starter made from YW and flour. It's like sourdough, except there's no l. acidophilus in it. So it's a yeast-only culture.
Do you mean you made a YW starter by mixing YW with flour and keep refreshing it? Then surely LABs would colonize it... Or do you make it using your YW every time fresh?
if you took it to a lab they might be able to isolate some LAB from it. But to my nose it doesn't smell that way. It just has the familiar apple-beer smell of the YW. And the resulting bread isn't sour at all.
I don’t bother to keep a YW/ flour starter going at present. I have in the past. When using it to bake as a levain for the bread this is the procedure I follow.
I take out my YW and if it’s been awhile I remove old apple carefully pour off the clear YW throw out the sludge in the bottom and place the remaining YW with new filtered water and chopped Granny Smith ( or other tart apple) in a warm place to revitalize the yeasts. I also remove some of the stored flour/YW starter when the above YW is fizzy and add that and fresh flour to make the needed levain. If there is extra as there usually is I stir it back into the stored starter which revitalizes it as well.
I use whatever flour suits my fancy so the stored mixture is a hodgepodge!
I hope this clears up the storage/ usage question.
I've only recently been making breads with YW, but already the process has enthralled.
It does beg the question what are the benefits of using a regular sourdough starter over YW? So far I've always done a double build (as per the YW community bake here) so maybe the double build process means it is more difficult to prepare for a bake? What I'm trying to say here is that the YW is so easy to do, isn't sour (which I prefer sometimes), has no difficulty in raising the bread, about the only downsides I can see is the double build and that you need to keep it warm when baking with it. Unless I'm missing something obvious.
Also, can you convert the YW from one fruit to another? Mine is being fed (expensive) organic raisins, it might be more cost effective to just start feeding it apples. Although it is probably also simple enough to just start a new one with tart apples.
The banana YW recipe also sounds so interesting. Are there specific recipes that would work best with the flavour of the banana?
Convert the banana rye to YW by making the levain with YW and then use the YW as the water in the rye main dough. It works great!
You will also see Shiao Ping mentioned. To do adequate searches for TFL you have to go out of the site and use Google with the subject you want and The Fresh Loaf in the search. The search feature here is useless.
I can look more later through my conversions with banana. I will post back later. C
I tried using raisins at first, but didn't care for the taste they imparted to the bread. Way too beer-like for me. After I tried @Trailrunner's suggestion of the Granny Smith apples that was as far as I needed to go. The apple has a much brighter flavor than the raisins IMHO.
You should check out RonRay's post here. He did an exhaustive study of multiple different fruits and even vegetables as yeast sources and it's a fascinating read.
That is an excellent discussion about all things yeast water and for those interested in yeast water very well worth the time to read through it. I still have my grape yeast water from about 2 years ago when we did the yeast water based community bake. I keep meaning to use it to bake something but haven’t yet. I assume that it will help restart a new yeast water quickly even after all this time, but the only way to find out is to try that out with some fresh fruit, in this case more grapes.
I find that Granny Smith or another tart apple is best. I moved my starter from AL to Va back to AL and then back permanently to Va. No loss no harm as far as how it acts it’s dependent on what you feed it seems not where you are.
I use a clean clear plastic qt container with snap on lid. I fill about 2/3 full and feed a 1” pieces chopped 1/2 GS or other tart apple. Leave in a very warm area till fizzy85-90 degrees. This is after you have one going. As far as starting one there are different methods but it’s basically stir well a couple times a day to get O2 in and keep it warm.
The biggest mistake folks make is this is sn aerobic process not anaerobic. Do not leave it sealed up hoping to get giant overflowing fizziness! That’s alcohol at work not yeast. There is a forum where everyone wants to show off their enormous amounts of carbonation. All wrong. A slight fizz you can hear is plenty.
Feed before using with fresh apple and then take out what you are going to use..Return to fridge and leave apple or not. Makes no difference. If apple pieces sink replace. When white gunk builds up in the bottom of the container gently pour out the clear YW and discard the dead yeast cells and replenish water/ apple.
You can’t really make a mistake. Bread made with YW will rise best at higher temps. It will be fresher longer and no sour taste. It will rise enriched doughs well.
I think that’s about it. c
does apple water starter taste anything like apple in the final bread? If it was like Calvados, where there is a hint but not a profound apple taste, I'd be really excited.
There is no taste or an overt sweetness in the final product. The only fruit that I have found that has a profound influence on taste is banana. I make a banana SD bread from TFL that was posted a long time ago. It uses banana YW and SD. The flavor is amazing and the vibrancy of the YW is wonderful as far as rising power.
The main function for me of YW is the lack of a sour flavor and then extended tenderness of the crumb and the much longer freshness of the bread as compared to SD. I make my Challah with YW and it is tender and flavorful days after it is made as compared to all of the Challah which are only good for French Toast or croutons etc after 24 hrs.
Give it a whirl and see how you like it. Only takes a week. Make sure and put some YW and flour together to test its viability before using. It should double for sure overnight but if very warm will double in a couple hours.
got me going with my apple yeast water a couple years ago, and I've had my culture going since then. I replenish just like she describes above, by changing out the chopped Granny Smith when the old pieces sink. Works great.
I also tried an experiment that has been working well... I made up a 100% hydration starter with the YW and bread flour and it sits in the fridge right next to my trusty sourdough and the YW. So if I'm feeling lazy it's already ready to feed once and add to dough. As a preferment, it smells nice and yeasty without the alcoholic tang of the sourdough, and rises bread like a champ. She's right though, whether I use the starter or the straight YW it rises best with heat. My oven has a "proof" function that works perfectly.
During the summer it gets too hot in the house to run the oven. So all three of these cultures sit in the fridge for several weeks (up to a couple months) in between feedings, and they always do fine.
So you feed this YW with flour repeatedly ?
But I have a separate container with a starter made from YW and flour. It's like sourdough, except there's no l. acidophilus in it. So it's a yeast-only culture.
Do you mean you made a YW starter by mixing YW with flour and keep refreshing it? Then surely LABs would colonize it... Or do you make it using your YW every time fresh?
if you took it to a lab they might be able to isolate some LAB from it. But to my nose it doesn't smell that way. It just has the familiar apple-beer smell of the YW. And the resulting bread isn't sour at all.
Interesting, thanks!
I don’t bother to keep a YW/ flour starter going at present. I have in the past. When using it to bake as a levain for the bread this is the procedure I follow.
I take out my YW and if it’s been awhile I remove old apple carefully pour off the clear YW throw out the sludge in the bottom and place the remaining YW with new filtered water and chopped Granny Smith ( or other tart apple) in a warm place to revitalize the yeasts. I also remove some of the stored flour/YW starter when the above YW is fizzy and add that and fresh flour to make the needed levain. If there is extra as there usually is I stir it back into the stored starter which revitalizes it as well.
I use whatever flour suits my fancy so the stored mixture is a hodgepodge!
I hope this clears up the storage/ usage question.
I've only recently been making breads with YW, but already the process has enthralled.
It does beg the question what are the benefits of using a regular sourdough starter over YW? So far I've always done a double build (as per the YW community bake here) so maybe the double build process means it is more difficult to prepare for a bake? What I'm trying to say here is that the YW is so easy to do, isn't sour (which I prefer sometimes), has no difficulty in raising the bread, about the only downsides I can see is the double build and that you need to keep it warm when baking with it. Unless I'm missing something obvious.
Also, can you convert the YW from one fruit to another? Mine is being fed (expensive) organic raisins, it might be more cost effective to just start feeding it apples. Although it is probably also simple enough to just start a new one with tart apples.
The banana YW recipe also sounds so interesting. Are there specific recipes that would work best with the flavour of the banana?
Once the YW is created, you can switch to any other fruit. Even non-organic, to make it cheaper.
TX Farmer used to post and I am linking a formula that you can use that does very well with banana YW,
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/27666/banana-light-rye-and-banana-quick-bread
Convert the banana rye to YW by making the levain with YW and then use the YW as the water in the rye main dough. It works great!
You will also see Shiao Ping mentioned. To do adequate searches for TFL you have to go out of the site and use Google with the subject you want and The Fresh Loaf in the search. The search feature here is useless.
I can look more later through my conversions with banana. I will post back later. C
https://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/55132/2-yeast-water-levainsrye-banana-sd-pecans-and-dates-take-ll
I tried using raisins at first, but didn't care for the taste they imparted to the bread. Way too beer-like for me. After I tried @Trailrunner's suggestion of the Granny Smith apples that was as far as I needed to go. The apple has a much brighter flavor than the raisins IMHO.
You should check out RonRay's post here. He did an exhaustive study of multiple different fruits and even vegetables as yeast sources and it's a fascinating read.
That is an excellent discussion about all things yeast water and for those interested in yeast water very well worth the time to read through it. I still have my grape yeast water from about 2 years ago when we did the yeast water based community bake. I keep meaning to use it to bake something but haven’t yet. I assume that it will help restart a new yeast water quickly even after all this time, but the only way to find out is to try that out with some fresh fruit, in this case more grapes.
Benny