Red Star sourdough yeast?

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Steve Broady
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Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by Steve Broady »

Has anyone tried using the Red Star “Instant Sourdough yeast+sourdough culture” for alcohol fermentation? I bought a bunch when it was on sale at the local grocery store, and added it to my growing yeast collection. If it’s no good for hooch, I’ll definitely use it for bread or pizzas. But I can’t help wondering if it would do anything interesting to something that’s going to be distilled.
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The Baker
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by The Baker »

Well it's got lactobacillus in it.
And people talk about lacto fermentation...

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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by subbrew »

Have yet to use sourdough starter for a fermentation destined for the still but have used it on a beer fermentation. It gave a flavor profile very similar to an english ale yeast. I have seen people on this form use English ale yeast for whiskey so I would say you can use it. The lacto is rather slow going to you will probably not see a lot of contribution from it unless you really let your mash sit.
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by Demy »

Never used but could be interesting in a cereal ferment. I think it is an imitation of the real mother yeast used in bread making
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by Steve Broady »

Any idea what flavor profiles this stuff might be likely to add to a product? Pretending for a minute that I had the experience and skill (I don’t, not yet) to tailor a grain bill to a specific target flavor, what might a lactic fermentation do or compliment well?

I had mainly been thinking about grain, but that’s because I like whiskey. However, I was reading a thread on here about making a faux tequila, and it mentioned using a lactic fermentation in order to get the right flavor. I tried making tequila from agave syrup, and a somewhat more complicated recipe, and both were complete failures as tequila. I more or less expected that to happen, because the consensus here seems to be that tequila is just about impossible to imitate without actual agave. It would be nice if something like this yeast turned out to be a tolerable hack, though. Just the sorts of things that I wonder about in my lack of experience.
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by rubberduck71 »

Bearded & Bored did a YT vid on this concept. Check it out for some ideas:
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by contrahead »

I've used that Red Star sourdough (identical package) twice now for making bread. It works satisfactorily, but is nothing to get excited about as sourdoughs go. The flavors created by lactic acid bacteria are mildly noticeable; not distinctive.

That Bearded & Bored video displays an unusual method of creating a starter culture. It does not take a week to create a starter culture; which can be done in just a couple of days. But by the time (supposedly 7 days) he finishes playing with it (dividing the culture, feeding it more) it looks as if he does create a very active community of yeast and bacteria. The time lapse photography beginning about 2:04 min shows that activity.

Pretty much all breads before the turn of the 19th century were sourdoughs. Scientist were just beginning to discover what yeast were all about; city bakers would buy the krausen skimmed off the tops of ale vats – to use in the making of their “sweetbreads” and Czechs were inventing lager beers that somehow fermented in cold caves or underground cellars.

* I also think (I might be wrong) that the importation of sugar from new plantations in the American tropics, made sugar far more available and less expensive (before sugar was an expensive spice) and that sugar combined with the purification of yeast strains led to modern baking. The enzymes in sourdough bacteria previously, might have aided in the breakdown of starches from wheat flower. But a domesticated yeast, by itself, can not make bread flower rise (well). Modern bread recipes all call for sugar, which the yeast can process, create CO2 from, which gets trapped in the gluten of wheat flower – and makes modern bread rise.

There are hundreds of ways to create a sourdough starter. One of the simplest is to open a can or bottle of beer, drink half of it, and then let the rest sit on the kitchen counter top for about a week. That will capture enough wild yeast and bacteria to make a loaf of bread; but more importantly to save out a little to act as the yeast starter for future baking. Starters begun from potatoes work well too. But you do not to feed, pay with and provoke a starter every day -as he shows.

Another thing. It is thoroughly possible to separate the bacteria from the yeast. Knowledgeable bakers did this in previous centuries by boiling water with a few ounces of hops in it. This hops water was then used to make / capture and grow yeast, while simultaneously discouraging the reproduction of new bacteria. Somewhere in <this book> are some old recipes for “making yeast”.

Personally, I've enough distractions pertaining to the art of distillation as it is, without complicating issues by introducing new variables, like the ester potential from lactic acid bacteria.
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by TwoSheds »

One additional factor we can manipulate with a sourdough starter: Cooler temps retard the activity of both yeast and lacto bacteria, but approaching standard refrigerator temperatures (40F give or take) the yeast slows a lot more than the lacto. If you smell a starter after a month in the fridge you'll get a strong hit of acid.

So, if you want more 'sour' some time at cooler temps will get there without exhausting your yeast. I use two overnight rests with my sourdough bread and get more tang than any commercial sourdough bread I've had.

Like Contrahead I've got enough other experiments in the queue without adding this one, but if I were to try it I think I'd want to try it with rum. Could bring on some interesting esters.
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by The Baker »

contrahead said 'Modern bread recipes all call for sugar,,
but this is not so. There is usually no added cane (or similar) sugar in bread dough.

https://www.busbysbakery.com gives a complex and scientific explanation of how the starches in flour are converted
to (various) sugars so that the yeast can ferment the dough.

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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by TwoSheds »

The Baker wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:32 pm contrahead said 'Modern bread recipes all call for sugar,,
but this is not so. There is usually no added cane (or similar) sugar in bread dough.
I caught that too. There is often added sugar in most modern bread recipes but Geoff is correct, table sugar is not needed in bread and there are definitely plenty of counter examples. I didn't get into the source material but I wonder if they're referencing commercial bread. Like most commercial food it has sugar added often for flavor more than to support yeast activity.

There are very close parallels between baking and brewing. In either you can add table sugar, the yeast will need to convert it into simpler sugars to consume it but they certainly will. If you only use grains then there will need to be some conversion of the starches for yeast to consume. In bread like in brewing this also happens via enzymes that are present in the flour.

With bread it helps that the flour is ground very fine. Also we don't necessarily look for full conversion like we do in brewing. The yeast just need to be active enough to make CO2 to rise (and contribute flavors etc.)
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Re: Red Star sourdough yeast?

Post by contrahead »

The Baker wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 7:32 pm
https://www.busbysbakery.com gives a complex and scientific explanation of how the starches in flour are converted
to (various) sugars so that the yeast can ferment the dough.

Geoff
My bad. I've only ever seen about a half dozen bread recipes, and they all seem to have listed sugar as an ingredient. I'll except your word on the subject. I did limit my paragraph about sugar - in blue text though – with the proviso that I was not sure about it all.

Thats a good informative link about the science of bread-making. I can't sit here to read and absorb any of that information right now though because I have other duties to preform today.

I do need to understand more about this hydrolysis process – and how it makes simple sugars available. Understandably, invertase is produced naturally by yeast. But I also want to learn how the amylase which is mentioned – got into the dough to begin with. Where does the amylase come from?

Quotes:
- “a dough with low sugar content can also cause anaerobic respiration to take over. It often happens when making whole wheat dough......... a bitter aroma..........To counteract the bitterness table sugar is often added”.
- “A small amount of table sugar in a dough recipe will provide a steady stream of food for the yeast. This is ideal if you want to prove it quickly”.
- “if the dough contains a lot of sugar, the activity of the yeast is hindered.......When there is too much sugar it causes osmotic stress. This is where the yeast is so dehydrated it cannot operate”.
- “ If you suspect that your flour has a low quota of active amylase you can add activated malt flour (malted barley)”.
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