I have some dried yeast which is about 3 years past its best by date. It froths a little when left for 30 mins in warm water with a little molasses, and I'm wondering whether leaving it overnight would improve its performance, or whether the age makes it unusable. I don't want to waste my precious wholemeal flour when I'm making bread!

It sounds okay. It may be a bit slow to activate, so use a recipe that involves a slow (preferably overnight) rise followed by a further rising after the bread is shaped.

Has it been kept in the fridge? It will last a lot longer than its best before date if kept in dry, cool conditions. Also, it's a best before date, not "use by", so the manufacturers know it can last a lot longer than the date they put on it.

I think leaving it overnight would cause problems. Your yeast is likely to end up pretty tired, deflated and possibly dead.

If it were me, I'd use it. Some new yeast might be more difficult to get at the moment than wholemeal flour anyway. I'm getting a bit low on the usual yeast I use (Bakel's instant active dry yeast) and would normally buy a new packet at this point but couldn't get any of course. My other half was doing the week's grocery shop and proudly presented me with a huge block of fresh yeast. Startling! Do I want this? I hadn't used fresh yeast for years. I stuck it in the freezer (which you do unless you're planning on making a HEAP of bread over the next few days). I decided to test it before totally running out of my Bakel's yeast and potentially having nothing to make my daily bread with. It didn't froth, AT ALL. I decided to make my regular two loaves with it anyway and just eat dense, awful bread if it didn't work. It worked beautifully and I have two delicious, well-risen loaves to eat. So I hope that's the case for yours too - sometimes frothing is not something to be relied on either.

J1 - you can buy Bakels online if you need some more. I love baking with fresh yeast, but don't get to do it as often as I'd like. I bought a block when I went to Gilmours the day before lockdown, and I think after using about 1/8th of it the block it is now sitting as a dried lump in the back of my fridge. I freeze granulated yeast, but never though about freezing fresh yeast for some reason.

Karena, I also wouldn't leave it over night as it sounds like the yeast is struggling to begin with. Perhaps use more than you usually would and keep an eye on it starting to deflate during the second rise. I pulled an 8 year old jar of Edmonds Active Yeast balls from the freezer a few weeks back. I did the same as you, and it did perk up and froth decently. I suspect it was being kept in the freezer that made the difference though.

[equagold.co.nz]

Hi Jenna, thanks for your suggestion about buying Bakels yeast online. I still have a bit of my old packet and I will use all the fresh yeast in my freezer (waste not want not) so it will be aaaaaaaages before I need to purchase any yeast now In fact, writing this has made me wonder how long it will take me to use the fresh yeast block in the freezer. So let's see....... 579+175x38-9753x538*4d<98ddf>587x79275 ......it will be at least a year before I need any more yeast...

Yes, that will be a while, lol. I'm so annoyed I didn't think to freeze the fresh yeast.

Thanks everyone for your help with this. Miraculously a large packet of Bakel's yeast has just arrived with my supermarket order. Not a brand I've used before, but I'm sure it will be fine, and the best by date is some time in 2021!

Bakel's yeast is fantastic, Karena. You don't need to use much though. For an average loaf I'd use 3/4-1tsp.

Decant some to another container and store the excess in the freezer and it'll last much much longer than 2021

So interesting to read the comments about yeast. I thought that for example the various dried yeasts would all perform the same regardless of brand. I Will look out for Bakels when the time comes and also buy a block of fresh yeast which I have seen but did not buy because of the size. When you freeze fresh yeast do you cut it up into smaller cubes?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2020 08:00AM by Chris.

Hi Chris, re your question about cutting fresh yeast up into smaller cubes, that is the ideal goal but you'll find fresh yeast isn't inclined to cooperate; it will crumble. So, essentially, just crumble it up.

Conversion rate is something like:
dry yeast 1.5g / fresh yeast 3g
dry yeast 3g / fresh yeast 6g
dry 4g / fresh 10g
6g / 12g
7g / 17g
14g / 34g
28g / 68g

Thank you J1 for your advice. Have you got any idea for how long the fresh yeast will survive in the freezer? It would be nice to share the yeast but all of my friends are scared of using fresh yeast and use only dried.

That's a good question, Chris; I had no idea. I looked it up and found this might be the best advice about it:

[www.thefreshloaf.com]
It includes the statement "It will definitely keep well frozen up to a year this way."
The say that information is from "Baker's yeast, article by Bernard Poitrenaud, Lesaffre International, France, in Handbook of Food and Beverage Fermentation Technology By Stig Friberg, Yiu H. Hui, 2004"

I have mine in an ice-cream container. I should probably put that inside a plastic bag......a job for tomorrow.....

Thank you J1. You are a fountain of knowledge.

Google is my best friend

Actually, that needs refining. All the PEOPLE who contribute the information found on Google are my best friends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/23/2020 01:16AM by J1.

Chris asked a question in another thread this week about dried yeast, so I thought I'd update this thread as it's been a year since I put the block of fresh yeast in our freezer. I've been using it regularly to make my daily bread and it's been absolutely fine the whole time. I expect to finish it in May this year.