Showerthought: That 'fresh' baking yeast in the grocery store is almost never worth it

I read a test from Serious Eats that compared fresh cake yeast to the standard dry packets. They found fresh yeast loses about 30% of its activity after just 10 days in a home fridge. That surprised me because I always thought fresh was somehow better for flavor. Last week I bought a block from Publix that had a sell-by date 5 days out and my dough took 3 hours to double. I will stick with dry yeast from now on. Has anyone else noticed a big difference in rise times with fresh yeast?

2 comments

2 Comments

kevin_murray8823d ago

Guess fresh yeast isn't the only thing that's expired around here.

sam_harris6823d ago

Notice how the expiration dates on packaged stuff seem to shrink every year, like cheese now goes bad a week after you open it. It's part of this whole trend where we're being trained to throw things out faster and buy more, whether it's yeast or anything else. Pretty sure our grandparents kept flour and yeast in the pantry for months without it turning into a science experiment.