On Yeast

Bubbly, natural yeast used for rising bread dough, is fickle.  I've spent years of daily feedings learning its ways.  If you decide to make a natural yeast starter from scratch, a typical feeding regimen from water and flour to yeast takes about three weeks.

There are many different starter concentrations and hydrations ("wetness" of the starter) to be used in your final dough. To name a few, there are "young" levains, sour starter, liquid levain, and salted bigas.

Looking back at my experimentation, I have found the following factors to be the key decision points in determining the final outcome:

• Starter concentration by hydratation.
• Usage of commercial yeast in place of or in addition to natural starters in rising.
• Feeding times.  How many times per day?
• Resulting cell concentration and cell "hunger" from feeding schedule.
• How much starter to use by total dough weight.
• Overnight retarding in bulk rise vs. rising in shaped form vs. using a same-day bulk rise formula