Yeast as Leavening and other food drama

This week I am attempting two different recipes for bread. I have made bread before, but never very successfully. Yeast does funny things at altitude and I am just not patient enough MOST of the time for the let rise until double phase. So I get bread that has great flavor but is so intensely hearty and dense that you can't eat more than the thinnest possible sliver at a time. But today, the afternoon rain cooled the house down enough that while its still higher than room temperature, one can survive without the air conditioner. So, I am going for it.  And besides, both recipes are from alton brown's baking book, so even if I do everything wrong, they should atleast be edible.

The first recipe is called, "Morning after bread." I'm working on this one now. It contains coffee, dark beer, and whole wheat, so you know its got to be good!

I'm blogging so I don't notice how long it takes to rise...

Something that is different about these recipes is that Alton suggests using "instant" or "fast rise" yeast. I have always used active dry... With active dry yeast, you have to "bloom" it in water of just the right temperature for the right amount of time for it to start to do its thing. With instant yeast, you mix the yeast with your flour and then pout the liquid and combine (liquid does still have to be that just hot to the touch temp. but it doesn't seem as precise as with active dry so far...)

What I am noticing with this change so far is how much better the rise is happening. With this recipe, I am almost instantly starting to see a change, whereas in the past I keep going back to look at the bowl, think about the temperature of the room, decide if maybe I need more heat, try to manufacture more heat without going to hot and killing the yeast... etc etc. So I am very pleased with this. the ultimate test will of course be the taste and overall texture at the end of this process.

I am also trying another recipe for a 7 grain bread. This recipe requires use of a "starter". A starter is when you give the yeast time to start working in a basic flour and water combination, it takes 48 hours, but the resulting fermentation is supposed to result in a better rise (this is important with whole grain breads and the dough, atleast in my experience, can almost seem to heavy for the rise) plus a chewier texture in the bread. I put the starter together tonight and was surprised at how fast the chemistry started to take place. This was even more dramatic since the jar I thought would be large enough, was not in fact large enough. I am really excited to make bread and see how things turn out for me this time. Bread baking has always intrigued and overwhelmed me. My hope is that this time things turn out a little better, but only time will tell... A lot of time: because I'm only on the first rise.

In other news: Tomorrow is August first. I celebrated the end of July (and the end of preservatives and high fructose corn syrup) with a snickers bar and a soda. Neither were that satisfying so I find myself even more dedicated to the cause. I also bought chocolate chips so when the sweet need arrises, I have everything I need to make something fabulous... from scratch.

I'll be back to let you know how my yeast science projects turn out, but for now:

CHEERS! LiA