"yeast" news and stories

A California brewery's beer will soon be able to get you tanked -- twice.

The Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., of Chico, Calif., will begin converting its used brewer's yeast into ethanol, the company announced this week.

The maker of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale has partnered with EFuel100 to convert the yeast starting in April, an official tells Slashfood.

"We generate tons and tons of spent brewer's yeast during the brewing cycle every day, and we'll be taking that yeast which has residual alcohol from the fermentation process left in it and converting it into biodiesel fuel to run our local route trucks," said Bill Manley, the brewery's communications coordinator.

You may remember a few weeks ago that I brought you some information on starting your own sour dough culture. That is a very worthy pursuit, but even I admit that it can be hard to maintain and can be wasteful unless you make a lot of bread. But you want that great, complex taste that comes from the long development of yeast, right?

Well, there's a solution to that problem: preferments. Preferments are mixtures of flour, water, and very small amounts of yeast that are generally allowed to develop overnight. This way, you get highly developed yeast and organic acids without having to constantly feed a starter culture. There are four basic types of preferments. Keep reading to kind out all about them.

The word proof has a lot of meanings. It can refer to alcohol content, a mathematical procedure, or evidence. However, in the world of baking, proof refers to rising dough.

Home bakers, and recipes aimed at home bakers, refer to it as "rising," but professionals call it "proofing." Proofing is a part of the bread making process where fermentation takes place, causing the dough to expand, grow, or rise (whichever term you prefer). Depending on who you ask, proofing can include the first period of fermentation, which is usually called the bulk fermentation. Most of the time, though, proofing is the second stage of fermentation, called the "second rise" by home bakers. This is the period after the final shaping when the dough is left to expand to it's proper size before baking.

Proofing is an important stage in baking (of course each stage is important in its own way) for three reasons. First off, more fermentation occurs for that much more flavor. The fermentation then causes gas production which makes the dough expand to a larger size. Also the gluten is able to relax which allows oven spring to take place.

I've seen some baking books recommend using high water temperatures, but it really is better to stay in a lower temperature range and here's why.

For some reason, I have coffee on the brain today and so decided to search for coffee pictures in the Slashfood pool. I found lots of fantastic pictures of cakes and pastries infused with coffee flavors, but this image by Sarah Gilbert, an occasional Slashfood contributor, captured my attention most of all.

Sarah has been writing for Culinate recently, expressing her passion for food and the experiences she has as she tries to feed herself and her family a more sustainable and local diet. Her most recent piece is about her process making sourdough starter from scratch. If you haven't been following her writing over there, you should definitely check it out, as her enthusiasm for food, eating and cooking is contagious and inspiring.

Source