3 Types of Yeasts to Know When Making Homemade Pizza
Channel: Son of a Pizza Man
Date: 17/08/2018

Do you know the difference between Instant, Active Dry and Cake Yeast? Let me help! If you've ever been confused about which yeast to use for pizza, I explain all in this video. Happy Rising!

#pizza #yeast

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CREDITS!
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Music courtesy of:
--Ben Sound: www.bensound.com
--The Pizza Collection: thepizzacollection.com

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TRANSCRIPT
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In this video I'm going to be talking about the three most common forms of yeast that you can buy and use in your pizza dough. By definition, yeast a single cell microorganism related to mushrooms, actually. So it's part of the fun guy family. Yeast has been used for thousands and thousands of years, going all the way back to the Egyptians. They would make bread and wine, and all kinds of stuff with yeast. It's not a new thing. It's been around for a long, long time. The three types of yeast that we're going to be talking about today or instant yeast, active dry yeast, and fresh yeast. 

The main difference between these yeasts are the moisture content, and how you prepare them to go into your mixture, your flour mixture. The most popular brands out there, I feel like, are Fleishmann's and Red Star as far as yeast goes. There's also a brand called SAF Instant, that is pretty popular with the baking community, but I've never used it. I've never seen it, so I don't know if it's one of those I need to order online kind of things, but that's another one. Instant, also known as Quick Rise. This is the yeast that does not need to be re-hydrated with water or sugar, or anything. You can literally just pour into your flour mixture and be done with it. A lot of people like this because they don't have to deal with the mixing and waiting and all that, but I've never used it, so I don't know how well it works. I'm sure it works just as well. 

Active dry yeast is probably the most common kind of yeast, or at the one that I'm most familiar with, and that I've used in my pizza dough. It's the yeast that you have to hydrate and kind of activate and bring alive. So to do that, all you need to do is take a bowl, put the yeast in there, and then I take some sugar, because the yeast will actually feed on the sugar and get all gassy, and then you add some warm water to it. You need to make sure that the water is not too hot, because otherwise you'll kill the yeast, and that'll be sad. You'll know if the yeast is not alive. That takes about 10 minutes, and then after 10 minutes, you'll have this big frothy delicious mess, and then you can add that to your dry mixture. 

Fresh yeast, also known as cake yeast, is probably the least used least for the everyday baker. It's kind of hard to find, and it's very perishable. The dry yeast is a better alternative because it keeps better and it keeps longer. But cake yeast is basically a beige soft block of ... It feels like Play Doh, and it crumbles. All you have to do activate that is just mix into water and then you're good to go. I remember back when I was working with my dad as a pizzeria owner, he would obviously buy them in bulk, so he'd buy these huge bricks of fresh yeast. I distinctly remember having to measure it out, and then crumble it into the mixing bowl. That smell of yeast. If you want to know yeast smells like, go buy some cake yeast and take a big ole' whiff. 

Also, you can substitute fresh yeast for dry yeast and vice versa. It's just a 2:1 ratio. You'll want to use more fresh yeast versus instant yeast, or active dry yeast, because it's more concentrated. So just remember that 2:1 ratio. I also wanted to kind of mention the wild and natural yeast, which is like a starter kind of thing. I'm not going to get into it too much, but it's basically where you mix flour and water, and then you let the yeast ... There's actually yeast in the air all around us at all times, which is a weird fun fact I guess, and that kind of like ferments it. It's a really cool process. I don't know how many people actually use that method, but it's an inexpensive way to get yeast into your baked goods.