Baker's Yeast?

I, personally, would never brew with bakers yeast, but am curious if anyone has ever brewed it before, for experimental purposes. I know the standard answer is "It's not sterile, it wasn't bred for clean flavors, etc etc etc," but just for curiosity's sake...

I did a search and found only one thread from a few years back, where a guy ruined his starter and pitched bakers yeast...but then he never reported back on how it turned out.

So, any experimenters out there?

It works but unless you have an overwhelming nostaglic curiosity I can think of no reason why bread yeast should be used. My father made homebrew with bread yeast because there was no brewer's yeast available to consumers at that time. Bread yeast typically leaves a pretty yeast brew and doesn't flocculate as well as brewer's yeast. Brewer's yeast is designed for the job, does it better and doesn't cost a lot. I will continue to use it. You can also wash your clothes with a tub and washboard if you are tired of watching them go around in the Maytag.

I've seen it used in several "ancient orange mead" recipes. Not for beer though. It would work, but I dont think it is very tolerant of alcohol. You would probalby get terrible attenuation.

You probably couldn't find much because it not that good of experiment. Can you do it, yes. You could also ferment wort by tossing in a few slices of bread or leaving the fermenter opened and letting nature take it's course.

The question is why would you? It's all about using the right tool for the job. I can drive a nail with a rock but I own a hammer so why would I use a rock?

The biggest reason, as I understand it, not to use bread yeast is that it's not nearly as pure as beer yeast. A batch of bread is usually baked the same day the yeast is "pitched," so you don't care as much about nasties in bread yeast.

A cool experiment could be to take several different brands and/or types of bread yeasts, liquid or dry and make some starters with them then take the highest attenuating and cleanest tasting one and isolate a pure culture from that and build up enough pure culture to ferment 5 gallons.

In Papazains, 'Microbrewed Adventures' he visits a brewery on Gotland Island, Sweden that makes an Ale, Gotlandsdricke with bread yeast.

TeleTwanger said:

A cool experiment could be to take several different brands and/or types of bread yeasts, liquid or dry and make some starters with them then take the highest attenuating and cleanest tasting one and isolate a pure culture from that and build up enough pure culture to ferment 5 gallons.

In Papazains, 'Microbrewed Adventures' he visits a brewery on Gotland Island, Sweden that makes an Ale, Gotlandsdricke with bread yeast.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what had piqued my curiosity: an effort to isolate a new strain. Granted, I have about zero knowledge and experience when it comes to microbial breeding (assuming breeding is the preferred nominclature).

Again, I would never do this myself, at least not with my current facilities, but with a community this large I figured someone must have tried it at this point.

I've never tried it,and with my budget never will because I can't afford throwing a batch away,but... my uncle Mickey used to brew something he called beer that was kickass strong using bread yeast. I never tried this stuff ( I was too young) but most adults couldn't drink more than 2 or 3 and stay vertical, so apparently it had lots of alcohol in it. It was made of potatoes, raisins, sugar, bread yeast and water. Looked like Sam Adams. Funny,thinking about it now I remember lots of bottle bombs....he kept them outside in the well house and even during those Maine winters he'd sometimes lose half of them. His fermenter was a 5 gallon ceramic container which he kept in the kitchen,quite near the stove. I think I'm glad I was too young to try it!

Pelikan said:

This is exactly what had piqued my curiosity: an effort to isolate a new strain. Granted, I have about zero knowledge and experience when it comes to microbial breeding (assuming breeding is the preferred nominclature).

Click to expand...

Yeah not much 'breeding' going more like budding...It's really not that hard to culture pure strains of anything. You could take a Microbiology class at your local community college where you'll be culturing E. coli and friends.

I once did a test alongside a batch of stout in a fermenter and the bread yeast in a plastic quart bottle it fermented very quickly and looked ok but the smell was not good (moldy)
and tasted pretty awfull I didnt go on to bottle and I wouldent repeat the experiment.

Just came across this thread while digging through the archives and thought I'd share my experience:

A couple of years ago I did my spiced Christmas beer with bread yeast. The packet of ale yeast I put in originally didn't ferment, and I wasn't in a position to get any more brewer's yeast, so I made do with what was around the house. It actually turned out pretty well. Low attenuation, but some sweetness was welcome in that particular beer. There weren't any glaringly obvious off flavours.

This year I was making a similar spiced ale, and decided, for the sake of tradition, to do it with baker's yeast again. It was obviously a very different strain, but turned out okay too. It was much higher attenuation (OG 1.057, FG 1.012) and though it cleared up very nicely, it still had quite a bit of the "yeasty" smell that I associate with weissbiers. At bottling time it tasted pretty dreadful, and at two weeks post-bottling. But now, 5 weeks after bottling, it's drinking very nicely, especially with a slice of orange as a friend suggested.

Part of the reason for my relative success with baker's yeast is probably that these were both spiced ales and had pretty strong flavours and aromas coming from the spices (cinnamon, ginger, cloves) that masked any nasty phenols or other compounds that the bread yeast produced. I wouldn't make any other beers with bread yeast, but I may well continue doing the occasional spiced ale with it, just for fun.

i've had great success with clean, neutral beer yeast in pizza crusts (i know this is the opposite of what the op is asking).

i usually try to save my belgian yeast for future batches, but i'm interested to try some in bread dough to see if it changes the flavor. i'll report back in this thread when i do.