Bread Yeast... YES or NO?

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Bread Yeast for Brewing... YES or NO and WHY?

  • YES

  • NO


Results are only viewable after voting.

ryantate21

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After doing a bit of research I have realised there are a lot of mixed opinions about using plain and regular yeast from your local store for home brewing.

I thought it would be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on the use of bread yeast in home brewing. Vote yes or no and explain your answer...
 
I wouldn't use bread yeast. They don't normally control the quality very well so you are more prone to infection, in addition to the fact that it simply isn't brewer's yeast.

But if that's all you can get a hold of, then sure try it. If it works for you then there you go.
 
Bread yeast, in my limited experience, doesn't attenuate well, doesn't flocculate well, and produces a pretty nasty flavor profile.
 
From what I have heard bread yeast has been culture to suit baking (just like different brewer yeast are cultured to do different things - floc/flavour/att.) and the attributes that bakers yeast have make it unsuitable for brewing. Something like poor attenuation, flavours, poor alc tollerance, etc.
 
Back in HS a loooong time ago me and my friend made hooch with OJ and bread yeast. Some of it turned out pretty decent, but we were only interested in the alcohol content not so much the flavor.
 
No, with a caveat that it's to style for a couple of folk beers kvass and sahti. It flocculates really badly and as has already been mentioned the QA for bacterial infection is low.
 
Or...you could spend 2 bucks on some US-05 and have some yeast that attenuates, flocculates, and doesn't make beer that tastes like bread?

In another thread I used bread yeast coupled with carb tabs to test the efficacy of plastic champagne corks when paired with belgian-style bottles. The test was merely to check if the bottles could hold pressure, but I can't stress enough the vile nature of the liquid produced by this process. Obviously the other tastes in the beer would cover up some of the nasty flavors, but I still don't understand why anyone would want to use it when the alternative is so cheap.
 
Good beer requires a good Beer Yeast, Best to leave bread yeast to making bread. Bread yeast produces flavors that improve bread, but are very out of place in beer. Also bread yeast does not have the tolerance to alcohol that beer yeast does.
 
In most cases "no" I would not use bread yeast. HOWEVER there are recipes (good ones) that use bread yeast so I answered the poll "YES". The one specifically I know of is JOAM but this is a mead not a beer/ale.

The next thing of note is I see you are the Serbian home brewer that is having problems finding ingredients. So instead of telling you to use the search, I will be happy to point you in a solid direction!

JOAM link: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/joes-ancient-orange-mead-joam-45152/

If you are having problems sourcing yeast I would gather your own! It is much more work but it can be done! IMO for ales it would be much better to use than bread yeast. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f127/howto-capture-wild-yeast-101886/ is the sticky on the "how to" also check out the "Lambic and wild brewing" section that it is found in.

I wish you the best of luck!
 
:off:

It is possible to harvest yeast from some bottle conditioned beers by making starters and "stepping" the starters up in volume. In most cases there will be some yeast/dregs in the bottom of a bottle unless it is filtered. I thought I would mention this due to your situation. I do see you have a brewery north of you. If you could get to it they may be able to REALLY help you.

GL
 
I voted No... I don't think there are really "mixed opinions" as you put it. We're all saying that there are much better alternatives. Yes, there are a couple of recipes - Ancient orange mead is among the most popular - that use bread yeast. It's certainly possible to make beer with bread yeast, but I wouldn't waste the time/money I spent on ingredients by throwing an inferior possibly infected yeast into my wort.

As previously mentioned, if it's difficult to find ingredients in Serbia - find a beer you like that's not filtered or pasteurized and harvest from that. You could easily have your own yeast storage by doing that and washing the leftover yeast after you ferment a batch.
 
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