In this busy season of life, I’ve found myself leaning more and more on baker’s yeast rather than using my own sourdough starter.
I’m not proud of it. But I’m also not a purist.
Instant yeast is perfect in a pinch
I figure that a loaf of homemade instant yeast bread is still better than a store-bought one.
But the fact that I’ve been using baker’s yeast lately has been eating away at me (pun intended).
Deep down, I know it’s not as nutritious as baking with fresh sourdough starter, but I just haven’t had the motivation to start a new starter (after the last one died).
And as I’ve procrastinated, I’ve found myself wondering if sourdough is really all that superior.
“Is it worth all the extra effort?!”
“Don’t they use the same processes – one is just more efficient?”
Well, the answer to this question is both “yes and no…”
But mostly no. A sourdough starter does, in fact, work differently on the flour.
So without further ado, let’s dive in.
P.S. I hope this post gives you some fresh motivation to make that next loaf of bread with a homemade sourdough starter.
Baker’s yeast DOES NOT have bacteria
Baker’s yeast comes in many forms:
It can be called for in recipes as “instant yeast”, “rapid rise yeast”, “active dry yeast”, or its less common form which is “fresh yeast” (I’ve never seen this available for purchase at my local grocery stores, by the way).
Baker’s yeast is just conventional, commercially made, store-bought yeast.
And the most important difference between baker’s yeast and sourdough is that sourdough has bacteria.
Bacteria gives bread a bold flavor
When bacteria consumes the starches, it produces gas and lactic, or acetic, acid.
It’s the bacteria, and the acid that they produce as a byproduct of their activity, that gives sourdough bread its tangy flavor.
It’s not sourdough if there’s no sour. And there’s no sour unless you have bacteria involved in the fermentation process.
A sourdough starter can have lactic acid producing bacteria that outnumber the yeast organism 100 to 1.
In a loaf of bread made with a sourdough starter, about half the delicious air bubbles will be from the bacteria and not just the yeast.
Sourdough starter is full of wild yeasts
The wild yeasts present in a homemade sourdough starter are going to vary depending on the type of flour you use (yeast loves whole grains), your environment, and of course… you!
Yeast, after all, is present on our hands and all over our body.
Meanwhile, most commercial, store-bought yeast is just one strain of yeast: saccharomyces cerevisiae.
FYI, this loosely translates to “sugar fungus”.
This yeast is cultured in laboratory-like conditions. It’s pure and reliable.
But this purified form of yeast is so reliable that it will cause your dough to rise (and subsequently fall) long before a traditional sourdough loaf would. It’s bred to be the best at creating a reliable rise.
It’s so effective at ingesting starch and spitting out carbon dioxide that lactic acid producing bacteria isn’t really a part of the picture. If it was, you would be able to taste it (the bacteria produces a sour taste from the lactic or acetic acid byproduct).
And many of the purported health benefits of sourdough actually comes from the bacteria, not just the yeast.
Sourdough allows for a longer fermentation
It is true that baker’s yeast is more efficient at the fermentation process: it can consume sugars and create carbon dioxide bubbles at a massive rate.
The beauty of this, of course, is that you can have a pizza dough ready for family pizza night ready to go in an hour’s time.
But it’s in the longer fermentation process where a lot of the health benefits are to be had. The slower fermentation process gives time for the bacteria to:
- break down the gluten protein molecules into a more digestible form
- make the minerals more bioavailable
- reduce anti-nutrients content from phytic acid (phytic acid content can leach calcium from our bodies)
- produce acid and reduce the glycemic index of the bread (its been suggested that the acid and enzymes present allow for less glucose to be released into the bloodstream)
- lower the pH of the bread, which extends it shelf life by making it less likely to mold
Different flavors
A longer fermentation process also allows for more complex flavor notes in the bread.
In fact, sometimes I try to mimic this with conventional, baker’s yeast by putting the dough in the fridge to slow down the fermentation process (the colder temperatures make the yeast sleepy but the enzymatic activity continues to develop despite the cold temperatures).
You could try to ferment a loaf of bread using baker’s yeast for the same length of time, but what you would end up with is an over-proofed piece of bread.
Sourdough helps us slow down
Sourdough and slow living go hand in hand.
In today’s modern mania of “now, now, now”, sourdough bread making is a blatant contradiction. And maybe, that’s the point.
In the rush, and the hustle and bustle, I think it’s easy to lose ourselves a bit. We become busier, and busier, and suddenly we wake up a few years have passed us by.
Okay, I might be exaggerating a tad here, but you get the idea.
I think the irony is that sometimes the more rushed we are, the less we feel like we’ve gotten done.
I love that a sourdough starter requires us to nurture patience and cultivate a brilliant little life form outside of ourselves.
Sourdough is in a league of its own
After studying the benefits of sourdough all over again, I have to say, I’m motivated to ditch the store bought yeast and start my own sourdough starter again.
Now I know: commercial yeast is just yeast. You can’t simply mix together Red Star yeast with some flour and water and call it a sourdough starter:
It lacks all of the wild yeast and bacteria. The diverse flora.
The bacteria in a sourdough starter, and its acid, works on the the gluten proteins, nutrients, pH, and flavor in a way that a conventionally made yeast bread does not and cannot.
The results may look similar but they are not the same.
Takeaway
Both baker’s yeast and sourdough offer the ability to make bread at home at that is the point that shouldn’t get lost.
If you can bake a loaf of bread at home, using organic ingredients, and perhaps even milling the grains on your own, you’ve just surpassed the quality of most bread loaves you can purchase at the grocery store (even the fancy ones).
And for that, I think we should give ourselves a pat on the back. Regardless of what leavening agent you use.
