Sip healthily! DIY natural yeast bread at home

In recent years, with the rise of health awareness, there are more and more breads on the market that claim to be fermented with natural yeast. In order to let more people understand and apply the benefits of natural yeast, the Department of Catering at Taipei City University of Science and Technology and the Taipei City Bakery and Pastry Business Association have brainstormed and developed 16 new flavors of bread through industry-university cooperation. People who are so savoring the taste after eating them keep asking about DIY methods of making them.

Xie Weizhen, assistant professor of the Department of Catering at Taipei City University of Science and Technology, said that commercial yeast can significantly shorten the fermentation time, but it has the disadvantage of a single taste. In contrast, the dough starter cultured with traditional natural yeast, although it takes a longer fermentation time, contains a variety of natural and wild yeast strains, so it does not need to add any chemical flavors and pigments, which can enhance the multi-layered flavor of the bread. The elasticity and taste of the bread are also better than ordinary bread.

The method of making natural yeast bread is to first use fruits, vegetables, rice yeast or flour to cultivate yeast. It takes about 5 to 7 days to produce active yeast liquid. After adding it to flour for 8 to 16 hours, it can be made into old dough with special aroma and flavor for bread baking.

Assistant Professor Xie Weizhen said that people who are interested can also follow the steps below to make natural grape yeast at home.

1. Prepare a clean glass jar, heat it in cold water, keep the water boiling for 5 minutes to achieve the effect of disinfection, then turn off the heat and let it cool.

2. Add 300 grams of raisins, 150 grams of cold boiled water, and 10 grams of sugar or honey into a cooled glass jar. Stir or shake evenly, cover the bottle mouth with a clean gauze, and leave at room temperature to allow the yeast to ferment.

3. After about 3 or 4 days, bubbles will begin to appear in the jar. At this time, you should shake the bottle every day to awaken the yeast.

4. After another 2 to 4 days, when the yeast is fully fermented, filter out the grape yeast liquid and add it to the flour to make the old dough.

Yeast liquid that is not used up at one time can be refrigerated for about 2 weeks, but the lid should still be kept tightly closed to prevent the generation of carbon dioxide, the appearance of alcohol smell and deterioration. Fermented raisins should also be avoided from being added to the dough during kneading, so as not to destroy the dough structure and make it too soft.

In addition, since the fermentation energy of various natural yeasts is different, the quality of the bread produced is also different. People often need to experiment repeatedly to master the baking skills of delicious natural yeast bread.