Freezing yeast makes sense if you have leftover yeast after baking or you bought it in advance. Here we explain how you can freeze the fresh yeast.

Freeze yeast: in jars and in cans

Would you like to stock up on fresh yeast or did you only need half a yeast cube for your yeast dough? Then simply freeze the fresh yeast. Frozen yeast keeps for several months and you don’t have to waste food
Place the yeast cube in a small tin or jar

Thaw yeast after freezing

If you want to use the frozen yeast, thaw it ahead of time. There are two variants:
Defrost gently: Put the yeast in the fridge the day before you want to bake and let it thaw slowly.
If you’re in a hurry: Thaw the yeast in a warm liquid if your recipe uses that liquid. Note, however, that yeast does not tolerate temperatures above 45°C, as the yeast then loses its effectiveness.
The yeast may become slightly softer and runnier after thawing than before freezing. But that’s not a problem, you can use them normally for baking.

We recommend organic yeast

Organic yeast is the ecologically better yeast:
While conventional yeast is produced using chemical substances that have to be washed out afterwards, organic yeast is much more sustainable. Because organic yeast does not have to be washed out, it requires less water during production and no unnecessary chemical substances get into the waste water.
In addition, genetically engineered enzymes can be used in the production of conventional yeast. Since there are no long-term studies on the use of genetic engineering, it can harbor undiscovered risks. The production processes of organic products do not contain any genetically modified substances.

Whether dry yeast or fresh yeast – you can bake airy pizza dough and bread with both types of yeast. In this guide you will find out what the differences are and how you can use fresh yeast and dry yeast.

Yeast is a unicellular microorganism that belongs to the fungi family. This living organism feeds on the sugars and starches in the dough and converts them into carbon dioxide gas, among other things. This is reflected in the bubbles in the dough, which allow it to rise and make it more airy. We use this property of yeast for many recipes – whether pizza dough, home-baked bread or cinnamon rolls.

You can find yeast in two main forms on the market: as dry yeast and fresh yeast, which is also called block yeast. We will explain how the two differ, what you need to look out for when storing and using them, and how you can convert one type of yeast and replace it with the other.

Dry yeast and fresh yeast: differences in yeast types

Dry yeast and fresh yeast have much more in common than differences:

Both dry yeast and fresh yeast are the same strains of yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), also known as baker’s yeast or brewer’s yeast.
Dry yeast and fresh yeast serve the same purpose in the bakery: they convert sugar and starch into gaseous carbon dioxide, allowing the dough to rise.
The yeast cultures were also grown and propagated in the same way: on a carbohydrate-rich culture medium. The exact cultivation form depends on whether it is conventional yeast or organic yeast – but not whether it is dry yeast or fresh yeast. You can find out below how organic yeast differs from conventional yeast.

But there are also big differences between dry yeast and fresh yeast:

While fresh yeast consists of around 70 percent water, dry yeast only contains around five percent residual moisture. Therein lies the biggest difference: For dry yeast, fresh yeast is dried.
As a result, dry yeast has a significantly longer shelf life than fresh yeast. While you can store fresh yeast in the fridge for a maximum of two weeks, dry yeast can be stored at room temperature for between several months and a year.
The fungal cultures contained in the dry yeast are inactivated and are only activated by adding liquid. Nevertheless, they are living microorganisms – only in a “resting state”.

Dry yeast or fresh yeast – which is better?

Both dry yeast and fresh yeast do an excellent job as leavening agents. In the finished recipe, the difference is hardly or not at all noticeable.

The benefits of fresh yeast are rather subjective:

Some (hobby) bakers swear by fresh yeast because it gives the baked goods a rounder, slightly sweeter taste.
Some also report that yeast dough rises slightly better with fresh yeast than with dry yeast.
If baked goods require a particularly long fermentation time or several resting phases to rise, fresh yeast is usually recommended. Because it is said to have a longer-lasting driving force than dry yeast.
On the other hand, dry yeast has prevailed today mainly because of its practical advantages over fresh yeast:

Dry yeast can be stored at room temperature for several months in a closed packet. Once opened, you can store the packet tightly sealed in the fridge for another two weeks. Fresh yeast, on the other hand, must be stored in the refrigerator and used within two weeks of purchase.
You don’t have to stir the dry yeast into liquid beforehand, you can mix it directly with the dry baking ingredients. This makes it a little easier to mix the dry yeast with the dough than fresh yeast.
In addition, thanks to its shape, dry yeast is a little easier to dose than fresh yeast in block form.

Conclusion of the comparison:

Fresh yeast should give the baked goods a slightly better taste and also have a higher raising power than dry yeast. For a few recipes like yeast loaf or Berlin pancakes, this is possibly the better yeast.
On the other hand, dry yeast is the much more practical form of yeast, especially for hobby bakers: it lasts much longer and is easier and faster to process.

Using dry yeast and fresh yeast: tips for the kitchen

If you want to make yeast dough yourself, you should consider the following points when preparing it:

First stir fresh yeast with some of the lukewarm liquid from the recipe and some sugar and let this mixture stand for about ten minutes. You can tell by the formation of bubbles that the yeast have started their activity. After the ten minutes, you can mix the liquid with the remaining baking ingredients.
You don’t need to mix dry yeast with liquid first. Mix directly into the dry ingredients in the recipe. Make sure that the remaining ingredients are not too cold: you should therefore take them out of the fridge some time beforehand.
Whether fresh yeast or dry yeast: yeast has the best raising power at temperatures between 25 and 30 degrees. At more than 45 degrees, the yeast fungi die off, while at less than ten degrees, the metabolic processes run considerably more slowly. That means: The cooler, the more walking time you have to plan.
When baking, you can easily convert and replace fresh yeast with dry yeast:

You can replace one cube of fresh yeast (42 grams) with two packets of dry yeast (fourteen grams).
As a result, one packet of dry yeast is equivalent to about half a cube of fresh yeast (21 grams).
As a rule of thumb, half a cube of fresh yeast or a packet of dry yeast is sufficient for 500 grams of flour. However, this amount varies greatly depending on the recipe.
In principle, you can also mix fresh yeast and dry yeast in a recipe, should this ever be necessary.

Buy yeast: organic quality and list of ingredients

It doesn’t matter whether it’s dry yeast or fresh yeast: we recommend that you pay attention to organic quality when buying. Because there are some differences between organic yeast and conventional yeast:

Growth medium: Conventional yeasts are often cultivated on molasses (a by-product of sugar production), phosphorus or inorganic nitrogen. Organic yeasts, on the other hand, are cultivated on natural raw materials from controlled organic cultivation, often on grain or sugar beet syrup.
Defoaming agent: To prevent growth-inhibiting foam from forming, sunflower oil is added to organic yeast as a defoaming agent. With conventional yeasts, synthetic substances are used for this purpose, which later have to be rinsed out with plenty of water. Therefore, according to the Bavarian Consumer Center, more water is used in the production of conventional yeast than in the case of organic yeast.
Genetic engineering: In addition, no genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are used in the production of organic yeast. Since there are still no reliable long-term studies on the health effects of GMOs, we recommend non-GMO foods.
If you want to buy dry yeast, you should also take a closer look at the ingredients:

Some of the dry yeast contains emulsifiers so that the yeast does not dry out. The most commonly used emulsifier is sorbitan monostearate with the E number 491. There are even some emulsifiers in fresh yeast.
Organic manufacturers in particular usually deliberately avoid using emulsifiers. With their yeast, there is nothing else in the packet but yeast.

Have you ever heard of Lievito Madre? Here you can find out what makes this sourdough variant special, how you can make it yourself and what delicious things you can bake with it.

Lievito Madre means mother yeast in German. It is the Italian variant of the sourdough known in Germany. You can make it yourself relatively easily and use it to bake various foods such as bread, rolls or pizza. Similar to yeast or baking powder, Lievito Madre ensures that the pastries are nice and fluffy. It has a much milder taste than German sourdough, so you can even use Lievito Madre for sweet pastries.

The next section shows you an example recipe to grow your own Lievito Madre. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get it right on the first try. It takes time and experience to learn how the dough reacts and how best to handle it.

The sample recipe is designed so that you don’t have to throw anything away. Many recipes use relatively large amounts of ingredients and require regular disposal of appropriately sized leftovers, but this is food waste that you can easily avoid. You don’t need 100 grams or more flour for the first batch, you can also do it with less. However, dough residues always occur in the process. It is best to collect these in a separate container in the fridge and use them later when baking.

There are many different ways to schedule a Lievito Madre. Using dried Lievito Madre as a base, you can make a baking batch in just one day. Without it, the whole process takes up to 25 days at room temperature. But you can easily speed this up by placing the dough in a place that is around 28 to 30 degrees Celsius. In winter, for example, this can be with the heating, or you take a cooler and put the dough in it with a bottle of hot water, which you change regularly. In just five days at best, follow the steps below to create your own Lievito Madre.

How to make the Lievito Madre approach

Ingredients:

225 organic wheat flour
115ml water
0.5 tsp organic olive oil
0.5 tsp organic honey

Directions:

Day 1 Of the ingredients you need today: 30 g flour
15 ml lukewarm water
0.5 tsp honey
0.5 tsp olive oil Put the flour in a bowl and add the remaining ingredients. First mix the ingredients roughly with a spoon and then knead them thoroughly by hand until a smooth dough is formed. It is really important here that everything is mixed and there are no lumps. Form the dough into a ball and cut a cross in the top with a knife. Then place it in an easy-to-clean jar with a lid. Just put the lid on loosely. Place the dough in a warm place and let it rest for 24 hours.
Day 2Today you need: yesterday’s dough
25 ml lukewarm water
45 g flour Mix your dough with the water until it dissolves. Then add the flour and knead again very carefully. Place the dough in a loosely sealed jar and keep warm until tomorrow. Today, and every day that follows, it’s important to make sure the dough doesn’t spoil. If mold does form, you’ll have to get rid of it entirely and unfortunately start over. Good dough smells pleasantly of flour, yeast and slightly sour. Even a slightly alcoholic smell is not bad.
Day 3 to 5 On each of these days you will need: 50g of dough from the previous day (collect the rest in a separate container in the fridge)
25 ml lukewarm water
50 g flour Mix your dough with the water until it dissolves. Then add the flour and knead again very carefully. Place the dough in a loosely sealed jar and keep it warm on the third and fourth day until the next day. On the fifth day, the batch is placed in the refrigerator with the lid closed for further storage. The Lievito Madre should now, on the fifth day, have doubled in size compared to the previous day and be nicely bubbled. If this is not the case yet, then continue the procedure of the last few days a little longer, sometimes it just takes more time.
You can simply use the dough leftovers from the past few days for a pastry. They are very mild, so they fit in bread or roll dough as well as in sweet yeast dough.

How to properly care for your Lievito Madre

You did it and bred your first own Lievito Madre. So that you can enjoy it for a long time, it is important never to use it up completely when baking and to feed it regularly. The more dough you have, the less often you need to feed him, generally every eight to ten days is recommended. You can also use the intensity of the smell of alcohol as a guide: the more intense it is, the more urgently the dough needs more flour and water.

14 days without feeding are normally not a problem for the Lievito Madre. If you’re going to be away for a longer period of time, you’d better dry it off beforehand. To do this, only add a very small amount of water when refreshing, so that the dough is very tough.

Feeding is very easy. Take the dough out of the fridge well in advance so that it comes to room temperature. Over time, a harder layer has formed on the surface. You can remove these and simply mix them in when baking. Mix the soft part thoroughly with 50 g flour and 25 ml lukewarm water.

If you are already planning to bake a specific recipe, you can adjust the amount of flour and water to get the amount of Lievito Madre you need plus a small reserve for storage. The important thing is that you always use twice as much flour as water.

Then put the batter in a fresh jar. Wait for the dough to double in size, then place it back in the fridge with the lid on.

Lievito Madre and Sourdough – What’s the Difference?

The difference between Lievito Madre and sourdough lies in the ratio of flour to water. With classic sourdough it is 1:1, i.e. just as much flour as water. For Lievito Madre, on the other hand, you use twice as much flour as water, i.e. the ratio is 2:1 flour to water.

Another difference is that you add olive oil and honey to the base for Lievito Madre, sourdough is always just flour and water. The types of flour are also different. Rye flour is usually used for sourdough, while wheat flour is used for Lievito Madre.

As a result, Lievito Madre is less acidic and contains more natural yeasts than a classic sourdough, making it more versatile. If you already have a sourdough starter in the fridge, you can easily make a Lievito Madre out of it. The necessary steps are:

Weigh the sourdough starter and add the same amount of flour and half the amount of lukewarm water. With 20 grams of sourdough, for example, 20 grams of flour and 10 milliliters of water.
Knead everything thoroughly and place the dough in a clean, loosely sealed container.
Place the dough in a warm place for 12 hours.
Repeat steps 1 through 3, adjusting the amount of flour and water, two or three more times. The dough should double in volume within 6 hours.
In the further procedure, i.e. use, storage and feeding, you don’t have to pay attention to anything other than with the directly applied Lievito Madre.

If you’re really in the mood for baking now, you’ll find a recipe to try in the next section.

How to make focaccia with Lievito Madre

Ingredients:

70 gLievito Madre (fed the day before)
350 gorganic wheat flour
280 ml lukewarm water
1 tsp salt
1.5 tbsp organic olive oil
Herbs, olives, tomatoes or other favorite ingredients

Directions:

Knead the flour thoroughly with 230 milliliters of the water to form a dough and leave covered for 30 minutes.
Add the Lievito Madre and the salt and gradually add the remaining water while kneading for at least five minutes. You can do this by hand or with a food processor fitted with a dough hook.
Grease a flat baking pan with some olive oil.
Spread the dough out in the pan and let it rise, covered, in a warm place for at least two hours. If you have more time, you can also put it in the fridge overnight. This way the result gets even better.
Press small indentations into the dough from above with your fingers.
Brush the dough with the olive oil and spread the olives, tomatoes, or whatever you have chosen on the dough.
Bake the focaccia in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 20 to 30 minutes. It should be lightly browned. Actual baking time will vary by oven.