Just found out baker's yeast and brewer's yeast are totally different things

Saw it on a beer brewing forum of all places, been using the wrong yeast in my sourdough starter for like 6 months. Anyone else mix these up before?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennifer8336d ago

Yeah I remember reading about this a while back. Baker's yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae but there's different strains for baking versus brewing. Brewers yeast actually has a bunch of B vitamins and is sometimes sold as a supplement. I'd imagine the beer forum people get pretty specific about it though, from what I've seen they treat yeast strains almost like wine grapes.

avery2196d ago

I actually heard from a microbrewery tour guide that bakers yeast and brewers yeast split off from each other like a thousand years ago or something crazy like that. They said bakers yeast was selected for producing CO2 fast to make bread rise, while brewers yeast was picked for making alcohol and specific flavors. I remember them saying that if you tried to bake bread with brewers yeast it would probably taste kinda weird and not rise as well. Your mileage may vary on that though because some people swear by using different yeasts for different things. I think the big thing is that the beer guys get really serious about their yeast strains, like they have whole catalogs of them with flavor notes and everything. From what I understand, using the wrong one in sourdough could throw off the whole fermentation balance over time.