Tag Archives: yeast

Using Salt-Stressed Yeast

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Yesterday I posted an article discussing that salt does not kill yeast. It’s a myth that has somehow propagated across the baking world. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about the relationship between salt and yeast. I’ve even read articles where even well-known bread chefs really didn’t have an understanding of how salt truly affects yeast. Pretty amazing.

In my research on the subject, I came across a number of articles from academics and laypeople discussing and experimenting with salt-stressing yeast prior to mixing and how it affected the rise and texture of the dough.

What is salt-stressing the yeast?

Basically, it’s a process of exposing the yeast to a slightly saline environment to make it go into osmotic shock. When it gets shocked like this, its reaction is to produce chemicals that protect it from leaching. Once it gets over the shock, it becomes resistant to further osmotic shock events. What this means with respect to baking bread is that salt-stressed yeast can then be added to high-salt or high-sugar dough and still function.

For standard, straight dough, using salt-stressed yeast shortens fermentation time. With the typical straight dough, when you dump everything together and mix it, the yeast initially goes through osmotic shock. There is a lag period where the yeast needs to recover from the shock, then it becomes active again and starts producing gas. With salt-stressed yeast, there’s no lag as the yeast has already gone through osmotic shock and it starts fermentation immediately.

Another effect of using salt-stressed yeast is that the chemicals that get released apparently act as a natural dough conditioner, increasing the gas-retention ability of the dough and producing a softer crumb.

Of course, after going down the rabbit hole of salt-stressed yeast, I had to try baking bread with it. So I took my traditional poolish baguette recipe and baked the loaves above. I bake a lot baguettes and I have to say that the crumb was indeed softer with the salt-stressed yeast. What about the fermentation time? It was shorter, especially bulk fermentation. Normally my dough finishes bulk fermentation in about 3 hours at 78ºF. This dough took less than 2 hours to finish bulk fermentation, so the yeast activity was definitely higher.

The reason I used a poolish method was that since I was expecting a faster bulk fermentation, I wanted make sure there was some taste in the dough which the poolish would provide. Luckily I did that because the bread would have probably turned out insipid. Given that this technique really picks up the yeast activity, in the future, I will use less yeast to ensure flavor development.

But with regards to texture, wow! This technique is really awesome!

How to Salt-Stress Your Yeast

The scientific experiments that were run used a 7% saline solution, so I wanted to duplicate that in my own bake. So here goes:

  1. Take the weight of the salt and divide it by 7% (0.07). This will give you the amount of water you’ll need to create a 7% solution.
  2. So measure out that amount of water calculated above (I recommend that it is at least 95ºF so the salt dissolves), then dissolve all the salt called for in your recipe into the warm water.
  3. Once all the salt is dissolved, add all your yeast to the solution, mix it well, then let it stand in a warm environment for at least 30 minutes, up to a few hours.
  4. When you’re ready to mix, add the rest of the water called for in your recipe to the solution. Mix this well.
  5. Add the liquid to your flour and mix. That’s it!
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Busting a Myth: Salt Does NOT Kill Yeast!

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At least not at the concentrations we normally use in baking.

When I started baking bread 40 years ago, at least when I created yeasted bread, I proofed the yeast and then threw everything into my bowl at the same time, salt and all. So I found it strange that when I started baking again in earnest during the pandemic that so many people on the forums would say to keep your salt and yeast separate because salt kills yeast.

Folks, I’m just going to say it: Salt does NOT kill yeast, nor does it inhibit its activity – at least not in the way most might think. As I indicated at the top, in order for salt to kill yeast, it would have to be in a pretty high concentration to do that. If someone tells you that salt kills yeast, they’re sadly misinformed.

But before I go on, let me give the backstory on why I’m writing this post. Last night, I was flipping through channels trying to find something to watch and ended up just watching reruns of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. In this one particular episode where Guy was visiting a Whole Foods-like grocery in Sioux Falls, SD called Looks, the chef making the pizza dough mentioned osmotic yeast as the yeast he uses so he can up the salt content of his dough.

Uh-oh… though I had seen that episode before, for some reason osmotic yeast triggered a geek moment and I proceeded to get on my computer and go down the rabbit hole to understand the term. What I found out was that the term osmotic yeast is actually a bit of a misnomer and that the chef probably made it up. Not a big deal. What he really meant was that he was using yeast that had already gone through osmotic stress so it was resistant to later osmotic stress challenges.

So what is osmotic stress? When yeast encounters saline or even a sweet environment, it goes through what is called osmotic stress as it reacts to the higher saline or sugar concentration; as both salt and sugar leech water from their environments. Yeast reacts to this by producing glycerol to help protect its cell walls from further osmosis – or leeching.

During this period, there is little to no CO2 production, which is why people might think salt or sugar inhibits the yeast. I suppose that the osmotic stress period could be considered an inhibitor period, but once the yeast has protected itself, it goes back to its normal course of business and starts producing gas. How long this period lasts is affected by the ambient temperature.

Now the interesting thing about the yeast producing glycerol is that not only does it protect the yeast’s cell walls from further osmotic stress, but it’s also released into the dough which purportedly aids in the dough’s strength and extensibility (though glycerol’s role in dough development is still being studied). Kind of cool stuff! Now back to osmotic yeast…

Pre-stressed yeast has been proofed in a saline solution to bolster the cell walls and produce glycerol. This means that when it is added to a dough, there is no lag period where the yeast has to build up a tolerance to the saline environment. It has already gone through the stress so it just starts acting.

In my dive into the rabbit hole, I came across this excellent article that provides a mildly-technical layman’s perspective of salt-stressed yeast and how it is used in baking. I encourage you to read it! When I make baguettes next, I’m going to salt-stress my yeast first! Another great thing about that article that I linked to is that it has references to lots of scientific research showing the effects of salt-stressed yeast on fermentation. I read through many of the abstracts and articles and they’re pretty eye-opening! The author also shows how to salt-stress your yeast before you mix! Can’t wait to try it out!

Admittedly, I haven’t read through all the science on this as of yet, so while I understand the basic mechanics, I’m by no means an expert on the subject. So I encourage you to do some research on this subject as it completely busts the myth that salt kills yeast!