Feed your yeast with sugar and lukewarm water and let it rest/rise for 10 minutes before mixing it to the flour.
If you make a dough for bread or savory stuff, add your salt (diluted in a little water) at the end when the kneading is almost done (to prevent the salt from burning/killing the yeast)
Yeah, that's SOP. Still doesn't work. The yeast seems to be working, I get a good pop out of it.
Are you using tap water? Chlorine is known to kill yeast, the ammt of chlorine added to tap water varies with water quality.
I'm going to try with distilled water next time, because I also been having problem with dough rise lately. Will leaving tap water in an open pot for some time enough to get rid of chlorin?
It's heavily filtered. Just the smell of chlorinated water makes me retch.
Might be the flour, water's PH, and/or the temperature of the room where you store the dough.
King Arthur usually gives me good results. I have some War Eagle for the next batch, I'll see how that goes.
Without turning on the oven at all, place a kitchen towel on the bowl in which the dough sits, and place it in the oven (a warm place - assumes you have a 30-40 yr old gas pilot lit oven), alternatively, if you have an electric blanket make a nest for your bowl, put the blanket on the lowest setting, towel over the dough bowl and wait. Sometimes the dough looks dead from bad yeast, but given time and a warm spot will have a better chance to revive and rise but it may take a long time even in the warm spots (check in an hour).
I usually put hand-knead in the furnace closet with the water heater. It's nice and warm.
Good tip! Necessary also for good outcomes. On another note:
My long late Mother stopped making breads and cakes in her 50's. She claimed her chemistry had changed due to woman life changes and a woman's Ph levels changing killed the yeast every time. Gawd! I miss her Zucchini bread. And I miss her too.
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