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?
They don't use chlorine anymore, now it's chloramine (chlorine and ammonia I think). It doesn't evaporate.
The technique of leaving tap water out to get rid of chlorine doesn't work anymore. They use something called chloramines nowadays.
I bet distilled would work well.
It's heavily filtered. Just the smell of chlorinated water makes me retch.
Try distilled to wake up yeast.
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.
My local store has some Bob's Red Mill (unbleached).
I get amazing results with it and my breads/cakes taste great with it.
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.
In that warm spot, I'd give up after 4 hours before pronouncing it deceased.
I dunno, last idea: make a dough 'mouth' put a little milk and sugar in the 'mouth', re-knead after feeding it.
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