Randy wrote:
>Lisa told me yesterday, as she handed me a loaf of fresh whole wheat
> sourdough raisin bread, that when she added my honey
> as a sweetener, that the loaves did not rise well.
>
> I'm curious if the symbiotic bacteria in my raw honey kill or retard the
> yeast in the dough.
Hi Randy,
It's not the symbiotic bacteria in your honey that caused the loaves to rise
less well. It's the hygroscopic characteristic of the honey that did so.
Yeast is a single celled fungus with a semi-permeable cell wall, that allows
nutrients to be absorbed from the dough environment, and also allows waste
(primarily CO2 gas) to be eliminated from the cell. The requirements for a
happy life for the yeast include comfortable temperature (75--78F being
generally ideal for wheat-based breads), food in the form of simple sugars
(amylase enzymes in the endosperm break the starches into simple sugars,
which the yeast can then metabolize), oxygen (if and only if reproduction is
to take place--in bread dough the oxygen is consumed by the yeast within
minutes, and the fermentation of the dough proceeds in an anaerobic manner),
and lastly--moisture, which it gets from the water in the dough. When there
is a relatively high percentage of sugar or honey in bread dough, its
characteristic of drawing moisture to itself results in less moisture being
available for the yeast's needs, which in turn results in a somewhat
sluggish fermentation. And this is what happened to the breads made by your
baking ladies. If they are adding commercial bakers yeast to their breads,
they might want to increase the percentage modestly. If the breads are
naturally leavened by sourdough alone, they might want to limit the amount
of sugar/honey in the bread in the first place.
Whole wheat bread with honey--really good!
Jeffrey Hamelman
Baker, BEE-L lurker
Hartland, Vermont
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