2020 Yeast Shortage

Ari Meermans

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And, you guessed it: It's due to COVID-19-related hoarding. I hadn't realized there was a shortage until I found my preferred yeast (LeSaffre Saf-Instant Yeast, Gold), which I buy in bulk, is no longer available locally and then discovered I couldn't buy any other brand within 50 miles of where I live, either.

Who knew there were still so many scratch bakers around? But, yanno, that's good news despite the yeast shortage. :)
 

Maryn

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It's strange, the things people hoard in panic mode.

I bought one packet extra of yeast, just a three-pack, in case it became unsafe to shop and I'd be baking our bread. For a couple of weeks, there was no yeast, but now it seems to be back. For a short time flour and sugar were also in short supply, but now there's plenty.

Toilet paper was always available here, although you may not be able to get the brand and type you like. Or Mr. Maryn really doesn't know the difference between one-ply and two.

But wipes or hand sanitizer? Haven't seen either one in months.

So, you want me to mail you some yeast? Because I would.

Maryn, who is buying bread as needed
 

Ari Meermans

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Yeah, wipes & sanitizer --> "fuggedaboutit". Off-brands of bath tissue have started coming back and that's good enough for us. Interestingly, we didn't have an egg shortage here; many of our far-flung relatives did, though.

Thanks for the offer, Maryn, but I ordered a couple of years' supply from Amazon today (supposedly, it will keep in the freezer that long). Paid up for it, of course, but there you are. Not being able to find yeast didn't hit crisis point for me until about six weeks ago or thereabouts when I had a sudden craving for Cinnabon-style cinnamon rolls. :roll: Iffen I'd known there'd be a shortage, I'd've cut back on regular bread baking for a couple of weeks to get the rolls in there.
 

kikazaru

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I couldn't buy it in packets - no one had it, and then one day they had small plastic tubs filled with yeast (like they had come from a bulk bin) so I bought one because I thought that it would be good to have some sourdough starter around. Of course I didn't do that because now I have lots of yeast - hah. But mmm Cinnabons...!

As for the handwipes - Maryn, I've been buying baby wipes and just dumping some rubbing alcohol in the package. It probably not the precise formula to be the best at killing germs but it feels better than nothing to me.
 

frimble3

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Who knew there were still so many scratch bakers around? But, yanno, that's good news despite the yeast shortage. :)

I'd bet that it's not scratch bakers suddenly stepping into the breach, but that a lot of people are panicking and breaking out the breadmakers that they bought or were gifted a few years ago. They will shortly discover that it isn't as magically simple as they thought, and go back to buying bread.
Meanwhile, it's pain-in-the-neck for those who like to bake, have customarily baked, etc.
I have a friend who ran out of yeast (she always does her own baking) and finally had to resort to getting some from a friend who works in a bakery. She is carefully nursing it along until sanity sets back in.
 

Ari Meermans

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I'd bet that it's not scratch bakers suddenly stepping into the breach, but that a lot of people are panicking and breaking out the breadmakers that they bought or were gifted a few years ago. They will shortly discover that it isn't as magically simple as they thought, and go back to buying bread.

That could very well be true, too. hmm.

Meanwhile, it's pain-in-the-neck for those who like to bake, have customarily baked, etc.

Yepper, it is. I love cooking but baking is my passion and has been since I was in my early teens (well over half a century ago. heh) We've been buying bread lately and it just isn't the same. :(

I have a friend who ran out of yeast (she always does her own baking) and finally had to resort to getting some from a friend who works in a bakery. She is carefully nursing it along until sanity sets back in.

I'm glad she was able to source some yeast. She's lucky to have that connection.
 

Chris P

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We're fortunate to have a lot of retail here, including several organic and specialty shops, so we found some eventually. We are baking a lot more, partly to kill the time but that part is fun.

The weirdest hoarding I've seen here is bottled water. Um, the municipal water is largely animated and not going to go off.

For toilet paper, my wife (who grew up in the country and is used to buying things in bulk anyway) found an online commercial supply place, and so now we are the proud owners of an entire case of those huge 14-inch diameter rolls you see in public restrooms. They won't fit on the dispenser rack but if I ever get homesick for my workplace lavatories I have a bit of a reminder.
 

onesecondglance

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Can you culture dried baking yeast? My beer brewing yeasts are treated much like sourdough - every time I come to use some, I feed the whole culture some malt extract, let it grow, then I harvest half to use in that batch of brewing, and keep the other half in the fridge for next time. And so on, and so on. (I can expand the detail of this process if desired.)

Obviously this relies upon you having some yeast to start with, but it is a good way of stretching a supply out. IF - and I say this having never tried it - baker's yeast will tolerate being grown over multiple generations like this. (I would have thought so, given there's good evidence baker's yeast originated as brewer's yeast.)
 

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I'd bet that it's not scratch bakers suddenly stepping into the breach, but that a lot of people are panicking and breaking out the breadmakers that they bought or were gifted a few years ago.

I found my mom's bread maker in her closet. I made bread with it three times.

It was a complete PITA because of all the timing etc.

I'm back to making bread by hand. I don't have think so much. I can tell how the dough is by looking and touching and smelling.

It's almost meditational for me.
 

onesecondglance

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AW Admin said:
You can make your own dried yeast.

^ that's clever - the ginger seems to be a more readily available substitute for commercial yeast nutrient, and the rest provides a variety of sugars and carbs for the yeast to grow in, plus enough starch to allow drying. Very ingenious.
 
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lonestarlibrarian

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I had some unopened jars of yeast in my cupboard from normal times, except they never got used because we cut back on bread/rice/pasta, so my volume of baked bread also went way down.

Someone on the local FB was asking for yeast. They posted a picture of the Fleischmann's jar that usually gets stocked in my area. So I thought I'd be a good doobie, and asked, "How much do you need? 1 packet = 2.5 tsps." So I figured I'd scoop a few tsps out of my open jar in the fridge, and let someone do her bread project.

And she's like, "Oh, a whole jar would be great."

And I'm thinking, "Ugh." Because I wasn't planning on being THAT generous. But I had it on the shelf, and I wasn't going to use it anytime soon, and I still had plenty of yeast otherwise. So I dropped it off to her for free, and she chatted happily about how she was just so bored and looking for something to do.

It wasn't until I reminded her on FB later to make sure she put the yeast in the fridge after it was opened, to keep it alive longer, that I realized she'd never made bread before in her life. The conversation that I thought was just what's-your-favorite-bread-recipe small talk was actually "I've never done this before and I have no clue what to make."

So I'm happy that she was able to try something new--- but I'm also annoyed that instead of me being able to help 16 people with a jar, she took the whole thing, and she'll probably make one or two loaves just for the novelty, and then go back to her store-bought bread because the supply chains are doing well. Sigh.
 

RedRajah

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There's always quick breads that don't use yeast as an option...
 

benbenberi

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I thought of jumping the sourdough bandwagon along with everyone else, till I remembered that, even if I could keep a starter alive and happy, I just really don't like sourdough breads that much. Not the taste, not the texture. So, well, it's bought yeast for me.

What I bought, when I discovered the little friendly packets were gone from the local stores, was a pound of Instaferm (Red) from Modernist Pantry. If sweet breads are your jam they also have a Gold variety specially for those. The whole site is filled with fascinating gizmos and ingredients that are probably wonderful and useful if you're the sort of person who views cooking as a form of practical chemistry, or edible physics, so... not me. But the yeast is fine. And Canadian.
 

Ari Meermans

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I thought of jumping the sourdough bandwagon along with everyone else, till I remembered that, even if I could keep a starter alive and happy, I just really don't like sourdough breads that much. Not the taste, not the texture. So, well, it's bought yeast for me.

What I bought, when I discovered the little friendly packets were gone from the local stores, was a pound of Instaferm (Red) from Modernist Pantry. If sweet breads are your jam they also have a Gold variety specially for those. The whole site is filled with fascinating gizmos and ingredients that are probably wonderful and useful if you're the sort of person who views cooking as a form of practical chemistry, or edible physics, so... not me. But the yeast is fine. And Canadian.

Instant yeast is better overall for my needs because you don't have to prove it and it yields a lighter, softer finished product without the extra step of making a slurry. I only use the Gold version of Saf-Instant Yeast because it's a good all-purpose yeast even though it's specifically made for sweet breads—I'm always going to add 2 TBSP. of sugar to dinner rolls, for instance, even though I don't have to prove the instant. And, really, it's just easier to keep up with expiration issues when I'm using the same yeast for everything. (I'm like that. *shrug*)
 
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Introversion

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Luckily, last year I bought a vaccuum-packed 1 pound brick of yeast. Was time to restock.

My guess is it’ll become available in spurts, so check often. Flours have been similarly hard to find, but are in stock here occasionally.
 

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There are a lot of small local mills that make excellent flour; if you're having difficulty finding flour, see if there's a small mill near you.
 

Introversion

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There are a lot of small local mills that make excellent flour; if you're having difficulty finding flour, see if there's a small mill near you.

I looked into it a few years ago. There’s not much wheat grown in New England, so not many mills. I found one in Maine IIRC, but all their output was sold to local (Maine) bakeries. (If anyone knows different today, I’d love to buy local!)

Is okay, I bought 50 pounds of bread flour last month, most of it stored in a freezer, the rest in a cool, dry basement. Will last us half a year at least. I also have ~30 pounds of red wheat berries in the basement, and a grinder, so we’re good. :Thumbs:
 

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I looked into it a few years ago. There’s not much wheat grown in New England, so not many mills. I found one in Maine IIRC, but all their output was sold to local (Maine) bakeries. (If anyone knows different today, I’d love to buy local!):


https://littletongristmillonline.com This is in a tiny N.H. Seacoast area town, near Durham, N.H.

They sell a wide variety of flour, including buckwheat and rye, as well as wheat and cornmeal. I've bought rye flour from them.

I've bought whole wheat bread flour from here several times:

https://www.onemightymill.com/nutrition-and-ingredients

These are artisanal mills; they are not cheap.
 
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frimble3

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We are the proud owners of an entire case of those huge 14-inch diameter rolls you see in public restrooms. They won't fit on the dispenser rack but if I ever get homesick for my workplace lavatories I have a bit of a reminder.

If they won't fit on the dispenser rack, how about one of those holders for rolls of paper towels: a dowel on a weighted base? Holds the roll vertically instead of horizontally, but, at least holds the roll.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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We were lucky in that my husband bakes all the time and had gotten one of those mega bags of dried yeast from Costco around Christmas. Much of it is still sprawling (it's impossible to keep tidy) in a ziplock bag in our freezer.

Flour has sometimes been hard to come by. We've never completely run out of all-purpose flour, though we've been using brands other than our favorite King Arthur. We were out of bread flour for a while, but one of our small local groceries had some Arrowhead Mill bread flour last time I was there. I loaded up on Bob's Red Mill corn flour (it's a finer grind than corn meal and makes for non-gritty cornbread) just as things were getting serious.
 

Maryn

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I hope you're all happy. Because of this thread, I had to bake dinner rolls with herbs de provence. And paint 'em with butter when they came out, too. It's all you people's fault!

I, too, had to suffer from not getting the exact brand of bread flour I like best, but Pillsbury was available, so I bought it. I prefer Hodgson Mill, Bob's, or King Arthur, but this did the job.

Maryn, far enough away that she can't smell them
 
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mccardey

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I made a basil sourdough (I love my sourdough - I made the starter from scratch and I'm so proud of it).

Last week, a friend's teen-aged daughter came by to learn how to make bread. Ticked life goal :)
 
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Layla Nahar

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Just want to say - I'm glad to hear there are others out there who don't like sourdough. Seems like you can't get away from it where I live.