When you are baking anything that requires yeast, it can be very annoying to learn that your yeast is no longer activated. You cannot bake certain things if you do not have activated yeast, so it is important to be able to tell whether or not your yeast is still activated. Luckily, it is not difficult to determine whether or not your yeast is activated.
Checking your yeast beforehand will prevent you from baking with dead or expired yeast, saving you time and frustration. All you need is a liquid like water or milk, some sugar, and a little bit of time, and you can tell if your yeast is activated or not. Keep reading to learn more about how to tell whether yeast is activated or not.
Determine What Yeast You Are Checking
Your approach to checking your yeast for activity will be different depending on what kind of yeast you are using. Fresh yeast is different from instant yeast. Fresh yeast is a specialty baking ingredient that takes more care and preparation than instant yeast. The two different types of yeast will have varying activity levels by nature. See our article titled “What are the Different Types of Yeast?” to read more about the different types of yeast.
How to Tell If Fresh Yeast Is Activated
Fresh yeast is quite different from your normal type of yeast and takes some special work to check whether it is activated. You cannot purchase fresh yeast in your normal store so you will have to purchase it from a specialty bakery store if you want to use it.
When preparing to check if your fresh yeast is activated, the first thing you will need to do is check the yeast’s freshness. If you find that your yeast has gone bad, you should get rid of it right away. You will be better off getting new yeast than trying to work with the old yeast. You can tell your yeast is not fresh if it has the following characteristics:
- The yeast is not moist and crumbly
- The yeast has darkened in color
- The yeast has a bad smell to it
Fresh yeast comes in large chunks that you have to break apart to see if it is activated. After you have broken apart the amount you need, you will need to put a small amount of the yeast in about a half cup of warm water.
If the yeast is activated, you will see the water begin to bubble, and a light foam will form at the top of the water. If the mixture does not start bubbling and no foam forms, then your yeast is unfortunately dead and no longer active. You will need to get new yeast.
How to Tell if Instant Yeast Is Activated
When it comes to instant yeast, you can usually assume it is active. Instant yeast is already activated when you purchase it—that is why so many bakers choose to use it for their convenience. Instant yeast stays activated until it goes bad.
Instant yeast will typically stay good for 14 to 18 months just sitting in your cupboard as long as it stays securely sealed in its package. You can keep your instant yeast activated for even longer (up to several years) if you keep it in the freezer.
If you are unsure whether your instant yeast is still activated, you can use the same method that you would use with fresh yeast.
- Place a small amount of your yeast into a cup of room temperature water.
- Check your yeast after about 10 minutes.
- The water should be bubbling slightly, and there should be a foam that you can see at the top of the water.
- If there is no foam, then your yeast is no longer active, and you will have to get new yeast.
Use Other Ingredients to Check Your Yeast
As mentioned above, you can use water to check whether or not yeast is activated. It is a very easy way to check as you probably have regular water on hand at any given time. However, water is only one of the three household ingredients you can use to check whether or not yeast is activated. These three ingredients are:
- Water
- Milk
- Sugar
Checking If Yeast Is Active with Just Water
One of the most common ways you will use to check whether your yeast is still active is water. As mentioned above, this is a great way to test fresh yeast and instant yeast. This method can be combined with sugar to check if your yeast is active, but using sugar does not always make a difference, and you can just as easily use water alone.
When you are using water to check whether your yeast is active, you only need to get a small amount of room temperature water in a cup or bowl. Place a small amount of the yeast you want to test into the water and let it sit for around 10 minutes before checking it. Do not check on it before the 10 minutes is up, or you may not get an accurate result.
The water should have turned a murky brown, and a light foam should have formed on top of the water. If this is the case, you now know that your yeast is still active and ready to be used.
Checking If Yeast Is Active by Using Milk
The second most common liquid that you will use when trying to tell if your yeast is activated is milk. More people are likely to have water on hand than milk, but either will do the trick. Surprisingly, you will find people who prefer to use milk over water when trying to tell if their yeast is activated or not.
When using milk to check whether your yeast is active or not, you will need to heat the milk beforehand. This is an extremely important thing to remember if you want to use milk. Since milk is usually very cold when taken straight out of the refrigerator, it runs the risk of killing your yeast if you place the yeast into it before warming it up.
To get your milk ready for the test, you can choose either of the following methods.
- Place the milk into a microwave or on a stove at medium heat for a minute or two to heat the milk up enough that it will not kill the yeast on contact.
- Leave the amount of milk that you need out on the counter for a few hours to bring it up to room temperature.
You will only need about half a cup of warm or room temperature milk to test whether or not your yeast is activated. Before placing the yeast into the milk, you will need to stir in one or two tablespoons of sugar into the milk. This is an added step you do not need to take when using water alone.
After you have added the sugar, you will need to sprinkle in the amount of yeast you have chosen to use for your test. Once the mixture is moist, stir the entire thing together, and then leave it to sit for 10 minutes. If your yeast is activated, you will see small bubbles in the mixture, and the entire thing should smell of yeast.
Use Sugar To Check If Your Yeast Is Still Activated
A very simple way that you can do easily and quickly to check if your yeast is activated is by dissolving the yeast with sugar. This method will only take you a few minutes and can save you a lot of time. This method can pair with either of the above two methods.
Get a small amount of room temperature water and place it into a container like a cup or a bowl. Take your yeast and sprinkle a small amount into the water and then sprinkle a little sugar over the yeast.
If the yeast dissolves fully into the water, then you know that your yeast is still activated. The water will also begin to bubble slightly if your yeast is activated. If, after a few minutes, no reaction has occurred, then it is safe to bet that your yeast is no longer activated. At this point, you will need to get new yeast.
Check the Characteristics of the Yeast
When you are looking to see if your yeast is active, there are a few things in particular that you want to look for, regardless of the method that you are using to check your yeast. Most of the methods of checking if your yeast is active that you will be using, though, will all have the same signs to show if your yeast is active or not.
The main indicator that your yeast is indeed activated is if the liquid it has been placed into begins bubbling after 10 minutes. Some liquids may require a longer time period, but 10 minutes is a good baseline for checking if yeast is active.
The Texture of Activated Yeast
The texture of the liquid that you placed the yeast in will give you insight into whether the yeast is activated or not. If you do not achieve the specified texture or look when you are testing your yeast, there is a good chance you either used too much water or that your yeast is dead.
The liquid yeast mixture should have the following characteristics if your yeast is active:
- The water should take on a murky brown color.
- A thick doughy foam should emerge on top of your water.
- The texture of the water should be that of wet dough.
- The yeast in the cup or bowl should begin to rise slightly.
This murky brown color comes from you mixing the yeast into the water. If the water does not have a brown color, it could mean that you did not mix it well enough. The thick foam on top will likely be the first and most noticeable texture change you will see, showing your yeast is activated.
Your water mixture should look like a doughy baking mixture after you put too much water into your mix. The yeast in the bowl should also begin to rise slightly, essentially doubling in its size. This comes from the yeast reacting with the water and increasing its size.
If you witness no changes in your yeast’s size when testing it, there is a good chance that your yeast is dead.
Why Your Yeast May Not Show Signs of Activation
However, there will be times when testing yeast for activation when you do not see any of these changes in your liquid. When that happens, you can be fairly certain that your yeast is no longer active, and you will need to get new yeast.
If your yeast does not show signs of activity, you may have used water that was too hot or too cold, killing the yeast on contact. The yeast may be expired, or you simply did not give the test enough time.
The causes of your yeast not being active are diverse. Sometimes you can accidentally cause your yeast to lose activation. However, it is easy to forget that yeast is a living organism and can be affected by the natural order of things.
Avoid Damaging Yeast and Getting Inaccurate Results
When you are checking your yeast to see whether or not it is active, there are a few things that you should make sure not to do. These things could skew the results and make it seem like your yeast is no longer active even when it is.
You also have the potential to damage good yeast by testing it improperly. Either of these things can cause you to throw away yeast and waste money.
Use the Proper Liquid Temperature
When you use liquid to check your yeast, you must ensure that you are not using water that is too hot or too cold. If you use liquid that is at an extreme temperature, it will skew your results or even damage your yeast.
- If you use water that is too hot, it will kill your yeast.
- If you use water that is too cold, it will halt the fermentation process.
Once your yeast has been killed, it does not matter if it was active before or not because it will be useless now. If the yeast cannot ferment, then it will not matter if your yeast is active or not because it will not be able to accomplish anything, and you may just throw it out.
You should be using room temperature liquid when checking to see if your yeast is activated. This can be achieved by either leaving it out to sit on the counter for a period of time or heating it up slightly to reach the necessary temperature. Either way will work, but you will need to ensure that you do not heat it up too drastically.
The best way to check if your water is at the right temperature is by using the wrist test. Place a few drops of the liquid you are testing on your wrist. If the liquid is too hot for your wrist to handle, this means that the water is too hot for your yeast. The water should feel warm but not hot on your skin because it will be the perfect temperature for your yeast.
Do Not Use Too Much Liquid
Another issue that you might run into during your tests can arise if you use too much liquid. This does not always cause issues when testing your yeast, but there are times that it can affect how well you are able to determine if your yeast is active or not. You may get inaccurate results.
You should only use a small amount of liquid, no more than half a cup at most when checking your yeast to see if it is still active or not. When you use half a cup of liquid, you need to wait about 10 minutes before checking to see if the foam has appeared. The more liquid you add, the longer you will have to wait.
If you wind up using a more considerable amount of liquid, your yeast may not even react with it at all. You could only get brownish murky water that lacks the foam at the top that shows if your yeast is still active. You could take this as an indication that your yeast is not active and throw it away, wasting good yeast.
Do Not Use Yeast That Has Expired
Another mistake that people commonly make is testing yeast that is already expired. You can sometimes use expired yeast when you are baking, and some expired yeast will even still be active, but once you pass about a month over the expiration date, that yeast will no longer be viable.
Any time you are checking if your yeast is active, make sure to check the expiration date first. You will save yourself a lot of time and frustration if you take a few seconds to check whether or not the yeast has expired. If the yeast is well over its expiration date, you do not have to perform the activation test. You should plan to get new yeast.
Happy Baking!