Beer Yeast for baking?

[BillHodson]

I've just taken an interest in bread making. I've wanted to use spent grains in a grain bread, which is common. However, I was wondering about the effect of using brewing yeast in place of the standard yeast. Has anyone tried this?

[uberculture]

I've used dregs from bottles of hombrew to start a yeast culture. That's technically a poolish, but after enough generations, it's close enough to a sourdough starter. Makes a lovely loaf of bread.

[rebuiltcellars]

A few years ago I bought some packs of S-23 thinking it would make a decent lager. After determining that I was wrong, I still had a couple packs of yeast that sat in the fridge until one day when I wanted to make bread and realized I was out of baking yeast. In went the S-23. Turned out fine, much better than the lager I tried with it, though not in any way distinguishable from bread made using baker's yeast.

Going the other way is very interesting though. Baker's yeast will throw out all kinds of banana and phenol flavors when used to ferment beer. Surprisingly similar to a German weiss beer yeast.

[rookie_l_a]

Dave White of White Labs said you can use beer yeast but it takes longer to rise.

[potzertommy]

What about using it to start a sourdough starter? Will the first loaf be any different? months (and loaves) later, will there be any characteristics from the yeast, or will enough wild yeast have gotten in that the beer yeast will no longer be a player?

I would love to compare sourdough starters started with different yeasts. Belgian yeasts? Champagne yeasts? Wit yeasts?

[uberculture]

That's what I do. You hear different things. People say that after a number of generations, sourdough cultures kept in the same environment will eventually be the same, but I don't buy it. The ones I start with bread yeast never get properly sour. Using bottle dregs worked out really well, I suspect because the yeast had to compete from the get-go with bacteria. Starting with no yeast, just gathering wild critters from the flour and the air is kind of hit or miss for me.

I'd love to see some actual analysis done, though. Everyone has a theory, but nobody bothers to prove it.

[potzertommy]

Well now the gauntlet has been thrown. I could do a side by side w/
wild critters
bread yeast (which i had never considered as an option, but it could be a useful control group)
Belgian trappist
Wit

I am sure my family will love me and my fridge full of slop.

[uberculture]

Indeed... my wife's face every time she looks in the trash at discarded starter slop is pretty telling. But she loves the bread, so there's that.

[the_professor]

David White is correct...I've tried baking with beer yeast. It takes longer, but the slower ferment of the dough actually made a better dough (particularly for pizza).

[brew_cat]

OEC brewery has a bakery attached to their facility and all they use is beer yeast and wort. Check out their website for ideas

[terrywakis]

I don't have any experience about using yeast.