Yeast

[Gabrielles blades]

any bakers here?
I like to make breads, unfortunatly, breads dont like to rise for me very often.

I dont know what it is that im doing wrong, but my best guess is its my yeast.

Heres what happens usualy:
Measure amt of water, microwave it, put thermometer in and wait till 105 degrees farenheit, put yeast in, stir till dissolved, wait to see if it will foam.

Now thats where the problem arises - it usualy doesnt foam, also, is the yeast supposed to clump up when added to the water? usualy have to do a lot of stirring to get it unclumpted.
about 1 in 10 tries gets me a foamy yeast; any help on improving my odds is appreciated.

[antryg]

I would check 2 things. First make sure that the yeast package is not out of date or gotten to warm. Second I would make sure that you are adding the correct amount of yeast. Sometimes you could be adding only half the amount of yeast that the recipe calls for, if you don't check the packaging. Just as a personal preference, I would only heat the water to 90-95 degrees farenheit. I've had problems in the past be scalding (translate as killing) the yeast.

edit to brag: I'm a blue ribbon county fair winner for bread baking

[ 02-16-2003, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: antryg ]

[Epona]

I'd agree with antryg, tho it's been a while since I made bread.

Either your yeast isn't fresh (I used to buy a block of fresh yeast from the bakers shop, rather than use dried yeast in a packet) or the temperature is wrong. I would go a little cooler than that personally.

[Gabrielles blades]

Hrm, ill try it lower temperature next time.

How much yeast do you guys use per cup of water?
most recipees i follow use a 8 fluid oz of water to .25 weight oz of yeast

P.S. i dont have the most accurate scale, so im forced to use pre-weighted packs of yeast if i am to do recipes that measure the yeast in this way - how much yeast in fluid measurements is there per weight measure?