HOW DOES YEAST WORK?
First, what is it? Yeast is a “thallophyte,” a complete, smaller-than-we-can-see one-celled plant. Each cell is the same, i.e. as they grow, they don’t become differentiated to form more complex organisms like the plants that we can see. The name for all strains of bakers’ yeast (with the exception of sourdough or wild yeast) is Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The tiny pellets you see in a container of dried yeast are not single yeast cells, but agglomerations of many cells. It takes about 25 billion of them to make a gram (1/28 of an ounce). One yeast cell may be tiny, but in huge numbers, they can certainly make their presence known — primarily by their waste products, which are very valuable to the baker. The most important ones are carbon dioxide, which leavens bread; and alcohol, which creates its flavor. Yeast definitely has its likes and dislikes, which have a large impact on how it grows and reproduces. By knowing a little bit about these, we can help or hinder yeast. But even in the
