Prep School: Homemade Yeast and Sourdough Starter

By Ash Bauer

Copyright 2012 Ash Bauer

Kindle Edition

Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

FRUIT YEAST

YEAST POWDER

FROZEN YEAST CUBES

COLOR AND FLAVOR

SOURDOUGH STARTER

POTATO YEAST

CONCLUSION

Welcome to Prep School!

It’s easy to be intimidated by a hardcore prepper with 30 years of food stores, multiple bug-out locations, and an off-the-grid power system. Prep School exists to let you in on three big prepping secrets.

SECRET ONE: Nobody starts perfect.

When those prepping powerhouses first started they were just as clueless as you are. Even Navy Seals had things to learn.

Nobody expects you to become a prepping expert overnight. Prep School is for people who are interested in prepping for a crisis or disaster but aren’t really sure where to start. Each article tackles a specific topic such as making primitive weapons, preserving meat without power, and the special survival needs of ladies.

If you’re an advanced prepper who could use a quick refresher on a specific topic you can spend $1.49 on a single essay. There’s no need to waste your money or make you wade past information you could teach in search of the good stuff you need. If you’re just getting started, you can pick up individual books or save a little cash and pick up our $2.99 Theme Packs where we bundle related articles into a single book. Only buy what you need. Spend the rest on your preps.

SECRET TWO: Prepping is fun.

Stockpiling food and ammo may sound grim and intimidating, but you know what most preppers do in real life on a daily basis? Sports and crafting. It’s the same stuff millions of ordinary Americans do every day for fun. On the sport side you’ll find people who love archery, shooting, and martial arts - all things kids do at summer camp for the sheer joy of it. As for crafters, you can find entire suburban stores dedicated to cranking out supplies for beer making, knitting, canning, soap making, and sewing. Etsy exists just to give crafters a way to get rid of all the fun stuff they make. People create things because it’s fun. Preppers are normal people with a cause.

The difference between mainstream sports and crafting versus prepping is focus. Sure, the skills are fun, but they’ll also help keep you alive if the stuff hits the fan.

You’ll find people in prepper communities are thrilled to make friends (and future allies). The thing people forget about hardcore preppers who are ready to survive whatever the world throws at them is they got that way because they honestly enjoyed the process.

SECRET THREE: Prepping isn’t just for The End Of The World As We Know It.

Natural disasters happen. Hurricane Katrina is the most extreme example in recent American history, but there are countless smaller tornadoes, floods, blizzards, and locally relevant disasters which result in the power going out for anywhere from a day to a week. When that happens, a well prepared person doesn’t have to be afraid. Instead of hunger, fear, and violence a prepper has food, security and safety.

Getting started with prepping is all about baby steps that won’t interfere with your real life.

In this article, you’ll learn how to simple and fast it is to make your own wild yeast for use in anything from bread to beer.

INTRODUCTION

Believe it or not, yeast doesn’t come from aluminum foil packets. It grows naturally on all kinds of things. As a prepper, you can stock up on thousands of yeast packets for your daily bread or you can learn to make your own natural yeast from scratch.

Homemade yeast (or more accurately, home harvested yeast) can be used in everything from bread and baked goods to beer and hard cider. Since wild yeast occurs naturally on everything from grain to fruit, it’s entirely probable that beer was accidentally invented countless times after a hearty rain soaked stored grain. Natural wild yeast occurs on the grapes to make wine, the grains to make bread, and the outside of nearly every fruit. Your challenge is to harvest and concentrate that yeast so you can use it for baking and brewing. Luckily, the techniques are pretty simple.

Harvesting your own yeast is a wonderful stealth prep. It’s remarkably easy to do. Both fruit yeasts and sourdoughs give your breads and baked goods a unique flavor and aroma. Bring a loaf to parties or potlucks and amaze your friends with your impressive baking skills. You’ll look like the kind of detail oriented baker who prizes authentic flavors and only wants the best for their family. No one needs to know you’re prepping to make sure your family keeps enjoying life sustaining fresh bread in case of a crisis or disaster.

FRUIT YEAST

Strawberry yeast is particularly popular among bread bakers. However, the most common fruit based yeast people make at home comes from raisins. This is mostly because raisins are high in sugar, high in surface area, store well over a long period of time, and are cheap. You can use whatever non-citrus fruits you grow or can easily acquire. Just make sure they’re organic and wax free.

Yeast grows on the skin of most fruit. Don't worry. It's entirely harmless and totally natural. In order to harvest yeast for fermentation, you need to get it off the fruit skin and into a more concentrated form. You can make yeast from just about any fruit you want, though you'll get a the highest yield from fruits lower in acid and higher in sugar. This means apple peels, fuzzy peach skins, or whatever kind of fruit you grow are a great resource. Once peeled you can use the skins for yeast, eat the fruit, and turn the cores into organic cooking racks. Nothing needs to go to waste.

If you live in citrus growing country you can use orange peels to make fruit yeast. However, you need to be incredibly careful. Zest the oranges. The bitter white pith can kill your yeast. The acidic fruit interior will most certainly kill it. Unlike apple peels or berries, the zest doesn't have any extra sugars. You'll need to add a tablespoon or two of honey or sugar to the recipe below in order to make citrus yeast work. Even then, your odds of success are a lower than the odds for someone using apples, peaches, or berries.

If you live in the American Southwest, you can try to make yeast from Agave or Aloe peel. The success rate is even lower than citrus, but it can be done as long as you're patient and willing to try a few times. Just like with citrus, you'll need to add some extra sugar or honey in order to kickstart the yeast's growth.

Obviously, harvesting wild yeast is easier when you live in a more fertile, fruit friendly climate. However, with some patience you can make yeast from darn near anything.

Whatever fruit you pick, you need it to be organic so it won’t have any pesticides. Pesticides don’t just keep bugs away. They also kill off the natural, beneficial yeast you’re trying to harvest. Using fruit with pesticides will leave you with smelly fruit water instead of useful yeast.

You want to make sure your fruits (especially raisins) are free of wax because the wax seals the fruit up nicely, once more preventing the growth of yeast.

In order to harvest yeast, you only need 4 things:

- 4 tablespoons fresh or dried organic fruit with no wax

- 2 cups water

- Clean Glass Jar

- Cheesecloth

Step 1: Boil your water. You want to make sure your water doesn’t host any other wild yeasts or bacteria. You also want to make sure it’s not full of chemicals which could stop your yeast from growing, so if your city water is overly treated, use bottled water.

In a crisis or disaster situation you can also distil water. Fill a pot with water. Create an aluminum foil tent over the top of the pot. Make sure one corner of the tent points down into a clean receptacle. As the water boils, it will turn into steam, which then collects on the inside of the tent. The steam collects into droplets which then run off the sides of the tent and down into the clean container. The steam is pure water. Boiling it kills any bacteria and collecting it this way help rid it of dangerous particulates. If you’re in a crisis situation or are suffering from a natural disaster where the water is muddy and dubious, boiling and distilling your water is a good way to make sure it’s clean, pure, and safe.

Step 2: Let your water cool to room temperature. Add your fresh or dried fruit to the clean, sterile glass jar and fill the jar 80% with your cool, clean water.

Step 3: Cover the jar with cheesecloth. Tie the cheesecloth in place. This lets the yeast breathe without letting in too much outside yeast, bacteria, or other harmful agents.

Step 4: Wait. Check on your yeast solution daily. Depending on the fruit and the temperature, it can take anywhere from 1-4 weeks before you start to see any bubbles. Your jar should smell like fruity wine. Let it bubble for a day. After that, it should be ready to use.

If you’re impatient and have a good stock of sweetener, you can speed up the process by adding 2 tablespoons of sugar or honey. This gives the yeast something to feed on. You should see results within days instead of weeks. However, in a crisis or disaster situation, honey and sugar will become precious commodities. It’s up to you whether you want to use patience or use sweeteners.

Since raisins are so high in natural sugars, many people include 1 tablespoon of them no matter what kind of fruit yeast they’re making. Throw in a tablespoon along with orange rind, strawberries, apple peels, peach skins, or whatever fruits or berries grow where you live. Once the water bubbles and the raisins float to the top, you know your yeast is ready to use.

You can use your fruit yeast water in anything from baked goods to homebrew. However, yeast water made from fruit is not as strong as commercially purchased yeast packets. It also doesn’t store as long as powdered yeast. You’ll need to use a little more of it than you would of commercial yeast and adjust your recipes around the fluid content.

Luckily, you can turn your home made yeast water into a powdered yeast concentrate.

YEAST POWDER

If you don’t want to mess with figuring out what liquids to substitute for yeast water you can always turn your home made yeast into powdered yeast concentrate. It rehydrates just like the familiar commercial yeast you find in grocery stores or at homebrew shops.

Pour a thin layer of yeast water into a non-reactive glass pan. You want it to be no more than an inch. Cover the top of the pan with cheesecloth to prevent any wild yeast, bacteria or mold from getting in. Now put the pan in a sunny spot and let it slowly dehydrate.

Avoid the temptation to skip a step. A lot of preppers own solar ovens. (If you don’t, you should seriously consider one. They’re great.) Do not succumb to the temptation to put that glass pan in your solar oven instead of leaving it in a sunny corner. Too much heat will kill your yeast. Your goal here is to slowly dehydrate the yeast, not cook it. Likewise, don’t put your yeast water in a dehydrator. That too will kill the yeast.

Once you’ve patiently let your pan of yeast water dehydrate, you should be left with a solid powder coating the bottom. This is your yeast. You can scrape it off and put it in an airtight container for storage. Use 1.5 times as much of this yeast powder as you would commercially bought yeast and you should end up with similar results.

FROZEN YEAST CUBES

If you leave your yeast water too long without using it or drying it out, it may try to turn into wine. If you have access to electricity, you can prevent this by simply freezing your yeast. Pour your yeast water into ice cube trays. The individually sized yeast cubes are easy to thaw and use in recipes.

Substitute 1 cup of yeast water for 1 packet of yeast in most recipes for bread or baked goods. The strength of your yeast will vary between different fruits, so be pay attention and don’t be afraid to experiment.

COLOR AND FLAVOR

Strongly colored berries such as strawberries, raspberries and blackberries can impart a faint color to the crust of your breads. That hint of red or purple just shows you’ve made an entirely natural, homemade product from scratch. It’s both pretty and impressive. Feel free to show off to your friends.

Berry yeasts in particular can have a subtle impact on the flavor of your final product. You won’t get strawberry flavored bread from using a strawberry based yeast, but you may end up with a slightly sweeter product with a nice, sweet aroma. Cooks say we taste things first with our nose. That subtle whiff of sweetness can make the difference between a good bread and an amazing one.

Sweet baked goods are particularly nice when made from blackberry yeast. Since you get more aroma than flavor from the yeast, you can add a subtle hint of berries to your cinnamon rolls or pancakes plus a trace of exotic color. Fresh blueberry pancakes made with blueberry yeast water are downright amazing.

SOURDOUGH STARTER

Basic sourdough starter is another great way to make a fermentable base without wasting any sugar. There are plenty of cheater recipes out there which begin with a packet of yeast and a few tablespoons of honey, but that’s not how the gold miners who settled San Francisco or Alaska did it. If they could make simple starters from nothing but flour and water, so can you.

Making sourdough starter is an ongoing process. Think of it as raising a pet. You have to keep feeding it or else it will die.

To start, you’ll need:

- 1 ½ cups unbleached, organic all purpose white flour

- 1 cup of very warm (but not scalding) water

- Clean Glass Container

- Cheesecloth

This could not be simpler.

Step 1: Make sure you have clean water. If In doubt, use the same boiling and distilation technique mentioned earlier.

Step 2: Mix the organic (and thus pesticide free) flour and very warm water until you have a smooth paste with no lumps.

Step 3: Pour the mix into your clean glass jar. Cover the top with cheesecloth and tie it in place. You want to keep all the bad things out while still allowing your starter to breathe.

Step 4: Wait 24 hours. Mix 1 cup of flour with ¾ cup of very warm water until you have a smooth, lump-free paste. Mix this in with your existing flour and water.

Step 5: Your sourdough starter should be starting to smell a little tangy. Mix another 1 cup of flour and ¾ cup of very warm water. Now remove half of your existing sourdough starter and replace it with the new flour and water paste. Mix the old and new pastes together until they’re well integrated then once more cover the container with cheesecloth.

At this point, you can either throw away the half you removed earlier or use it for pancakes, a pizza crust, or something else that doesn’t need to rise very much.

Step 6: Wait 24 hours then repeat step 5. Six hours later, your sourdough starter should double in size. If it doesn’t, keep repeating the steps every day until it does.

Step 7: Once your sourdough starter doubles in size, it’s ready to use. Follow the sourdough bread recipe of your choice.

In order to keep your sourdough starter alive, you’ll have to feed it every other day. You can do this by repeating step 5.

If you keep up with it, your sourdough starter can last for months, or possibly even for years. Your starter will get better and tastier over time.

Yeast isn’t damaged by freezing. Once you have a tasty, reliable starter, feel free to save it by freezing the half you remove every time you repeat step 5 (also known as “feeding the starter.”)

Natural sourdough starter creates a dense, tangy bread. It doesn’t rise particularly high or strong. If you want a more aggressive sourdough starter with more bubbles in it, you can start with the following cheater’s recipe. Purists will scoff, but it gets the job done and it does it well.

"CHEATER” SOURDOUGH STARTER

- 1 packet Baker’s Yeast

- 1 cup Unsweetened Pineapple Juice

- 1 cup very warm (not scalding) Water

- 2 cups unbleached, organic, all purpose White Flour

- Clean Glass Container

- Cheesecloth

Step 1: Make sure you have clean water. If In doubt, use the same boiling and distillation technique mentioned earlier.

Step 2: Mix the unsweetened pineapple juice (this just means no extra sugar was added. Your best source is to strain it from a can of generic pineapple rings) and yeast packet until the yeast is fully dissolved.

Step 3: Add the very warm (not scalding) water to the yeast and pineapple juice mix. Stir well then let it sit for 10 minutes.

Step 4: Add the flour. Mix everything until you have a smooth paste with no lumps.

Step 5: Pour the mix into your clean glass jar. Cover the top with cheesecloth and tie it in place. You want to keep all the bad things out while still allowing your starter to breathe.

Step 6: Wait 24 hours. Mix 1 cup of flour with ¾ cup of very warm water until you have a smooth, lump-free paste. Mix this in with your existing flour and water.

Step 7: Your sourdough starter should be starting to smell a little tangy. Mix another 1 cup of flour and ¾ cup of very warm water. Now remove half of your existing sourdough starter and replace it with the new flour and water paste. Mix the old and new pastes together until they’re well integrated then once more cover the container with cheesecloth.

At this point, you can either throw away the half you removed earlier or use it for pancakes, a pizza crust, or something else that doesn’t need to rise very much.

Step 8: Wait 24 hours then repeat step 5. Within six hours, your sourdough starter should double in size. In fact, it might have already doubled in size the previous day.

Step 7: Once your sourdough starter doubles in size, it’s ready to use. Follow the sourdough bread recipe of your choice.

In order to keep your sourdough starter alive, you’ll have to feed it every other day. You can do this by repeating step 7.

Adding commercial yeast and sugar (in the form of the pineapple juice) ensures strong fermentation. Any time your sourdough starter seems to be getting weak or producing flatter loaves, you can mix 1 cup of flour and ¾ cup organic (which means pesticide free) fruit juice of your choice when repeating step 7. This should breathe new life into your starter.

POTATO YEAST

If you don’t want to waste too much flour you can also make a sourdough-like starter from potatoes.

- 2 medium Potatoes

- 4 cups Water

- 2 tbsp Sugar or Honey

- 1 tsp salt

- Clean Glass Container

- Cheesecloth

Step 1: Dice one potato and boil it in the four cups of water.

Step 2: Pour two cups of the potato water into a bowl and wait until the water cools to lukewarm. Mash the boiled potato, sugar or honey, and salt in the potato water.

Step 3: Peel the remaining potato. Add the potato peel to the mashed potato mix. The mix should be very warm, but not scalding. You don’t want to kill the yeast on the potato skin.

Step 4: Pour the mix into your sterile glass container. Cover it with cheesecloth and tie the cheesecloth in place.

Step 5: Store the container in a warm, dark place. Depending on the temperature and the whims of your yeast, fermentation should begin in anywhere from 5 to 10 days. Once you have active bubbles on the surface, your starter is ready to use.

Step 6: Just like a flour starter, your potato starter is alive. It needs to be fed every other day. Boil a medium potato and mash it in a cup of the water you boiled it in. Let it cool to room temperature. Add the peeled skin of another potato. Mix the two well. Remove half your existing potato starter and replace it with the new mix.

Use your potato starter the same way you would use a flour based sourdough starter. You can even use the same quantities of potato starter in your sourdough recipes. Just make sure to remove the potato peels before you add the potato starter to your dough.

Potato starter doesn’t freeze as well as flour based starter. It’s best for people who have a lot of potatoes and a limited amount of flour.

If, after a crisis or disaster, you decide to distil moonshine in order to make a replacement for rubbing alcohol, potato starter is a good substitute for yeast. Keep in mind it is illegal to make moonshine for either human consumption or genuine medical purposes.

CONCLUSION

You don’t need to stockpile yeast in order to make your daily bread. As long as you have access to fruit, you can make your own. If you don’t have access to fruit, you can still make sourdough bread using wheat or potatoes.

Fruit yeasts in particular impart a wonderful aroma to bread and baked goods. Plus, your friends will be impressed and amazed when you tell them you harvested your own yeast. Most people don’t even realize that’s possible - much less easy.

There’s something incredibly satisfying about making a loaf of bread or a pan of cinnamon rolls in your solar oven using yeast you harvested yourself. It’s proof that living off the grid doesn’t mean giving up on the best things in life. In fact, your efforts will be rewarded with a flavorful bread most people have never been lucky enough to taste.

If you enjoyed this, check out other Prep School lessons including:

Prep School: Preserving Meat Without Power

Prep School: Unarmed Self Defense

Prep School: Cooking Without Electricity

Prep School: Simple Cider Homebrew

Or save money with our Guns and Weapons Theme Pack.

Have fun staying safe!