I work night shift in a bakery and the people before me always leave unused dough in the mixer. Who knows for how many hours, but during that same day. It's a dough made from dry yeast. One night I went to scrape it out and got a strong spoiled yeasty smell that came from it, almost knocking me to the floor. The other bakers said it was fine and that the dough is still usable for baking bread, but I'm not sure. Is leaving dough in a mixer for hours a health hazard? Does the smell indicate a health hazard?
Bread – Can over proofed dough be harmful to breathe in
breaddough
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Best Answer
.... There's no way to know for sure (since we can't test it) but it was probably CO2 (Carbon Dioxide)... Yeast creates CO2 when it converts sugars... that's how you can bottle carbonate beers.
We brew beers and we've had our freezer, which we use for a fermentation fridge, fill with the gas when we're brewing and the fermenting overflows. When we have to get into the freezer to clean it out, we have to be really careful as the carbon dioxide is heavier than air, so it stays in the freezer for a while... the same thing would be true of your large, covered mixer bowls. It can make you light-headed because your brain is suffering from oxygen deficiency.
Here's the fact sheet on CO2 inhalation:
And, because it's a byproduct of the yeast activation, it can smell really strongly of yeast, and have a really off smell, despite the gas itself being odorless.