Making instant yeast rise higher/more

risingyeast

I make a relatively quick oatmeal bread (with bread, whole wheat flours and old-fashioned oatmeal); it calls for instant/fast rise yeast. I am wondering how to make it rise a bit more than it does….

Best Answer

That depends whether it still needs to be 'quick'. You can autolyse your flour, which will help the bread to rise. https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2017/09/29/using-the-autolyse-method This is just adding water to the flour - no yeast - then adding the yeast later in the process.

However this will add time.

You can possibly increase temperature, i.e. use a warm place. Essentially your yeast converts sugar into carbon dioxide and alcohol (which burns off). The carbon dioxide gas makes the loaf rise. Your yeast species probably works fastest around 32-35C.

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(SC in that graph)

A lower temperature will mean slower activity, so everything else being equal 1 hour at 32C will give much more gas than 1 hour at 25C. Fast rises can lead to voids in the loaf, so that's something to bear in mind.

If your bread has no added sugar (you don't mention this), then the yeast will not have much to work on. Your options here are to add (more) sugar or to add a flour improver containing amylase, which breaks down the complex carbohydrates in flour into sugar. Other flour improvers contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C), which helps strengthen the gluten network.