📖 Find the written recipe in the link below the video ⤴ 🌾 If you would like to support my work click here ⤵ www.ko-fi.com/chainbaker 🔪 Find all the things I use here ⤵ 🇺🇸 www.amazon.com/shop/ChainBaker 🇬🇧 www.amazon.co.uk/shop/ChainBaker 🍞 Share your bread pictures here ⤵ www.flickr.com/groups/chainbaker/

Charlie you are so brave. The dedicated sourdough posse is sure to be out in force. But what I like about your channel is that you make bread baking accessible to everyone. People who have the time and equipment to make complicated sourdough bread will feel at home here, but so will the basic bread bakers just trying to make a tasty loaf. I've been baking bread for decades and I've learned tons from your videos. Thanks for sharing your passion and expertise with us all.

I could watch these side by sides every day all day. And those tiny little breads...amazing!

I mostly use my starter for baking, I find it much easier to control the fermentation. But if it's not available, I sometimes use active dry yeast, it is much faster even when refrigerated. Since I cold ferment over three to five days, it can sometimes slightly be over by the last day. However, the taste is pretty close since I leave it for so long. The smell is much more beer-like and potent on the yeasted dough. One cool thing about yeast, is that you get the little show when it activates and wakes up, that's always fun.

Another fantastic comparison! All of your videos have improved my bread making immensely. Thank you so much!

I started my baking journey a year ago. Each week I made one/two loaves and that is my dinner every night. One of my first goals was to make an open crumb bread. I tried many different methods and techniques before succeeding in my 8th try- with a recipe similar to this. The funny thing is that while I tried to perfect this skill I stumbled upon your channel, which helped me greatly. However maybe I'll take this as a sign and move to sourdough now...

This is what I needed... I live in India and the weather conditions are crazy... Creating sourdough starter requires a lot of attention..and i have really enjoyed my breads using poolish/biga... Your video really helped me think right. Thank you Charlie

I love your technique, not just in baking, but in how you handle subjet matter. The commentary you add makes the video more interesting , but you aren't adding anything to pad video time and it is so easy to watch as a result! Bravo!

I completed the Sourdough vs Yeast comparison this afternoon. Results were similar if not exactly the same as yours - pretty cool!! Photos have been posted - dough prep and baked results. Thanks again for inspiring me to try this comparison.

Really interesting (as usual). Thanks for the great content.

I love these side-by-side comparison videos, they really help inform how I come at baking week to week. Honestly half the time I'm using my sourdough starter, it's less about flavor and more about "eh, too lazy to head to the shop for a jar of yeast, got everything I need here!", so I'm glad to see the other way round isn't losing people too much flavor. Now, for me to rustle up a nice thermometer so I can finally use that temperature technique of yours!

Nice! A thoughtful comparison.

Excellent idea. Biga makes huge changes in my baking thanking to you.

I've been thinking about this for a while now - you've inspired me to try this method out - thank you. What I really need is to work out a combination of this and the cold fermentation methods you've shown recently.

Very interesting shaping method!

A great comparison...also ive tried combining yst with sd starter - to get the best of both worlds...terrific combo

Thanks for making this video. I’ve made bread both ways. Since I work a lot, I find it easier to make the preferment the day ahead and my family likes the flavor. Keep up the great work!

Nice video! I personally love both. Specially when baking weekly it's good to vary.

In my experience, commercial yeast does not break down the gluten. Sourdough does. I think it's the bacteria which you mentioned and which commercial yeast doesn't have. I had to learn how to control my sourdough to provide the right balance of yeast and bacteria, which I believe creates acids that break down the gluten. Sourdough can give you a much different product depending on the amount of bacteria. Commercial yeast seems to preserve the gluten keeping it strong, which might be better for rise. Commercial yeast might also provide the desired texture, say for croissants.

very cool video. Thanks for that!

I've used a biga and other preferments and made sourdough in the past and to my palette they are so close. Another great video Charlie. Cheers

wonderful indeed!

Fantastic video! Thank you. I love cooking bread, and so many friends and family ask me to cook it for them I find myself cooking bread almost every day! I do slightly prefer sourdough, but for me TIME is a huge consideration. Also, I'm not very good at maintaining things, so trying to keep a starter healthy takes more time and effort than it's worth. I've decided to use yeast for my go-to method, and I'll use sourdough starter for special occasions.

Great comparison video - results are very interesting!! My brother's fav bread is your Pain Rustique - I'll make this later this week and share the comparison with him. Thanks for sharing this fun comparison video.

To get the sour taste in the yeast loaf you could dehydrate your sour dough starter and grind it into a powder

I did this experiment with 65% hidration bread with sourdough and poolish and my results were exactly like yours here. Taste, texture, everything! Amazing how much consistent both tries were!

I love it that’s the good one! I never had done comparison side-by-side. today I am baking using commercial yeast with overnight proofing for a better flavor. Usually I’m not going over 24 hours from the moment I start.

Thanks for the video. Very interesting. Differences are very little. Surprisingly!

Chain baker you videos are always so good and infornative thank you! Also waiting for a video id ever you havw time to do a comparison of No time dough method and straight dough method!

Your videos are incredibly informative and enjoyable to watch! Your attention to detail and clear explanations make learning about baking techniques so much fun. Thank you for putting in the effort to create such insightful and engaging content. Looking forward to more of your fantastic videos!

I tried this 2 days ago, before watching this video, (the tiny amount of yeast left side of your video)...right after I watched your video on sourdough starter, and the bread you made with it... simply because I didn't want to wait for the sourdough starter to get going and grow. I used the tiniest amount of yeast, and did a 12 hour preferment on a warm counter, while occasionally pulling and stretching/folding the dough to try to build tension as you had shown. I had my doubts if everything was working, (and my stretch and fold technique is pretty bad, just trying to learn it from your other video)so I put the dough (after 12 hrs!) into my homemade banneton, which was a round colander, lined with a tea towel heavily impregnated with flour. I put it in the fridge overnight, uncovered, then brought it out for a few hours/scored it as you have shown with the razor blade, and baked in preheated 500 degree F oven inside a heavy dutch oven that had also been preheated for 1/2 hour. I spritzed the loaf heavily with water right before putting it in the oven with the lid on. Baked for 25 mins, then removed lid and continued at 500 F for only about FIVE (edited) mins as it seemed like it might be burning on top, so I turned it down to 375 for another 12 to 15 mins. I felt like I may be overbaking, but because I was worried that it wouldn't be cooked in the center/as it didn't rise as much as I thought it should have. It looked fantastic when I took it out, and I left it to cool for 1 hr as you said. When I cut it in 1/2, it was actually extremely tasty, and REALLY gave the impression across the board/taste/crumb etc as sourdough!!! ** It even had the sourdough ear! I now have stored it in the dutch oven with the lid on now as we continue to eat it, (it is now day two), and it seems to only improve past day one! * I covered the top loosely with a piece of parchment after initially cutting it in half, because I was a bit concerned the crust would be too hard to bite through...but that was likely unnecessary. Huge thanks for these videos, they are fascinating, and provide a LOT of inspiration and useful knowledge. All the best!! ** Edit: This bread lasted really well thru hot summer days, for 4 days (by that time I ate it all, lol). No mold, no significant drying out either, even though I only had it stored in the dutch oven, with the lid on. To anyone who's reading this, this is really worth a try...and also, it's so cheap to make, so you don't need to worry so much about a 'fail'... 1/4 tsp of yeast, salt and just over 3 cups of flour. I shaped mine like a traditional sourdough round loaf, with the slash. Thanks very much for the excellent videos.

Muito bom, parabéns!

I’ve done slow rise with yeast preferment, and found the same thing. You can get a strong yeasty flavour which compliments white flour, or also semolina, with this. Whereas the sourness in sourdough tends to complement the more complex flavour of whole grain flours. The yeast is more forgiving, it won’t really overferment in the same way,

Nice

Love it, your videos make me hungry as usual :) keep sharing please… I’m subscribed to your channel 😀

I made faux sourdough bread with yeast and plain yoghurt tasted pretty good.

I absolutely love your videos. I’ve worked as a professional baker for the last 12 or so years but I’m still learning new things every day. I have a poolish/preferment question that I hope you might be able to answer. I’m currently working in an artisan bread bakery and we use a preferment that we call a “poolish”, but I’ve come to realize it doesn’t really fit the definition (100% flour 100% water .25% yeast) Our recipe is 100% flour, 75% water, and 75% old dough (usually a white dough that we mixed that day and had extra) We mix it at the end of the day and then put it in the cooler until the next shift (16-18 hours). It results in a light, shiny ‘dough’ with a nice fermented smell. Depending on the recipe, it could be 20-35% of the flour weight. I can’t find anything online with a similar preferment. It’s like a low hydration poolish meeting a pâte fermentée? Have you ever come across anything similar? And if not, would you be willing to try out this unconventional preferment?

brilliant! thank you. :)

When we were selling at a farmers market we had a poolish based white bread which some customers inisted had to be sourdough based. It wasn't. Just poolish. Most of our breads were sourdough based, so I suspect those customers were having their expectations fulfilled.

I have to say that since a couple of years ago when I worked too much and got sick from fatigue syndrom I had to rethink baking. Sourdough was just too much pressure on my mental health with all the steps necessary to keep it alive. I switched to yeast and l realized that it made my life so much easier. Glad to see that you compare these methods and that there is hope to making good bread. Funny note, my aunt was on a visit here and she had sent me some articles on sourdough baking. She tasted my bread that I had made on my own and exclaimed that it was a sourdough bread. I told it was a yeastbread and she hardly believed me. Good bread can be made from yeast I guess. Have a nice day and continuance of the summer. Love your work.

My daughter's german bread recipe calls for Apple cider vinegar to give it that sourdough flavor, works pretty well.

Really superb technique and knowledge. Thanks for all you do to increase and enhance the canon. Steven Schroeder near Little Rock Arkansas US

Thanks!

It’s one of my favorite method with high hydration the dough’s so loose and silky right ? I appreciate you 👌🏾

I love your videos I definitely learn a lot! I was wondering if you have done or can do a comparison of the difference in bread when you use a sourdough starter at different times. How to control the time before the leaven is ready to use. Also how to make cold ferment work with sourdough starter in dough. Thanks again for all the amazing videos you do. Hope you have a great day!

I feel like commercial yeast helps you learn when a bread has properly risen and is ready for baking. It's hard with sourdough, which can vary a lot more, to know it's properly proof without some experience knowing what to look for

My sourdough starter never seems to develop here. When I lived100km south I had one that worked all right. So I just treat it as a dough fortifier for flavor (it tastes good, just doesn't leaven well) and add yeast to rise.

I love your comparison videos. I am a scientist and this makes bread even more interesting.

Made the yeasted one yesterday out of interest and it was like a sourdough. Today the sourdough biga. It tripled over 12 hours and the whole thing is bulk fermenting now. I’m going to put it in the fridge overnight. Bake tomorrow.

first of all, experiment aside, those are beautiful rustic loaves, and no i dont think you need to score them. scoring is a way of relieving pressure from the tight gluten 'skin' and encouraging oven spring by giving the expanding dough somewhere to go. the whole point of this rustic style of loaf is you dont tighten the loaf with shaping and therefore the loaf expands freely in all directions, resulting in maximum volume and a light, soft crumb. the french way i've seen is to lay it out kinda like you did and then fold it over itself once, dust, cover and then leave it alone (sur la planche). i like what you showed us with cutting off those pieces and placing them underneath-- i'm going to try that. i have also done it with just laying the dough down and not manipulating at all it before it goes into the oven for a pain rustique difforme. ya, i just made up the silly name as far as the experiment, the results are exactly in line with my experience. sourdough is sourdough, but any long, slow fermentation with tiny amounts of commercial yeast by just about any method you can think of will yield a lovely, complex, sour quality, noticeably more digestible than fast-risen bread, but not quite reaching the depth of flavor and sourness you get with a sourdough culture. and while you're right there is no bacteria in yeast while sourdough is packed with bacteria, bacterial action will develop in any long fermentation, especially at room temp. i dont see this often said, but to my palate breads slow-risen with yeast or preferment, like baguettes, are also sweet with a sour finish final note: if you want more of a crust on those rustic loaves out of a home oven, you can cover them with an inverted lasagne pan for the first 2/3 of baking thanks for yet another beautifully produced and informative video

I kinda did achieve similar results to sour dough with commercial yeast, once I put dough in the fridge for a cold proof but the plans changed and I left home for over a week, when I cane back it had a similar smell and taste to sour dough, though not quite the same, the structure was not the best, I saved a part of it, every now and then I use it instead of stater when I forgot to take it out of the fridge or feed it, it certainly get the job done just not quite the same

the longer you let dough/biga do its thing the more micro organismen from the air will enter and do their thing.If i make a starter from an unwashed mixing bowl while it stands next to the milk- and water kefir the end result is much more like sourdough then when i use the same technique and place the bowl 20m away from all the stuff I have with acid creating bacteria. A long biga with a spoon of living yoghurt/kefir will be almost the same as old fashioned sourdough. I dont like sourdough too open crumb and tangy, so this i how i learned how to reuse the last bits of dough from a mixing bowl, graduately growing the yeast back into it, i now know the proper location to leave the bowl while bringing the yeast back to a baking session volume. As a sidenote, some Dutch bakers use sourdough powder to give the resulting loaves the right flavor (and price :( ) while just using plain old yeast , techniques and timings. A cool and tasty way to get a sourdough started is getting yourself a nice Geuze Belgian beer (brand Boon is very good), its beer from wild fermentation and a sour tangyness to it, pour it gently, leave 1cm of beer and use that to start a starter, its all natural Belgian microorganisms :) saves two days in getting a starter going compared to starting from scratch.

Hi Charlie. New to the channel and enjoying the vids. I tried this a few months ago with a poolish and fermented it for hours and it worked out really well however my sourdough efforts to date have all come unstuck.

Charlie, I haven’t read through all the comments, but have you seen the no-knead recipe developed by Cook’s Illustrated some years ago? They experimented with various techniques to try to replicate the flavor of sourdough bread using yeast, and they landed on a formula that substituted beer and vinegar for sone of the water. I recall that it was 4 oz. of beer and a tablespoon of white vinegar for what was otherwise a standard no-knead recipe, with 18-24 hours of fermentation. I tried it a long time ago with sone success before learning to make better breads that aren’t no-knead, but I’ve considered taking one of my newer yeast bread recipes with a preferment and trying it with a little beer and vinegar. This inspires me to maybe remember to give it a try next time.

The bread I make most frequently is a sourdough miche, but the last time I baked it the starter was a little sleepy and I wanted to hurry things up a bit. So I used the usual amount of starter and added the appropriate proportion of dried yeast for the amount of flour. The fermentation time was of course shorter than it would have been with just the sourdough starter, but the results were interesting. The baked loaf had all the flavour of the 100 percent sourdough version, but the crumb was a bit lighter and softer. The crust was also a bit crisper and thinner. Rise was about the same. Sometimes I find my usual miche a bit tougher than I'd like, so combining the sourdough levain and dried yeast to get a lighter texture is something I'll persevere with, since I still got all the flavour. Have you done a video on fermentation time and the effect on the chewiness of the crumb and crust? Longer seems to mean chewier etc.

I just partially-watched a video featuring a middle-aged fashion influencer named Alpha, AND HE TALKS LIKE THIS…JUST YELLS THE ENTIRE TIME! I watch some vids on fashion, so the KZfaq algorithm recommended it to me. What a refreshing contrast you are, Charlie-very chill, positive & loving! 🙏 🥰 🥖 Maybe that guy needs to do more dough-kneading & bread-baking to R E L A X a bit! 😂

Wonderful comparison, thank you for this video. I can imagine the most significant difference is the flavor and the health benefits. Though (this might be a specific question) I wonder how you experienced digestion of the two breads?

I will go with yeast

It will be cool to see difference of sour dough vs second chance sour dough levian + yest

For me comparing sourdough with active yeast is just like comparing a compact camera to a DSLR 🤣🤣 I'm still learning! Thank you for sharing!

I love the little glasses you use, where can I find them? 🙏

Thanks for another great recipe Charlie, trying it today! You said in the video you should've scored the breads - which scoring pattern would you choose, if any? And do you think this dough and baking temperature could be used to make a batard?

I was always under the false impression that you cannot use sourdough starter and commercial yeast together. I was told that the commercial yeast would eat the sourdough culture. Until I recently found a baguette recipe from King Arthur flour which uses both a sourdough levain (pre ferment) and a small amount of commercial yeast together in the same recipe. The results are amazing.

This is a wonderful comparison. I did spot a small issue that I only noticed because my wife is a nurse. Cross-contamination. You touched the commercial yeast batch and then the sourdough batch without washing your hands between. They were also made right next to each other, which can contaminate the air. This isn't a health concern at all, but it does mean some commercial super-yeast got into your sourdough batch and vice-versa. We home bakers rarely think about things like sterilization but when it comes to growing a live culture of wild yeast and bacteria, it can actually be really important. Obviously it didn't matter that much here, but it would definitely matter if you were making a new sourdough starter. Anyway, I love the content and just wanted to add more scientific knowledge to the community as a whole.

Charlie, I’m too darn lazy, to much of a loafer, i can’t keep a gold fish much less a starter pet. So I use commercial yeast, machines and extended ferments in the refrigerator instead.

Hey, nice to see you back. :) What is the purpose of such a particular final shaping? Is it only aesthetics or is there a function to it?

I regularly make a bread with yeast that takes 24 hours start to finish. It is very aromatic and tastes great but you just can't get the flavor that lactic acid bacteria brings.

Great video!! Any thoughts of trying the opposite for a comparison? Trying to make the sourdough cooperate like yeast to make a soft and fluffy bread?

Hi there, I was watching your video for the first time. Thank you for the great information. I wonder if you have information as to the sugar spike level for long fermented yeast bread as compared with sourdough. Will it have similar benefit for diabetes persons as the sourdough bread ? I am learning to make sourdough bread but it is very challenging. I hope to find alternative to bake breads which are suitable for diabetes persons.

I would like to ask you a question. Can you please make bread using commercial yeast and sourdough starter using hundred percent whole wheat spelt flour? I am struggling with that one and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong I just baked one today the third attempt, came out very tied. Not much better effects using commercial yeast either I did have some troubles with acorn ancient grain flour. I have much better results when I’m adding 30% of spelt and rest of it regular strong bread flour my spelt flour has almost 14 g of protein however does not build strong gluten structure it is very sticky and I’m trying to keep hydration on about 70% - 73%

again a super comparison loving it could you allso ad the solod to your webshop I'm hoping to make the borodinsky bread again but we not even find it in riga on the market instead I bought a pot iesala ekstrakts but this is liquid and I don't know how much I have to ad

Great video. I've always wanted to see if I could make a "sourdough" bread with yeast and you did it! Can make a bread using Apple Cider Vinegar? Will it impart an apple flavor without using apple juice? Just a suggestion. Thank you for your great videos. Looking forward to the next one.

"Toothsome" is good chewy.

Love this comparison, just now found it and don't know how I missed it before. So... amount of yeast used is a) proportional to final dough size and b) inversely proprtional to fermentation time? Is that a good way to think about it?

Great video, could you possibly do a malt loaf (soreen) recipe? I've tried a couple but they come out too light, not all squidgy and dark.

I’ve been trying to find instructions on making (sourdough) yeast cake leaven. It’s and old way to make sourdough starter into dry little biscuit sized cakes that you rehydrate in water then add it to your recipe. An easy old way to keep a sourdough starter with no feedings and no discards and no refrigeration

i wonder if further cold proofing would make the yeast bread taste anymore like the sourdough?

👍👍👍👍👍

One of my sourdough FaceBook group members came up with an interesting observation. She noticed you used your hands to knead both doughs. You will get yeast/bacteria from the first dough on your hands and then will transfer some of that to the other so the result of the comparison is not maybe as accurate as it might have been?

Ive always wanted to try a mix of both and ferment a bread with a tiny amount of yeast and a small amount of sourdough starter too. I like the more even crumb of the yeast bread but the flavor of sourdough and the health benefits too, and sourdough alone gives me more of a too chewy for my liking and i prefer a crumb that is less wild, what do you think have you ever tried this yourself amazing Charlie?

May I ask brand of the bracelet?

IMPORANT QUESTION. From what I know: 1) sourdough starter is acidic, and so only specific lactose bacteria’s and yeasts can survive there, that are mostly harmless. 2) yeast long [cold] fermentation is not acidic, so all types of microorganisms can live there and produce toxins until baked. So: 1) Is it true that long [cold] yeast fermentation can be harmful? 2) Can it be fixed by adding bacteria’s or acids together with yeast? 3) Does acidity somehow improve bread except flavor? BTW this is a very good topic for a video, and ideally should include some microbiology with microscope.

Does it make a difference using plastic wrap vs a cheesecloth to cover the bread during the proofing process?

My wife and kids aren't super into the sourdough flavor. This might be a nice way to meet in the middle.

Can you comment on Red Star Platinum Instant Sourdough Yeast

I wonder what would happen if you added a super tiny amount (just a drop or two) of vinegar to the yeast dough. Could it mimic the acidity of the sourdough?

I never expected that it would be so close to real sourdough bread. I still side with the natural yeast and bacteria over the store bought yeast. I got a video idea/a question, could you do a video where you autolyse a bread different durations and see how it affects the bread. Online I keep getting different results, some say don’t do it over an hour or else it would end up as a sticky weak dough. Some say maximum time you can do is 8 hours at room temperature but it can be longer on fridge. I have made two sourdough breads that barely rose which have been autolysed for around 11-12 hours, didn’t come out that well…

The thing is to me it doesn't make sense to use less yeast if you are trying to develop flavor. The flavor is produced by the yeast consuming the flour sugars. So the more yeast the more flavor, of course, you are not gonna dump spoonfuls of yeast, there is a limit, but using little yeast makes no sense. The controlling factor for flavor is temperature, the flavor profile changes a bit at different Temps. I always do a poolish with 1g yeast per 100 g flour fermented for 3 hrs at room temp( ~75°F) then leave in the fridge to use the next day or up to 3 to 5 days later.

I thought it was going to be the other way around

Is it possible to cultivate a commencial yeast culture, similarly to the sourdough culture?

What if you mix both of em? Preferment with starter

What effect is the stiffness of the starter likely to have on the process?

can a sourdough bread be baked in a tin? I tried it myself and wasn't to happy with the out come. what would be your suggestion

If you do it right, the dough wont actually be that sour, maybe just a little tang. If you do it right the bread will come out smelling and tasting a bit cheesy. Mine smells and tastes almost like how cheez its are.

Any compromise that rids your life of maintaining a sourdough starter is a fine compromise.

OK, so now one step further to imitate sourdough sourness, which is attributed to lactobacillus bacteria, found naturally in yoghurt... So maybe adding a teaspoon of yoghurt to the dough would do the trick

Have a look at the channel "breadcode" he shows how different sourdough can be if its more dry or more liquid

Why not just add a tablet of lactic acid bacteria like what you can get for making yogurt?

*Wait! What?* The yeast didn't do the bubble cup effect. No no no Charlie! Just use the starter for all beads 🍞🥪🥖🥐🍕