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Encouraged by the success of my yeast water in summer and then during Christmas, I decided to start another one here in the UK. It took me three tries and three weeks.
In Summer I made yeast water using ripe fresh fruit from local farmers (mainly). They were ripe, sweet, had loads of yeast on them, the water was ready in a couple days. Here is a story about it.
The water was so strong that it stood in the fridge for four months as I have left it and got active straight after feeding. Here is a story about it.
It's water with fruit placed in it to transfer the fermentation process from their surface into the liquid, together with the fruit sugars that fuel it. The liquid can then be used as a base for bread baking.
I got back home, took no water with me, but decided to make a new one. The plan was simple: throw fruit into a jar, close it, let it work.
But it didn't.
I got a jar, put tap water in it and a couple raisins. There was no action at all.
I was suspecting the main reason was that the raisins were not very good, or were covered with some chemicals to stop them from going bad.
I ditched it after four days of no action.
I used an apple as well as some blueberries. Still tap water.
The water was slow to start, but after three or four days there were first bubbles showing up. I thought it was too slow, so I put it into the oven with the light on. It seems that the lightbulb is generating quite some heat.
Whatever was happening before I put it into the oven, stopped happening after that. I got rid of it it the next day.
Since it was having a very slow start I thought it might be because of the quality of the water. I was trying to guess really.
I got a plastic bottle for better presentation and safety, I got some mineral water and organic dates. I washed the dates and mixed them with water.
The first three days were not very successful, but by the end of day three it showed signs of activity, but only next to a radiator.
You see, my kitchen is quite badly insulated. I therefore added more washed dates to the bottle, wrapped it in a tea towel and put against the radiator.
It got nicely active, the dates had changed into a mash that was full of bubbles. The bottle is leaking bubble with quite interesting sound effects.
Here is a degasing video on D.Tube:
On Facebook there is a group for people baking with yeast water and one of its stars, Piotr Lesnianski, suggested I should strain it. And so I did. I cleaned up the bottle, and added raisins to feed it. It kind of smells and looks like kvass now.
I tried adding some fructose to see if I could get more action, but couldn't see any spectacular difference.
It is possible to make yeast water in Winter. It takes more time, more care, better ingredients, a lot of warmth and a lot of love.
I plan to bake with my Yeast Water on Thursday. Stay tuned.
