My neighbor said she just eyeballs her yeast and never uses a scale. I always thought that was a surefire way to fail.

4 comments

4 Comments

Actually, the real risk with eyeballing is the salt, not the yeast. Too much salt can really slow down or even kill your yeast activity. If your neighbor's method works, she's probably been lucky with her salt pinch being consistently small.

taylor_wells24d ago

Huh, I always thought yeast was the touchy one but you're probably right, never really thought about salt that way.

lisas782mo ago

Wasn't there a test where they baked bread with different salt amounts? I remember reading that a little extra salt mostly just slows fermentation down, it doesn't straight up kill the yeast unless you dump in a ton. So maybe her pinch is just always on the smaller side.

jessica3312mo ago

Yeah, that point about salt killing yeast is what gets me too. I'm with @lisas78 on this, where a little extra just slows things down, but it's so easy to overdo a "pinch" without realizing. My last loaf was a total brick because I wasn't paying attention.