Please be honest - do you have a packet of yeast gathering dust?

[hippospot]

We have been making bread 5-6 times a week for nearly 20 years in a machine, but I've been unable to find yeast in the shops since lockdown. Friends gave me a couple of packs (one was out of date but still worked!) but now I'm down to a few days' worth only. I was able to bulk order some bread flour from a mill last month, and have enough flour for about 2-3 months.

I'm curious to know if the people who bought yeast at the start of lockdown have been using it.

And why is it that nearly everything is back in the shops EXCEPT flour and yeast (in my neck of the woods, anyway).

I'm also a regular baker of cakes and will run out of plain flour quite soon too.

I'm happy to buy bread in the short term although a) my freezer is small so I can only freeze about 3 small loaves and b) this means I'd have to go to the supermarket more often and I'm trying to only go once a week.

Anyone else with this issue?

I usually buy large 500g tins of dried yeast (large family and loads of baking), but one of my kids works in a bakery and sometimes brings home fresh yeast. I live in a very remote area, so I always keep good stocks of basics like flour and yeast in the pantry. I've worked my way through a sack of plain flour, but still have loads of Italian 00 (for pizza), granary and plain white bread flour. Mr Carpet makes the cakes, so I'm not sure about self-raising flour.

Here, you might not be able to get your favourite brand or type of flour, but you will almost certainly be able to get a reasonable substitute.

If you Google Fermipan, that's plenty of that online. Fresh yeast is also available

My local Morrison’s is selling their stash of bread flour, bagged up and on the shelves where you’d normally find flour, at 60p a bag. I was so chuffed to find it, as it was one of only two things a neighbour had asked me to get hold of for her.

@hippospot
I bought 500g off Amazon last week. It was a tenner.

I've also been finding this frustrating. Bread seems to be in plentiful supply compared to flour and yeast. Loaves have been in stock on every online supermarket I've been on and in our little village newsagent's shop.

I can't eat any of the online supermarkets' bread due to allergies so I've been making my own bread for over ten years. Now, because of a weird unexplainable desire that everyone has to make their own bread despite being able to get it in the shops, I'm having to go without.

My high street bakery is selling flour as well as bread and cakes. Always worth asking them if they have any to sell.

I mostly make sourdough but you can eek leftover yeast out a lot further by leaving it to rise longer.

This recipe by Ken Forkish only uses 1/4 tsp yeast for 1kg flour www.hummingbirdhigh.com/2013/02/overnight-artisan-bread-at-home.html . (If you use the recipe as a whole rather than just taking the timings reduce the water to approx 600g water for 1kg flour unless you have very strong Canadian flour, UK bread flour is normally lower gluten which absorbs a lot less water).

a weird unexplainable desire that everyone has to make their own bread despite being able to get it in the shops

What is weird about not wanting to go to the shops regularly to get fresh bread? Yes, it's in stock but I don't want to be popping there every day or so to get it.

I’ve got yeast but didn’t buy it recently and I’m not making my own bread as have a local bakery.
I bought plain and SR flour last week (we don’t use it) for friends/family who couldn’t get it. They now have some so it’s still sitting in the boot of my car:

An argument in favour of sour dough bread

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/sourdoughstarter22976/amp

I hear you. Yeast, chick peas in tins and dried red lentils are the only things you can't get here.

Quite annoying when you do homemade pizza dough once a week and rely on chick peas and lentils to feed a vegetarian family. Hey ho.....

Shortages seem to vary across the country.
We’re very well stocked here

@WickedlyPetite so have I - let me know if it arrives and is decent quality as I rather hastily ordered first and only later thought "I don't actually know the first thing about this seller.."

My tin of yeast has run out and I'm finishing off a multipack of sachets I bought in 2014. Every so often I get a dud one as I bought them years before I got a bread machine and they're so old, but these days I don't want to waste the flour on a failure.

(I ordered a 16kg sack of flour from Doves Farm that was supposed to be with me today, and isn't. I've only got enough for one more loaf.)

No. Mine is in a jar in the fridge. I use it every couple of days.

@Beautiful3

That looked promising but they are based in Wales and will only deliver locally now it seems.

Idk about yeast but I do know that one particular cum guzzler on EBay is flogging a 500g bag of basic Tesco flour for £16.00, that was 2 days into a week long bidding war

I bought a tin and some sachets of yeast before lockdown. Very glad I did as we had to self isolate for 2 weeks, and with 4 more mouths than usual at home over lunch time we are getting through a lot of bread and don't have much freezer space.

DH has really enjoyed baking bread, and says he will definitely keep making it regularly post pandemic (I don't believe him). I've been making pizza dough once a week and flat breads for curry, I definitely will stick to that, I used to always make it years ago but fell out of the habit. Home made pizza is such a cheap meal. I managed to get another tin of yeast last week, stocks were low but was available, and I've seen low stocks of flour each time I've been shopping in different shops. Bread has been very low on shelves here, so whichever someone buys could potentially leave someone else short.

Yeast was one of the first things I bought long before the shelves were clear of toilet roll, why didn't you buy a couple of extra tins in advance? It was one of the very last things to sell out (although perhaps that varied by area 🤷‍♀️).

I managed to get a 500g pack of fermipan red yeast. Does anyone have any tips? How do you store it? I usually buy the supermarket sachets which are 7g each I think, how much do you need to use of this? I’ve managed to get flour after searching, but there is no yeast anywhere.

We bought new yeast amongst other things in prep for lockdown - DH was following the news in Jan and decided we should. I thought he was barking mad at the time.

But we have used it, we do make bread occasionally anyway, but are doing loaves weekly when we need to.

We will need more bread flour, plain flour and greaseproof paper soon though and Ocado seem unable to deliver these.

@Shopaholic100 There is yeast available on Etsy. See my earlier link.

What is weird about not wanting to go to the shops regularly to get fresh bread? Yes, it's in stock but I don't want to be popping there every day or so to get it.

Fair point.

I obviously should have made sure I had a good stock of it. I just didn't think about something that lots of people don't usually buy being one of the things that would become an issue.

I did buy a few extra tins of tomatoes, couple of bags of pasta, rice etc. but not loads even of those as I was trying not to add to the stockpiling problem.

I always do my shopping online and I was also too shortsighted to consider that it would become extremely difficult to get a delivery slot.

I’ve managed to get flour every week from Ocado - limited in number and brand. Always have a tin of yeast in the fridge.
To the poster who wants to know how to use non sachet yeast - just use a teaspoon. Allow the dough to rise in its own time - it may need a little longer and that’s no bad thing.

I obviously should have made sure I had a good stock of it. I just didn't think about something that lots of people don't usually buy being one of the things that would become an issue

I don't think anyone thought bread flour and yeast would become a problem TBH. I wonder if yeast has the same packing problems as the flour in that they are used to producing the large commercial packs.

Same with delivery slots really - I think the actual level of demand caught the stores by surprise (although I'm not entirely sure how).

I'm now awaiting my 16kg bag of flour and giant pack of yeast from Windsor Cake Crafts. Hopefully this will see me through until they sort supplies out!

Supermarket supply chains are “just in time” it’s inevitable give the way their stocking systems work that any demand shock will throw them out of sync. And everyone buying just one extra will do this. That’s demand increasing by a huge amount and just in time supply chains are not designed to cope with this. It’s not just about people stockpiling.

I’ve managed to get flour every week from Ocado

I got some Bread flour from Ocado at the start of April and it's been out of stock ever since. Same for yeast. It seems very hit and miss (and, presumably, area dependent)