Bread-making disaster....help?

[Doowrah]

Followed Delia to the letter, my dough did not rise...I used JS's dried yeast sachets...what did I do wrong?

Hard to say without knowing what you did...

Where did you leave it? It won't rise if it's very cold.

i'd say the yeast was probably dead.

try again with new ones, or fresh yeast?

Could have been lots of things! Too much salt, not a long enough proove, not warm enough

Or too hot so it killed the yeast!

Was the yeast within date OP?

Good grief...really....The yeast was indeed in date, it was left to rise right by a hot radiator, I only added a small bit of salt. Prooved for ages...literally followed Delia to the letter. I will try once more...didn't think it would be so tricky!

my guess is that it was either too hot or that you used dried yeast when you should have used instant (or vice-versa), you generally also need to add some sugar or honey to the yeast to get it working

This method never fails me no-knead bread

Thanks knock knock will try it, it does look good...

I make bread very regularly with JS' dried yeast sachets and had a loaf the other week that didn't rise. I did everything as I always do but for some reason this one was a no go. I wonder whether there are some occasional duds (literally, for me, one loaf in dozens)

The only other thing to be cautious of is not putting too hot water into your mix as that will kill the yeast. You should be able to hold your hand in the water indefinitely.

But otherwise with those instant ones cold water is fine, it doesn't need to rise in that warm of a place, you don't need to add a sweetener...in theory they're pretty foolproof!

I never had successful bread till I stopped flouring the surface and using oil instead, turned out the dough was just not wet enough to rise. Could that be the problem?

I prefer to use fresh yeast. I get it at Sainsburys (ask at the bakery) and then freeze in one loaf sized pieces - wrapped in cling and then put in a plastic box. To bring it to life i crumble it into tepid water with a spoonful of honey and leave until it froths up a bit.