The yeast, 'la levure'!

Fresh or dry ? The yeast is a living organism, saccharomyces cerevisiae. Fresh and dry yeast are both effective!

• Dry yeast: this is the one in your kit. It's also the one advised sold by Olivier Deseine. You can store it during over a year. If you switch to fresh yeast, multiply by 2.5 the quantity of yeast in your recipe. You can order some on Amazon.
• Fresh yeast: this is the one used in our workshops. Once in lukewarm water, it is active directly. You can store it in a fridge for two weeks, it has more risks of dying of not stored in ideal conditions. You can buy it in your boulangerie!

On average, you need to use 2.5 of fresh yeast for 1 dry yeast (so 2g per baguette or a teaspoon of dry yeast instead of 5 grams of fresh yeast). The two things you need to be careful are:

• Yeast hates extreme temperature, it will die over 50°C (so no hot water on it!) and below - 18°C.
• The salt doesn't exactly 'kill' the yeast, but it blocks the fermentation process. That's why we first mix the flour with the salt before adding it to the yeast & water mixture.