Ruggeri - Dry Mother Yeast (200g) | Dried Wheat Sourdough with Yeast | Made in Italy | Ideal for Bread & Bakery

I have been trying to perfect my sourdough on and off for a couple of years without any real success. I prepared a new starter following guidelines from a respectable cook book but bought this as a backup in case of failure. My starter was working but I thought I’d try a few spoonfuls of this to help it along. And it did! My starter was soon as lively as ever and smelling delicious - ready for baking. After a couple of bakes that turned out OK (water content needing tweaking a bit) my latest loaf turned out absolutely amazing!! Beautiful crispy crust and soft, slightly chewy texture. It had a mild sour flavour, not too overpowering. My starter is about a month old and in great condition - I store it in the fridge if I’m not baking for a week or so and revive it with flour and a teaspoon of Pasta Madre. Highly recommended.

Ruggeri Italian Dry Mother Yeast enriched with lactobacillus is the best I have used, with clear instructions as to how much. Followed the bread recipe on the tin for my first trial using 500g Italian flour for Bread & Pasta. Easy to translate from Italian using google translator. My dough nearly doubled in size in less than 3 hours, using the residual heat method. Hoping this mother yeast-lactic bacteria combination is rendering healthier bread for my gut than standard industrial yeast. Even sourdough supermarket bread is full of allergens niwadays. I will know once I have consumed some, bloating or none?! Easy to use! Good yeast! Fast rise!

This stuff is brilliant. It produces a great tasting loaf with a beautifully light crumb. It goes a long way if you experiment a little: I'd say use 25 g for an overnight rise in the fridge, perhaps even less. I got it going at room temperature for a couple of hours then covered and transferred to the fridge for another 6 hours. 50g gives you a quick sourdough style artisan bread in about 3.5 - 4 +hrs. Read the reviews, there are some very useful tips. I used my 'go to bread machine recipe': 300g strong malted seeded flour, 200g strong white, 1.5 tsp salt, 2 tbs light olive oil, 1tbs sugar, 50g of this 'yeast' and 320 ml water. It was all done on ,'Dough' setting until the dough doubled (about 2 hrs), check the window on the bread machine. Knock it down and give a it a quick knead, shape into a rectangle than roll up into a loaf from the shorter side. Make sure you pinch the seam well then put it seam down in a pan lined with baking paper (you need long flaps of paper on either side of the pan for an easier transition from the prooving pan into a hot Duch oven). Cover with cling film and leave it to double (30-45min) than bake in a preheated oven at 225 Celsius for about an hour. I also preheated a Dutch oven (any iron cast pot or Pyrex glass dish will do) for 30 mins before I put the loaf in. Score with sharp knife. Spray with water. Bake it with the lid on for 30min then lid off for another 30min. The bread looked and tasted amazing. Have it a go, you won't be disappointed. Happy Baking!.

It helps making a new loaf of bread anytime you’re out of yeast or sourdough starter

I followed the instructions suggested by another reviewer to make a 'cheat's sourdough starter' by adding a teaspoon of the yeast to 100gm flour, 120ml water and a teaspoon of sugar. This fermented overnight and was used in the bread maker the next day. The dough was then allowed to rise slowly overnight after being knocked back once. It's turned out more like a farmhouse bloomer in consistency than sourdough. It's soft inside with a hard, chewy crust. It smells good and is very tasty. I would maybe try this method again, or just use it straight in the bread maker as normal. The use by date on the packet isn't that long, three months left, but then I suppose once it's opened you'd want to be using it up fairly quickly anyway. Good value as there's plenty in the tin to make a good few loaves. I'm impressed and would buy again.

You might think it's cheating but it is effortless sourdough bread and perfect every time especially if you slow fermented overnight in the fridge

Making a "live" mother starter is such a lot of messing about, I have done this and the whole long winded long drawn out process is time consuming. This dried sourdough yeast is great and a 200g tub goes a long way, there are a lot of rip off dried sourdough yeasts on Amazon, this one is NOT. Just get this going as a starter with teaspoon of yeast powder +100g bread flour+120g warm water+ teaspoon sugar and mix well, cover loosely and let stand for a couple of hours at room temp and when its nice and frothy make the bread. Sourdough bread does take a long time to rise so that still applies, anything for 2 to 4 hours and you still have to knock it back first. But the result is great. I use plain bread flour and also Rye flour which is very tasty…… Sourdough takes time to make but each individual action does not, you can plan your day around it. You could make the starter the night before if you are baking first thing….. The instructions on the tin are pretty useless as the Italian instructions have had a "english" version stuck over the top that is too small to read and is feint. The Ruggeri website is in Italian but it does have a button to change the language and the instructions are there but again a bit minimal….. The tub instructions all in Italian so if you don’t know Italian you’re stuffed. I’ve attached a photo of a recipe I use for a focaccia style bread

Very good