What is yeast? And where to find it naturally?

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What even is yeast? I am thinking mainly of the kind we use to make bread rise. Which I buy from the grocery store…

But, back in the day, where did people find yeast? I assume people cultivate it and grow it, much like sour dough, but someone had to find it originally, right?

And what does ir do in the wild? Especially since it is so easy to kill? (Can’t be too hot, can’t touch salt, can’t be too old…)

Note: this is purely to do with my curiosity. I have no interest in actually hunting wild yeast

In: Biology

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yeast is literally everywhere. Like, you could probably make a sour dough starter from a skin swap if you really wanted to. You know that grey powder on grapes? that’s yeast. Sour dough starter is just yeast, that’s really really comfortable in a goop of flour and water. It’s just single celled fungi, that eat sugar and fart out CO2. Some of them also take other stuff and form aromatic compounds to get to the sugar. Those aromatic compounds are what makes wine or bread taste more complex than grape juice and oat meal.

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