I’ve been storing SAF instant yeast that I bought a pound of two years ago (red package) in an oxo pop-top container labeled SAF INSTANT* in my pantry. I make pizza dough with it weekly but only use a few grams at a time. I’ve not gone through much of it.

Over the past six months the fermentation of the SAF has gotten pretty laggy but I kept telling myself “yeast doesn’t go bad, it’s going to outlive us all” and blamed room and water temps.

• my brother label maker rules everything around me

so I got a new identical package and store it in a large deli container labeled SAF INSTANT* in the fridge, not in the pantry.

The first proof confirmed: the stuff in the pantry was no good, the new stuff popped off. go figure.

I post in chat about it and of course one cool-kids gang includes a working scientist who had a bunch of wisdom but generally yeah storage temp and humidity can factor in, might as well keep it in the fridge.

• yes, the label maker again, I’d label myself if I could

so I go to make dough for a 20" NY style yesterday, I autolyse, I reserve salt to add with the first folds, and blah, blah, good manual process and temp controls, and a few hours later? Nada. A few hours after that? zilch.

I had used the gd pantry yeast on auto-pilot. D’oh.

Before I went to bed, I folded in new yeast and this morning it’s healthily bubbly and jiggly and more than doubled.

I’m going to ditch it, and the pantry yeast (finally) anyway, and start over.

anyway: Maybe, put your yeast in the fridge?