Jamie from Weed, California writes, “If the end of the world as we know it will happen in December, how to I stock up on yeast?”

Great question Jamie. Yeast is a not a bacteria, it is a fungus. A plant. So if you are going to stock up on carrots for a collapse, you can stock up on yeast seeds. Wait, you’ve never heard of yeast seeds? Well, they don’t exist. As we use seeds to restart a new generation of plants, we can do the same with yeast. And the best way, the yummiest way, is to make yeast. There are many ways of doing it, but the best way I think is from the Amish Friendship Bread recipe. Here is the starter:

Ingredients

  • 1 (0.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
  • 1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup milk

Directions

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes.

In a 2 quart glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added.

Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture.

Cover loosely and let stand at room temperature until bubbly. Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. For the next 10 days handle starter according to the instructions for Amish Friendship Bread found here: http://www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/amish-friendship-bread

  • Day 1:
    • Do nothing with the starter.
  • Days 2-5:
    • Stir with a wooden spoon.
  • Day 6:
    • Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Stir with a wooden spoon.
  • Days 7-9:
    • Stir with a wooden spoon.
  • Day 10:
    • Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Stir. Take out 3 cups and place 1 cup each into three separate plastic containers. Give one cup and a copy of this recipe to three friends. To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.

Note: When you make a starter from scratch, you can sometimes end up with a much greater yield than 4 cups depending on the temperature of your kitchen and eagerness of your starter! If this happens, reserve one cup for baking and divide the remaining batter into Ziploc baggies of 1 cup each to freeze or share with friends.

As long as you continue to “feed” your starter, it can stay at room temperature indefinitely. One of the wonderful things about the starter is that you can bake almost anything with it, pancakes, bread, biscuits. It is a sweet dough, not a sour dough because of the sugar.

Just give it a bit of flour every week or so and it will continue to survive and you’ll have a lifetime of yeast. Run out of flour? Then dry some acorns, and ground them up fine to be a flour substitute. Any carbohydrate like flour, rice flour, will work.

See the original article here: http://www.thecovertprepper.com/?p=329&cpage=1

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TheCovertPrepper is the editor of TheCovertPrepper.com, PPRNNews.Wordpress.com, the host of the PPRN News Show podcast, and is a Contributing Columnist for Radical Survivalism Webzine.