I'm confused. I came to one of your baking seminars a few years ago when your reps were in Ohio and was told to not use instant yeast because the bread doesn't develop flavor as well as proofed yeast. It seems most of your recipes call for the instant, without proofing. Thanks for your email. Yeast and it's various titles can be confusing at times. We prefer active dry yeast, or instant yeasts. They are the same strain of yeast, but active dry is processed at a higher temperature so it is about 65% 'alive' and active and needs to be proofed to wake up the yeast. Instant yeast is processed at lower temps, so it is 95% alive, and doesn't need the proofing step. Rapid rise yeasts or quick rise yeasts are a different strain, and are formulated for one rise usually, so you do miss out on the flavors that develop during the rising periods. We do not currently carry Rapid Rise yeast for this reason. PJ has been trying out Rapid Rise yeast lately for different things, so maybe she will have a post at a later date. I hope this helps! MaryJane @ The Baker's Hotline Yes, I've been using "highly active" active dry yeast (a.k.a. RapidRise, which is Fleischmann's trademarked name) in some of my breads that don't need to rise for very long. You'll see one of these fast-risers on this blog Thursday, as a matter of fact: Blitz Bread. And the highly active yeast works very well. The downside is, as MaryJane noted, a nice, long rise develops bread's flavor; so without the long rise, you need to beef up the flavor another way, e.g., by adding herbs, cheese, making the dough into pizza crust, etc. I prefer instant yeast, in general, because it works quickly, but also works for a long time; it doesn't poop out as quickly as fast-rising yeasts. So if I'm just going to have one kind of yeast in my fridge or freezer, it's going to be SAF Red instant. - good in the short run, good for the long haul. - PJH

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