Another outstanding, informative and funny post by you, PJ! I hope you don't mind if I use the info on pan size and pan measuring with my baking students. I recently had an issue with my chocolate bread not rising well. It just laid there like a slug. When I baked it, it got these huge, nasty cracks on the bottom, like the breads at the beginning of your post. This had never happened before and I have been making my chocolate bread for well over 10 years. The only thing I could think of to try was changing the yeast. I bought a fresh package of SAF Red, used it and -- voila! Perfectly risen chocolate bread! My question is -- how long will yeast retain its rising power after the package is opened? My previous yeast was also SAF Red - about a year old. I kept it in the fridge in a plastic container. How should I store it?

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