Is Brewer's Yeast the same as rising yeast for baking?

Question

Is Brewer's Yeast the same as rising yeast for baking?

Answer 1

Actually yes, there is a huge amount of different types of yeast used in brewing. According to White Labs (a wonderful yeast produced for beer/wine making), over 500 different aromas and flavors can be created just by using different types of yeast.  

I would suggest visiting their site  :

http://www.whitelabs.com/index.html

and check out the different types. Different yeasts are good for different styles of beer.

Most homebrew supply stores will sell good quality fermentation yeasts and you can find many online as well.

www.northernbrewer.com    has always been good to us!

I hope this answered your question.

(although I don't like using wikipedia, they actually have the different strains of some yeasts for baking vs. brewing there if you are interested    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast#Alcoh...  )

Answer 2

Bakers' yeast is bred (pun intended) to produce a lot of carbon dioxide and very little alcohol. Brewers' yeasts are just the opposite. The flavors produced are also different.

Answer 3

Yes and no.

Yes, where both baking yeast and brewing yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

No, in that there are a multitude of strains of S. cerevisiae and each has slightly different characteristics.  Bread yeast is a strain that's been cultivated to make bread well.  Of the yeasts classified as "brewing" yeast, there are dozens of strains that have bee cultivated for different qualities (flavor, alcohol tolerance, attenuation, flocculation, etc.)

You *can* use bread yeast for brewing and brewing yeast for baking.  However, you're not going to get the same results  under identical conditions out of each.