hello yeast:)

don't worry

:lips:
Hallo, may be this information can help you
oke here we know 3 kind of yeast at bakery world that common
Instant Yeast : Active dry yeast : Fresh yeast
1 : 2 : 3

so the different is just the proportion also the shape/ apperarents of each yeast
1 : 2 : 3 is the ratio if in recipe there 11 g of instant yeast meant you must put 22 g of Active dry yeast and 33 g of fresh yeast.

Instant yeast : like a rice but very small
Active dry yeast : like a whole pepper, and u must soaking first in warm water
Fresh yeast : like a soft shortening bulk

I suggest you as beginner to use Instant Yeast, much more easy.
Oke then have a nice trial
Good luck :chef:

about the coconut cake, you should really have made a second post since the cake experts might not even open a post that is about yeast. anyway, the classic is white mountain frosting, i believe it's called, sprinkled heavily wityh grated coconut. The white mountain is a meringue italienne, egg whites beaten stiffly and then beaten as boiling sugar syrup is poured slowly into it,.

As Lie said, there are basically 3 kinds of yeast: Fresh, Active Dry and Instant.

Not too many people use fresh yeast because it is not so readily available and it has a very short shelf life - not more than a couple of weeks in the fridge.

Active dry is probably the most common yeast and needs to be "proofed". That is, soaked in a little warm liquid from the recipe to prove that it is alive. It will start to foam and bubble and smell like yeast after a few minutes. If it doesn't it may be too old and there are no live cells left to grow. The warm liquid should be about 115 to 120 degrees (think baby's formula temperature.) If it is too hot it may kill the yeast.

Instant or what Fleishman's calls Rapid Rise yeast is similar to active dry except it has more live cells. That means it does not have to be proofed and can be added to the other dry ingredients straight out of the package.

I have stored active dry and Instant yeast in the fridge and sometimes the freezer and used it successfully after a year.

All 3 yeasts are interchangable in a recipe but I would respectfully disagree with Lie's proportions. (There are only a very few yeast producers in the US and these proportions apply to the these yeasts. Other regions around the world produce different yeasts and Lie's proportions may apply to them. His description of the dry yeasts do not sound like the Yeast we have in the US.)

By weight, if you assume that Fresh yeast = 100% then:
Active Dry = 40% and
Instant = 30%

I would suspect that most of the recipes you are looking at call for active dry yeast. So, if you wanted to substitute Instant you would use 3/4 of the amount called for in the recipe.

As a beginner there is no particular advantage to using one or the other. You just need to remember to adjust the proportions and you don't need to proof the instant. Either one will work for you.

Jock