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Antimo Caputo Lievito Active Dry Yeast, 17.63 oz
$23.79
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Product Details
Product of Italy. Lievito Secco ad Elevata Attività — high-activity dry yeast — made by Antimo Caputo in Naples, the mill whose 00 flours are the standard in Neapolitan pizzerias. This is the large professional pack: 500 g, about 1.1 lb.
The case for dry over fresh is consistency. A cake of fresh yeast loses strength from the day it is made, so the same weight behaves differently on Tuesday than it did on Friday. Dry yeast holds its leavening power, which is what makes a long fermentation schedule repeatable — the 24, 48 or 72-hour cold rises that give Neapolitan dough its open crumb and blistered cornicione depend on knowing exactly how much lift you are starting with. It also goes further than fresh, so a 500 g pack lasts and very little is wasted.
No proofing step is required, and it suits every kind of leavening, from pizza dough and focaccia to bread and enriched pastry.
Ingredients
Nutrition Information
| Serving basis | Per 100 g |
|---|---|
| Energy | 1,409 - 1,478 kJ (336 - 353 kcal) |
| Protein | 43.7 - 49 g |
| Total Carbohydrate | 12 - 14.25 g |
| Total Sugars | 0.5 - 13 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 25 - 26.6 g |
| Total Fat | 5.7 - 6.5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 - 1.3 g |
| Salt | 0.1 - 0.3 g |
| Typical 3 g dose | About 10 calories and 1.4 g protein |
Allergen Information
The pack states: Suitable for GLUTEN FREE preparations.
Manufacturers can change formulations at any time, so always read the physical label before consuming.
Manufacturers can change formulations at any time, so always read the physical label before consuming.
Directions & Storage
Antimo Caputo Lievito Active Dry Yeast, 17....
$23.79
Questions About This Product
The things people actually want to know before they cook with it.
Why does the label say Active Dry when bakers online insist it is instant yeast?
This is the most argued-about question on the pizza forums, and the short answer is that Caputo has given conflicting answers itself. Bakers who wrote to the company have been told Active Dry; the technical documentation circulating on pizzamaking.com says Instant Dry Yeast; the pack says High Activity Dry Yeast. The practical upshot is that it does not matter much any more. Modern dry yeast of either classification disperses straight into flour, and the difference between the two categories has narrowed to the point where experienced bakers on those same threads treat it as academic for pizza dough.
Can I swap it one-for-one with the instant yeast I already use, like SAF Red or Fleischmann's?
Yes, weight for weight, with a caveat. Bakers who have run side-by-side tests report Caputo working a little more slowly and steadily than SAF Red, which some attribute to SAF being fortified with ascorbic acid. If you are following a recipe written for SAF, expect the first rise to take slightly longer rather than assuming something has gone wrong. On a long ferment the difference mostly disappears.
How much do I use per kilogram of flour?
Dry yeast is dosed as a percentage of flour weight, and the number moves with your schedule and room temperature. A same-day dough at room temperature typically runs 0.2 to 0.3 percent, so 2 to 3 g per kilo of flour. A 24-hour ferment usually sits around 0.1 percent, 1 g per kilo. A 48 to 72-hour cold ferment often goes lower still, 0.3 to 0.5 g per kilo. Start at the low end for the long schedules; it is far easier to wait an extra hour than to rescue an over-proofed dough.
My dough barely moved. How can I tell whether the yeast is dead?
Test it separately before you write off a batch of flour. Stir a teaspoon into about 100 ml of water at roughly 100 F with a pinch of sugar and leave it 10 minutes. Live yeast will foam visibly. A dead batch does nothing at all. This is worth knowing because there are scattered reports on the pizza forums of packs arriving inert well inside their date, most likely from heat in transit out of Italy. If yours fails that test it is a shipping problem rather than anything you did, so get in touch and we will help.
Does it change the flavour of the crust?
Bakers who have compared it directly describe the crust as less yeasty than a standard supermarket bread yeast. The usual explanation is Caputo's production method, in which the yeast is fed on natural nutrients rather than the harsher feedstocks used in commodity yeast. On a short rise the difference is subtle; on a long ferment, where the yeast flavour has more time to build, it is more noticeable.
Can I keep it in the freezer?
Yes. Dry yeast tolerates freezing well and many bakers working through a pack this size decant it into a sealed jar and freeze it, taking out what they need. Do not scoop from a cold jar with a wet spoon, and let what you take out come to room temperature before using it, otherwise you drop the dough temperature and slow the rise. Condensation, not cold, is what kills stored yeast.
How many pizzas will a 500 g pack actually make?
Enough that most home bakers never finish one. At the rates above, a 100 g tin is commonly reckoned to be good for around a thousand Neapolitan pizzas, which puts this pack in the region of five thousand. That works out to a fraction of a cent per pizza. If you bake a few times a year, the small tin is the sensible buy; if you bake weekly or run a kitchen, this is the pack that makes sense.
Is this the same yeast as the small 3.5 oz can?
Same yeast, different format. Caputo sells the identical product as a 100 g / 3.5 oz can, sometimes listed under the code OKA4, and as this 500 g professional pack. Recipes and dosages written for the small can apply here unchanged.
Is it vegan?
Caputo makes no vegan claim on the pack, and we would rather not make one on their behalf. Yeast is a fungus and contains nothing animal-derived, but the emulsifier, sorbitan monostearate, can be made from either plant or animal-derived stearic acid and the source is not stated. If it matters to you, Caputo is the one to ask.
Will it work in a bread machine?
Yes. Add it with the dry ingredients in the machine's usual yeast position; no separate proofing step is needed. Use the quantity your machine's manual specifies for instant or bread-machine yeast rather than the fresh-yeast figure.
Can I use it to start a sourdough starter?
No, and it is worth being clear about why. A sourdough starter is a culture of wild yeast and lactic bacteria that you build and maintain; this is a single commercial strain selected for fast, predictable lift. Adding it to a starter gives you a burst of rise now and no lasting culture. Some bakers do use a pinch of commercial yeast alongside a mature starter to shorten proofing, which is a different thing from starting one.
What Shoppers Say
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