If you read this blog regularly, you know my sourdough starter spends a fair amount of time napping in the fridge. And let's be honest: sometimes you just decide on Tuesday evening that there should be fresh bread on Wednesday. No starter to feed, no two days of planning ahead — just flour, water, yeast and a plan. That's why CrumbLab now has a second simulator: the Yeast Bread Generator.
New: the Yeast Bread Generator (with poolish!)
From sourdough to yeast
It feels familiar right away: you adjust hydration, yeast and shape, and the generator calculates everything for you. But under the hood it really works differently from the sourdough simulator. Yeast is more predictable: the generator calculates your rise times automatically based on how much yeast you use and how warm your kitchen is. Less yeast or a cooler room? The rise gets longer by itself — and your timeline shifts along. You can always override it, and one tap on ↺ puts it back on auto.
It also knows the differences between instant, active dry and fresh yeast, and converts the amounts for you. No more wondering whether that sachet was meant for 500 grams of flour.
Poolish: flavor from the night before
My favorite part: the poolish. That's a pre-ferment of equal parts flour and water with a pinch of yeast, mixed the evening before. It takes two minutes of work and rewards you with a deeper, almost nutty loaf. The generator calculates exactly how much flour, water and yeast goes into your poolish — and the timeline shows when to mix it. Starting Wednesday at 9:00? The timeline says: Tuesday 21:00, get the jar going.
What you can do with it
- Six presets to get started: white sandwich loaf, whole wheat, hearth loaf, soft rolls, baguette-style and raisin bread
- Five predictions: crumb structure, softness, flavor depth, crust color and difficulty
- Save recipes and share them via a link — just like the sourdough simulator
- Warnings when you do something odd (too much yeast, sugar that burns, or so much rye that you really want sourdough)
You'll find the new generator via the 🥖 button above the simulator, or directly at crumblab.org/en/yeast. The sourdough simulator stays right where it was — this is its little sibling. Happy baking!
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