The starter is just live yeast you keep as a pet! You may have to change any liquids you add into your bread but I did all my bread by feel and how it was acting that day.

I think most places don't bother with the yeast in the dairy section any more, was always super hard to keep it current and not moldy but look there too next time you go to the store. Used to be in a box of cubes by the eggs or margarine, kept cool.

I'm not super happy with this site and my virus scanners but it's not so bad...
https://cnz.to/tips-tricks/convertin...dough-starter/

The King Arthur site is good but maybe not the best "how to convert my starter into product".
https://www.kingarthurflour.com/reci...starter-recipe
A lot of their recipes also add fresh yeast... I'd maybe only do one proofing with just starter. I think that would be fine for the type of bread you are describing.

I did start my Herman from that recipe before with no yeast. I messed with Herman about every 3 days, stirring or feeding or cooking or just looking in on it. Depending on how much starter you use means how much your feed it. For Herman once I got it going, I just fed it equal amounts of flour, sugar, and milk on a semi regular basis depending on the temperature and how much I was cooking. You do want to have at least as much available space in your container as you do product, sometimes it froths up pretty intensively!

Getting flour is almost a difficult as finding the yeast around here! Sourdough starter is on my list right now!

It's been scarce here too at one of the large grocery stores. Another one had some last week and I was able to purchase a couple of packs.

I just bought some yeast from King Arthur site. They say it's in stock & seems to be a reasonable price. I think yeast is about $2.25 for a pack of 3 at Walmart (when they have it). Will take around 7 days to get to me. I'm anxious to try it. I bought the SAF Red Instant yeast. Has anyone tried this? It had great reviews. They also have a Sourdough starter package that I was tempted to buy but decided against it. It's a milder flavor than the American sourdough and reviews said it was quite a bit of work to make.

https://www.kingarthurflour.com/sear...ct&query=yeast

Have faith - grocery trucks are running I suspect it’s ordered.
I bought a bread maker at a garage sale about 8-9 months ago. Since then I noticed stores don’t stock as much flour anymore.

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A friend and coworker makes hamb bun size rolls weekly for her DH for his sandwiches weekly. I decided to give it a try yesterday. I had made pulled pork Sunday, and forgot to get bulkie rolls. So in a good faith attempt to stay out of stores, I made dinner roll dough in my bread machine. When the children were still home, I made all our bread weekly, so glad I no longer need to keep up with that, and DH and I have transitioned to home made bread is more a treat. I have been making a loaf weekly since this virus in an attempt to avoid grocery stores for now.
When the children were home and I was making everything from scratch and doing massive amounts of canning, I was apart of a co-op and got my staple baking needs and spices from them. Associated Grocers of NE, their website list their retail stores and links to the stores, you may be able to order and have some yeast shipped. Another idea is searching for a co-op in your area.
I just Googled, finding a local co-op, a website coopdirectory.org came up and it's a state by state directory as well as the distributors. They may even offer curb side pick up as many small businesses are doing. Hope this helps.

Why is the yeast in short supply? Did everyone decide to make bread?

Same reason that people are buying toilet paper. Fear of a break in the supply chain. Last time I checked the bread aisle, it was empty, so many people are now venturing into homemade bread. Sadly, rather than a restock of basics, I see restocks of soda and junk food; heathy foods, not so much.

I keep a huge container of the SAF instant yeast and you use it the same way as regular yeast except you don’t have to proof it. Once it’s opened I store it in the freezer in a plastic container with a screw on lid.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...qfDqMS427e-lbC

Yeast was gone, flour was almost cleaned out Tuesday. There were sour dough starter packets on the very top shelf, but I didn’t buy any. I have regular yeast & flour at home.