Yeast question

[*Z*]

I am going to try to make bread in my bread maker and I have been looking at recipes. Some call for bread machine yeast specifically and some just call for active yeast. Is there a difference? Can you use them interchangeably? I only have the bread machine yeast.Thanks!

[Heather Sullivan]

Bread machine yeast tends to have a less hard covering. Because of this, it does not need to be "softened" in liquid and in some cases if you do try to soften it in liquid before adding it, you can kind of drown the yeast. It also works faster than normal dried yeast. If I'm subsituting the two around, I add the bread machine yeast to the flour then add the liquids. Then you're just saving the 5 minutes used to proof and soften the yeast.
I have used the normal dried yeast added to the flour as well and it seemed to work fine for the recipe when it directed me to do so. I'd say if they were specific breadmaker machine recipes using normal dried yeast, just follow the directions. It's probably done that way for a reason.

[*Z*]

Thanks!!