Decided that the only bread I'm going to eat (at home anyway) shall be home made, so I dug out Peter Reinharts book again and got baking. His methods are super easy and I've always had great success with them, except this time, I could not get the dough to raise..at all. (overnight, in the fridge).
Ok, so I only stretched it twice and probably didn't wait long enough, so I tried again..Wonderfully smooth dough, but would it raise? Nope.
Checked the date on the yeast; Best before 2010!!!.
Bought some new yeast and it was almost bubbling before I could get it in the fridge. and had risen more than 3x after 4 hours, which is the minimum he recommends leaving it. It was a little too wet to shape properly and would probably have benefited from staying in the fridge over night, but man, it's still good.
I highly recommend trying cold fermentation and Reinhart's methods. Very little active work (no kneading!), but the stretch & fold techniques still sucks up time, as you have to do it 3-4 times with 10 minutes intervals.