I just got my monthly flyer from my distributor and in it, it has an article from Tom L. about keeping the salt and sugar away from your yeast.

Originally this was my mixing order:
cold water
oils
milk
flour
corn meal
salt
sugar
IDY yeast

sometimes it was fine, other times it would never raise so I changed it to:
cold water
oils
milk
flour
salt
sugar
corn meal
IDY yeast

this actually helped it out a bit, I knew that Salt would effect the yeast so i separated them a bit more... but in the article he says to totally separate them via the flour. So i'm planning on going:
cold water
IDY Yeast
oils
flour
corn meal
salt
sugar

Would this be the best method? or would the cold water or oils effect the yeast somehow?

Thanks all!

Be careful putting the yeast directly into the cold water. The cold water can shock the yeast and the yeast will not activate. In my experience adding the yeast, salt, and sugar in different stages has not effected the outcome of the dough. Water temperature, water weight, and flour temperature have by far the most effect, good or bad on my dough.

If you go with the last approach you will create even more problems as the IDY does not play well with the cold water. Instead, try this, cold water, liquid milk, salt, sugar (no need to mix) followed by the flour and the IDY right on top of the flour. Begin your low speed mixing, two minutes is about right. You want to mix just long enough to to wet the flour, at this point you won't see any dry, white flour in the bowl, then add the oil and mix one more minute at low speed. Now, mix the dough at medium speed, or complete the mixing at low speed, which ever you normally do. The correct story of yeast and salt/sugar is: When using compressed/fresh/brick/wet yeast (it goes by all of those names, but "compressed" is the correct one) you do not want to allow the yeast to come into any contact with the salt or sugar. Since active dry yeast must be pre-hydrated before it can be added to the dough, you cannot mix ADY with salt or sugar as the salt and/or sugar would be withthe yeast during the hydration phase (not a good idea). As for IDY, since it is designed to be added directly to the dough, without any pre-hydration, it is perfectly acceptable to dry blend it with both salt and sugar, in the DRY form, the salt and sugar won't harm the IDY in any way, and when you add it to the flour, as mixing begins, the yeast will be suitably dispersed throughout the flour, and seperated from the salt and/or sugar so as not to pose any problem. Note: The use of regular, milk, for drinking is not recommended, nor is dry milk that is intended for drinking. The reason for this is that there are certain proteins in the milk that cause a softening affect on the dough. These proteins can be denatured by "scalding" the milk (now you know why all of those cook books said to scald the milk before using it in bread making). Bakery suppliers can provide you with a bakery grade, high heat treatment dry milk that you can add directly to the dough without creating any issues. If you wish to use dry milk, the best place to add it is right along with the IDY.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

I use active dry yeast, and I dry blend the yeast with salt and sugar and keep it in the walk in. I then put the entire spice mixture in the water for hydration. I've never had inconsistency problems, but apparently this isn't a good idea.

If I wanted to switch to Instant Dry Yeast, what amounts would I use in comparison to the Active Dry Yeast?

Thanks.

Yep...Not a good idea. If you want to change over to IDY from your present ADY you will need to reduce the amount added. The conversion that I use is to use 3/4 as much IDY as you were using ADY. Some may argue and say the conversion is to use only 2/3 as much IDY as you were using ADY. Take your pick, the difference in amounts is really pretty small when you're looking at a dough made with 50-pounds or less flour. IDY levels normally run at about 0.375% of the total flour weight. Using your calculator; enter your flour weight X 0.375 press the "%" key and read the answer in the same weight units as the flour is given in. If you showed the flour weight in pounds, the answer will be in pounds. To change a decimal fraction of a pound to ounces, multiply it by 16. This will show you how many ounces of yeast to add to the dough made with that amount of flour.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Thanks Tom