Understanding ingredients and how they work is a key to successful baking. How to Bake: The Art and Science of Baking has over 400 pages of baking information with recipes. It will make you a better baker.
Hot water or water with too much chlorine or salt will kill yeast. If your water is suspect, try bottled water from the store. Make sure your water is under 120 degrees. What looks like yeast is not really yeast. They are little maltodextrin or other balls encapsulating yeast spores. The yeast spores are microscopic. Those little balls dissolve in the water to release the spores. See the rest here!