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Drink

Compound Barm

A fermented liquid made by boiling hops, mashing malt, and fermenting with salt and store.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and hops work together. They rank in the top 49% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Compound Barm

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the hops

  1. Mix 10 lbs. of water with the hops.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer for a few minutes.

  4. Transfer to a 5-gallon tub.

  5. Add 30 lbs. of water at 180°F to make 40 lbs.

  6. Cover the tub with a flour bag.

  7. Let it cool to 164°F.

Mash and press

  1. Stir in the malt.

  2. Cover the tub well.

  3. Keep it warm for about 3 hours.

  4. Run the mash into a barm press.

  5. Press out all the liquid.

  6. Cool the liquid quickly to 72°F.

  7. Stir in the store and salt.

Ferment and test

  1. Set to ferment for 36 hours.

  2. Check for hissing.

  3. If it continues, do not use the barm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Malt
Provides starch and enzymes that convert to sugars for the fermentation.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps keep the liquid from spoiling.

The step that matters

Cool the liquid quickly to 72°F. Very hot liquid can kill live microbes. Cooling it promptly before the store and salt are stirred in keeps the culture active so the mixture can ferment properly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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