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Preparation of a Spontaneous Hop Yeast

A method for creating a spontaneous yeast culture using hops, water, and barley malt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and malt work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 32 recipes. Both carry decadienal, which smells fried, fat. The science ↓

Preparation of a Spontaneous Hop Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in 5 gallons of water for 15 minutes.

  2. Strain off the hops and add the ground barley malt to the liquid.

  3. Allow the mixture to stand for about 5 hours.

  4. Strain it through a fine sieve to remove all particles of grain.

Ferment

  1. Cool the liquid to about 85°F (29°C) and place it in a warm room.

  2. Maintain the temperature until fermentation begins, which should be in about 10 hours.

  3. Allow fermentation to continue until the gravity falls to 0° or 8° Hailing.

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. Barley + malttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: decadienal (fried, fat).

  2. Hops + malttop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Hops + barleytop 76% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Contribute bitterness and aroma, and their natural compounds help preserve the liquid against spoilage.
Ground barley malt
Supplies starches and sugars that the wild yeast and microbes use as food to ferment.

The step that matters

Cool the liquid before placing it in a warm room. If the liquid is too hot, it can kill or stress the wild yeasts and microbes needed to start fermentation. Cooling it to about 85°F lets them work while staying warm enough to encourage activity.

“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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