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Drink

Malted Koumiss

A fermented milk beverage made with malt extract, yeast, sugar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Malted Koumiss

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine the extract of malt, compressed yeast, and brown sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

Ferment and serve

  1. Seal the mixture in a bottle with a cork and wire it down.

  2. Store at a moderate temperature and gently shake the bottle for 10 minutes each day.

  3. Wait for fermentation to occur before consuming.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Malt + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides the liquid and proteins that yeast ferments into a slightly sour, effervescent drink.
Compressed yeast
Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing carbon dioxide and alcohol for fizz and flavour.
Extract of malt
Supplies fermentable sugars and malt flavour for the yeast to work on.
Brown sugar
Adds readily fermentable sugar that feeds the yeast and contributes sweetness.

The step that matters

Shake the bottle gently each day. Daily gentle shaking keeps the yeast evenly dispersed in the liquid so fermentation proceeds uniformly. Vigorous shaking could over-carbonate and burst the sealed bottle.

“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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