Name: Virgin Barm
Ingredients: 10 lbs malt; 3 oz hops; 40 lbs flour (1/3 American Spring straight and 2/3 Talavera wheat flour); 2-3 oz coarse sea salt; 8-12 oz sugar; a handful of flour; 18 gallons boiling water

Why it works: Flour and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Virgin Barm

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the malt and hops

In a small vessel, mash the malt with boiling water.
Infuse the hops in a jar with boiling water.

Make the barm

Combine the malt infusion with the flour in a large tub.
Add the infused hops, salt, and sugar to the mixture.
Stir well and allow to ferment until bubbly.

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.

Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Malt + wheattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together64 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together325 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Malt + flourtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Malt: Provides fermentable sugars that yeast consumes to produce gas and flavour.
Hops: Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the barm against spoilage.
Flour: Supplies starches and proteins that feed the culture and form the body of the barm.
Sugar: Adds readily fermentable sugar that speeds up bubbling and gas production.

“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.