Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Stock Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the hop liquor
Boil hops in water for 1 hour.
Strain and pour some water over flour to scald it.
Make the starter
Cool the mixture until blood warm.
Rub the scalded flour fine and add the remaining hop liquor.
Mix in malt and sugar.
When lukewarm, add yeast.
Let it stand undisturbed for 36 to 48 hours.
Store in a cool place for up to a month.
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together325 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + malttop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together260 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6 recipes
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
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the starter.
- Flour
- Scalding thickens the flour and gives the starter body to feed the yeast.
- Malt
- Supplies sugars that yeast ferments, driving the starter's activity.
- Sugar
- Provides quick-fermenting sugar that feeds the yeast.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars and makes the starter rise and become active.
The step that matters
When lukewarm, add yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be cooled to lukewarm before adding it. Adding yeast too hot can destroy it and stop fermentation.
“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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