Virgin Barm
Ingredients
Directions
Boil 3 gallons of water in a pan.
Sift the flour into a tub.
Pour the boiling water over the flour while stirring well until it thickens.
Allow the mixture to cool to about 86°F (30 °C).
Add 3 quarts of previously-made barm to start fermentation.
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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Its starch thickens into a paste when stirred into boiling water, giving the mixture body.
- Previously-made barm
- Supplies a live yeast culture that starts fermentation in the cooled mixture.
The step that matters
Cooling to about 86°F (30 °C) before adding the barm. If the mixture is still too hot when the barm goes in, the heat can kill the yeast, so fermentation may fail to start. Waiting for it to cool to the stated temperature protects the culture.
“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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