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American Patent Yeast

A method for producing a yeast starter using hops, malt, and patent yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Hops and malt work together. They rank in the top 49% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

American Patent Yeast

yield 5 gallons of yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil ½ pound of hops in 4 pailfuls of water until the liquid is reduced by half.

  2. Strain the liquid into a tub and let it cool to lukewarm.

  3. Add ½ peck of malt to the lukewarm liquid.

  4. Boil the drained hops again in 4 pailfuls of water until reduced by half.

  5. Strain this hot liquid into the tub with the malt mixture.

Add the yeast

  1. When the liquid cools to about 85°F, strain off the malt.

  2. Add 2 quarts of patent yeast to the liquid.

  3. This will yield 5 gallons of yeast, ready for use the next day.

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

    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 that balance the sweetness of the malt.
Malt
Provides sugars that the yeast ferments, driving activity and flavor.
Patent yeast
Ferments the sugars in the liquid, producing the leavening activity for the dish.

The step that matters

Straining off the malt at about 85°F. Adding yeast to liquid that is still too hot can kill yeast cells, while liquid that is too cool slows fermentation. Checking the temperature before adding yeast protects its 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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