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Stock Yeast

A yeast starter made by boiling hops, mixing with flour, and fermenting with stock yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and malt work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Stock Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in the water for 30 minutes and strain.

  2. Strain enough liquid to make a paste with the flour to avoid lumps.

Make the starter

  1. Add the remaining liquid to the flour mixture.

  2. Let it cool to blood temperature in winter or completely cool in summer.

  3. Mix in a pinch of stock yeast and stir thoroughly.

  4. Cover and set aside undisturbed until it rises, falls, and clears, about two days.

  5. If desired, stir in a handful of malt when the mixture is lukewarm.

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. Flour + malttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. 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

Strong flour
Provides starch and protein that form the bulk of the starter and feed the yeast.
Hops
Contribute bitterness and aroma, and help slow unwanted microbial growth in the liquid.
Stock yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that makes the mixture rise and then fall.
Malt
Supplies sugars and nutrients that keep the yeast active, adding flavour and colour.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the yeast. Yeast cells are damaged by high heat, so adding stock yeast to liquid that is still hot can kill it and stop the starter from rising. Cooling to the stated temperature protects the yeast.

“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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