Why it works: Malt and hops 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 ↓
Compound Barm
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mash
Combine 10 lbs of water and the hops in a large pot, bring to a boil and simmer for a few minutes.
Transfer the mixture to a 5-gallon tub and add 30 lbs of water at 180°F.
Cover the tub with a flour bag and let it cool to 164°F.
Stir in the malt, cover the tub well, and keep it in a warm place for about 3 hours.
After 3 hours, run the mash into a barm press and press out all the liquid.
Ferment
Cool the liquid quickly to 72°F, then stir in the store and salt.
Set the mixture to ferment for 36 hours; it is ready when the hissing stops.
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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Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Malt
- Supplies starches and sugars that the yeast and bacteria consume to produce the fermentation.
- Hops
- Add bitterness and aroma and help preserve the liquid during the long fermentation.
- Store
- Provides the live culture (barm) that drives the fermentation and leavens the result.
The step that matters
Cooling to 72°F before adding the store. Adding the store to liquid that is still hot can kill the culture. Cooling quickly to a moderate temperature keeps the microbes alive so fermentation can start.
“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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