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Stock Yeast

A yeast starter made from hops, malt, flour, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and flour 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

  1. Boil the hops in water as done for reliable yeast.

  2. Pour the hot mixture into an earthen jar.

  3. Add the flour while it's hot to cook it.

  4. Beat out all lumps and let it cool until lukewarm.

  5. Add the yeast and sprinkle the malt on top.

  6. Let it stand in a warm place until fermented.

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. Malt + flourtop 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

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the starter against spoilage.
Malt
Provides sugars that the yeast ferments to drive the starter.
Flour
Cooked into the hot liquid, it thickens the mixture and gives the yeast body to feed on.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing carbon dioxide and flavor.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast cells are killed by high heat, so adding it while the mixture is still hot can stop fermentation before it starts. Cooling to lukewarm keeps the yeast alive and active.

“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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