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Drink

Bran Yeast

A fermented drink made from bran, water, hops, yeast, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Beer and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Bran Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil the bran in 2 quarts of water with hops for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it cool to lukewarm.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add 3-4 tablespoons of beer yeast and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar or treacle.

  2. Transfer to a jar or small wooden cask and place it in a warm spot to ferment.

  3. Once well fermented, bottle it, cork tightly, and store in a cool place.

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. Beer + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Hops + beertop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    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

Bran
Provides starches and flavour that the yeast ferments into the brew.
Beer yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbonation in the brew.
Brown sugar or treacle
Supplies extra sugar as fuel for the yeast, adding sweetness and colour.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the liquid.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool to lukewarm before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so it must be cooled enough to stay alive, yet not so cold that fermentation starts slowly.

“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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