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To Make Yeast

A method to produce yeast by boiling hops, mixing flour, and adding yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and flour work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 449 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in water until reduced to 2 cups.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve and add the salt.

  3. Return the hot water to the original vessel.

Make the starter

  1. Mix flour with cold water to a thick molasses consistency.

  2. Boil the mixture for a few minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. When lukewarm, add yeast.

  5. Let it rise.

  6. Transfer to a stone jar and cover.

  7. Let sit overnight.

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. Tea + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together449 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Tea + hopstop 41% 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.
Flour
Forms the thick paste that feeds the yeast and gives the starter body.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing gas that makes the starter rise.

The step that matters

Let cool to lukewarm before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid. Adding it only once the mixture is lukewarm lets the yeast survive and start fermenting.

“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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