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The Beginning of Yeast

A simple yeast starter made by boiling hops, malt, and sugar in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

The Beginning of Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop tea

  1. Boil hops in water to make strong hop tea.

  2. Cool and strain the tea, squeezing the hops to extract all strength.

  3. Fill a strong quart bottle two-thirds full with the tea.

Build the starter

  1. Add ground malt and sugar to the bottle.

  2. Cork the bottle securely and shake thoroughly.

  3. Place the bottle in a warm, undisturbed corner for 48 hours.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provides bitterness and aroma compounds that flavor the tea and help discourage unwanted microbes.
Ground malt
Supplies starches and enzymes that yeast can work on to produce fermentable sugars.
Sugar
Gives the yeast a readily available food source that drives fermentation and carbon dioxide production.

The step that matters

Shaking the sealed bottle thoroughly. Shaking mixes the malt and sugar into the tea and adds air, which helps the yeast get started. Corking securely keeps the bottle sealed so carbon dioxide builds up and contaminants stay out during the warm rest.

“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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