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Another Way to Make Yeast

A method for producing yeast using hops, salt, molasses, flour paste, and old yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hop water

  1. Tie the hops in a thin bag.

  2. Boil the hops in 3 quarts of water.

  3. Add 3 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of molasses.

  5. Make a thin paste with flour and cold water.

  6. Remove the hops from the liquid.

Make the starter

  1. Gradually pour the paste into the hop-water.

  2. Place the mixture over the fire.

  3. Let it boil for a few minutes.

  4. Let it stand until lukewarm.

  5. Add some old yeast.

Store

  1. Once it is light, store it 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. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Hops + molassestop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

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 the hop water forms the liquid base of the starter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and a food source that the yeast can ferment.
Flour
Thickens the cold-water paste and supplies starch that the yeast can feed on.
Old yeast
Provides the live culture that ferments the mixture and makes it rise and turn light.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool until lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is a living organism. Very hot liquid can kill or weaken its cells, so the yeast will not ferment properly. Waiting until the mixture is only lukewarm gives the yeast a safe temperature to grow in.

“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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