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Yeast, to Make

A liquid starter made from malt, hops, flour, water, and yeast that ferments for 24 hours.

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 ↓

Yeast, to Make

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Bruise the malt and pour boiling water over it.

  2. Let it stand to infuse for 1 hour.

  3. Strain and add the hops.

  4. Boil for 20 minutes.

  5. Strain off the hops.

  6. Stir in the flour while the liquid is boiling hot.

Ferment

  1. Let it cool until milk-warm.

  2. Stir in the yeast.

  3. Set the vessel near the fire.

  4. Stir occasionally for 24 hours.

  5. Transfer to stone bottles.

  6. Store in a cool place.

  7. The yeast will be ready for use in 1-2 days.

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. Malt + hopstop 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

Malt
Provides sugars that the yeast ferments, giving the starter its body and flavour.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the liquid.
Flour
Adds starch and nutrients that feed the yeast as the liquid thickens.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into carbon dioxide and alcohol, leavening the starter.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast at milk-warm. If the liquid is too hot, the heat kills yeast cells; if it is cold, fermentation starts slowly. Cooling to milk-warm 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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