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Yeast, to Make

A method for producing yeast by fermenting malt, water, hops, flour, and yeast.

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

Prepare the malt

  1. Bruise the malt.

  2. Pour boiling water over the malt.

  3. Let it infuse for 14 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid and add the hops.

  5. Boil the mixture for 20 minutes.

  6. Strain off the hops.

Make the yeast

  1. Stir in the flour while the liquid is still hot.

  2. Let the mixture cool to milk-warm.

  3. Stir in the yeast.

  4. Set the vessel near the fire.

  5. Stir occasionally for 24 hours.

  6. Transfer the mixture to stone bottles.

  7. Store the bottles 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. 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 the sugars that the yeast ferments, and flavour from the grain.
Flour
Thickens the hot liquid and adds starch that the yeast can work on.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that makes the liquid lively and leavening.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool to milk-warm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to liquid that is still hot can stop fermentation. Milk-warm is warm enough to let the yeast become active without harming it.

“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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