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Drink

Bran Yeast

A fermented drink made by boiling water, bran, hops, and yeast, then fermenting the liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beer and sugar work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Bran Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water with 1 pint of bran and a small handful of hops for 10 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a sieve.

Ferment and store

  1. When the liquid is milk-warm, add 3-4 tablespoons of beer yeast and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar or treacle.

  2. Pour the mixture into a wooden stoup or jug, cover it, and place it near a fire to ferment.

  3. Once fermented, it can be bottled, tightly corked, and kept 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. Beer + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

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

  2. Hops + beertop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

    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

Bran
Provides starches and flavour compounds that the yeast works on during brewing.
Beer yeast
Ferments the sugars in the liquid, producing alcohol and carbonation.
Brown sugar or treacle
Supplies extra sugar as food for the yeast, adding sweetness and colour.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the brew.

The step that matters

Cooling to milk-warm before adding yeast. Yeast works best at moderate temperatures. If the liquid is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is too cold fermentation will be slow or stall.

“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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