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Preserve

To Make and Preserve Yeast

A method for making and preserving yeast using hops, water, flour, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Hops and flour work together. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10 recipes. Both carry eugenol, which smells clove, spicy. The science ↓

To Make and Preserve Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil hops in water for 3-4 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and thicken it with flour to a starch-like consistency.

  3. Let it cool to milk-warm, then transfer to a large jar.

  4. Add 1 cup of yeast and let it work.

Shape and dry

  1. Once risen, mix in enough cornmeal or coarse flour to make a stiff dough.

  2. Roll it out thin and cut into cakes.

  3. Dry the cakes in a shaded, airy place, turning them 3-4 times a day.

Store

  1. Store dried cakes in a basket or bag, keeping them aired and moisture-free.

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Its fermentation makes the mixture rise and gives the cakes their leavening power.
Hops
Boiled in water, they add bitterness and aroma and help preserve the liquid.
Cornmeal or coarse flour
Stiffens the risen mixture into a dough that can be shaped and dried into cakes.
Flour
Thickens the strained hop liquid to a starch-like consistency before the yeast is added.

The step that matters

Dry the cakes in a shaded, airy place. Drying slowly in shade and air removes moisture evenly, so the cakes keep without spoiling. Turning them several times a day stops them sticking and drying unevenly.

“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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