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Hop Yeast

A yeast starter prepared by boiling water, hops, and wheat flour, then adding yeast and molasses or brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hop Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquor

  1. Boil water, hops, and wheat flour together for 30 minutes.

  2. While boiling hot, pour over enough wheat or rye flour to make a stiff paste.

  3. Let it stand until blood-warm.

Ferment

  1. Add yeast and molasses or brown sugar.

  2. Stir well.

  3. Set in a cool place in summer and a warm place in winter.

  4. When frothy and light, transfer to a clean jar or bottle.

  5. Do not seal tightly until thoroughly worked, which will be by the next day.

  6. Cork tightly; it will keep for 10 to 12 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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Wheat + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Hops + wheattop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Provides the live cultures that ferment the starter and make it rise and turn frothy.
Wheat flour
Supplies starch that the yeast feeds on and forms the stiff paste that thickens the starter.
Molasses or brown sugar
Gives the yeast readily available sugar to feed on, speeding fermentation and adding flavour.
Hops
Adds bitter and aromatic compounds that flavour the starter and help preserve it.

The step that matters

Let it stand until blood-warm before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the paste must cool to about body warmth before the yeast goes in. Too cool and fermentation is slow, so the temperature window matters.

“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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