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Baking Powder, Barm and Yeast
Home-made Yeast. No. 2. (Lady James Murray.) Boil ½ oz. of hops 2 minutes in 3 qts. of water, strain the liquor while it is quite boiling, over 1½ lbs. of flour, 4 spoonfuls of sugar, and 4 spoonfuls of salt. When lukewarm, add about 1 lb. of brewer's yeast and let it stand till next day, then bottle it. 1 qt. of this yeast will do to start the next making, 1 lb. of brewer's yeast being wanted to start with originally.
Lord Cochrane's Yeast, as used in China.
Boil 1 lb. of flour, ¼ lb. of brown sugar and a little salt. To be boiled 1 hour in 2 galls. of water. When "milk-warm," bottle it and cork close. Fit for use in 24 hours. "Times" Yeast. (Lledr Cadog, 1858.) To be used when you cannot get brewer's yeast.
The advantage of this yeast is, that you make it for yourself without requiring any other yeast to start it; you must have patience in making it. It should keep good some weeks; then make a fresh supply, not using any of the old. It only makes tin loaves, but the bread should honeycomb, and makes excellent toast. The vessel it is made in should be a wide earthenware milk bowl, capable of holding about 6 qts., and the mixture is to be kept about "new-milk-warm" during the entire time of making - namely, from Monday morning till Thursday evening and this is done by letting it stand at a proper distance from the kitchen fire. - - On Monday morning, then, begin by boiling 2 ozs. of the best hops, choose yellow hops, not green which are bitter in 4 qts. of water for ½ hour, stirring occasionally, then strain it and let it cool to "new-milk warmth," then put in a small handful of salt and ½ lb. of brown sugar. Beat up 1 lb. of the best wheat flour with some of the liquor, and then mix all well together. Set the bowl by the fire, covered over with a flat dish, where it may stand till Wednesday morning, being occasionally stirred. On Wednesday morning add 3 lbs. of potatoes, merely boiled and mashed whilst hot with nothing added to them, cooled down to the same temperature as the contents of the bowl (about "new-milk-warm"). It is shortly after this addition that fermentation may be expected to commence, and as it proceeds the mixture must be frequently stirred. It very soon assumes the appearance of the finest brown-coloured brewer's yeast, rising to a crown.
By Thursday evening its powers will be completely established, and it may then be strained, and put into bottles, stirring it to the last moment. Do not cork the bottles for some days, until the yeast has done working - and when you do cork them, it must be loosely; never cork them tightly.
It is now ready for use. When new it is weak, and more is then required to raise the bread than when this yeast is 6 or 8 weeks old. Shake the bottle well up always, before using its contents, and keep it in a cool place. It should keep above two months at least, and is best and strongest the latter part of the time. The dough should be left in the pan all night to rise before the kitchen fire, and when made into loaves and put into the tins it will again require 2 or 3 hours to rise before going into the oven.
The bread takes a considerably longer time to rise in the sponge, and again after being made into dough, than if made with ordinary yeast. (This recipe is signed "D. S. Y.," who adds, "I make all my bread from rough wheat meal, which is the most wholesome of all. I use seltzer water bottles, filled two-thirds full only of yeast, and when bottled, I put them at once in a cool place.")
Three related methods for making liquid leaven at home, from an era when a household either bought fresh barm from a brewer or grew its own. Nothing here is dangerous, but almost every ingredient and cue needs translating.
- Brewer's yeast is not what you can buy nowThe "brewer's yeast" called for in No. 2 is fresh, actively fermenting barm skimmed from an ale fermentation, roughly the consistency of thick cream. The powdered brewer's yeast sold as a nutritional supplement today is dead and will not leaven anything; the nearest living equivalent is slurry from the bottom of a homebrew fermenter.
- Temperature cues"New-milk-warm" and "milk-warm" both mean roughly blood heat, about 95-98F (35-37C) - milk straight from the cow. "A proper distance from the kitchen fire" means a steadily warm spot rather than a hot one; much hotter and the ferment sours rather than rises.
- Imperial measuresThese are imperial quarts of 40 fl oz, so 3 qts is about 3.4 litres and 2 gallons about 9 litres. The "4 spoonfuls" of sugar and salt in No. 2 are genuinely ambiguous - a Victorian spoonful could mean anything from a teaspoon to a tablespoon - and the ratio, not the exact figure, is what matters.
- What the hops are forHop resins are mildly antibacterial and suppress lactic bacteria while leaving yeast unharmed, which is why a hopped ferment keeps for weeks in a cool larder. The instruction to choose yellow rather than green hops is about avoiding harsh bitterness carried into the bread.
- The Cochrane version relies on airborne yeastBoiling flour, sugar and salt for an hour kills everything in the mixture; nothing is added to start it. Any fermentation comes from yeast falling in from the air, which is unpredictable and just as likely to yield a bottle of sour paste as a working leaven. Treat it as a curiosity rather than a method.
- Bottle pressureThe warning never to cork tightly is the one instruction to obey. A bottle of live yeast keeps producing gas for days; sealed glass under pressure is a genuine hazard, which is why the correspondent used stout seltzer bottles filled only two-thirds.
- How much to useNo dosage is given because it changes with the age of the yeast - the author says fresh yeast is weak and six to eight week old yeast is strongest. Expect to use in the region of a cupful of liquid yeast per two large loaves and adjust by results; the long timings given (overnight sponge, then two to three hours in the tin) are realistic for a wild leaven of this kind.
- Judging the fermentA healthy batch smells sweetly beery and "rises to a crown" of brown foam. Fuzzy mould on the surface, a vinegary or nail-polish reek, or no activity at all by Thursday means the batch has failed and should be thrown out rather than bottled.
- Whether to botherA jar of sourdough starter or 7g of instant dried yeast does the same work in a fraction of the time. The reason to make this is to see how bread behaved before packaged yeast, and the resulting loaf - honeycombed, faintly hoppy, excellent toasted - is genuinely different.
Until the late nineteenth century a baking household depended on the brewing trade: yeast came as barm, the living froth skimmed from fermenting ale, and if the local brewer failed you or you lived somewhere without one, bread stopped. Hence the flurry of self-starting yeast recipes in Victorian household columns, of which the third here is one - headed in the manuscript "'Times' Yeast. (Lledr Cadog, 1858)", which suggests, though it does not confirm, an appearance in The Times that year, and copied out by a correspondent signing "D. S. Y." The second is attributed to Lord Cochrane and labelled "as used in China," the kind of provenance that travelled home with naval and colonial families and lent a recipe authority it may not have deserved. All three come from the papers of Charlotte Clark, Lady Clark of Tillypronie, whose enormous manuscript collection of recipes gathered from friends, cooks and titled acquaintances was edited and published in 1909, some years after her death; the compressed fermented-potato technique of the last recipe, in which mashed potato is added on the third day to feed a hop infusion, is the same principle behind the potato-water starters still kept in some kitchens today.