Yeast (IV)

This is a keeping yeast — a liquid leaven that a nineteenth-century cook made in quantity and drew from for a week or two of baking, not something to drink or bake on its own. A few of the terms and the handling need translating.

• What you are makingThe finished product is a liquid starter, somewhat under the starting two gallons after an hour's simmering, and was presumably drawn on a cupful at a time for bread dough. It is not a batter, a beverage or a dish.
• Indian bran"Indian" in books of this period normally means maize, so this is most likely corn bran; coarse cornmeal is the nearest thing on a modern shelf. Wheat bran is unchanged. Neither is there for flavour — the bran gives the yeast something to feed on and a surface to work on.
• HopsWhole dried hop cones, a small handful, from a brewing supplier. They are antiseptic as much as aromatic and were a common way of keeping a wet yeast from souring. Pellet hops will do — rather less by volume, since they are compressed — but they muddy the liquid.
• The order of operations is garbledAs printed, the hops go in after an hour of simmering and then the molasses is added "as soon as the water boils" — a boil that has already happened. In practice: simmer the brans in the two gallons of water about an hour, add the hops for the last ten minutes, then stir in the molasses and ginger and take it off the heat.
• Strain, and cool properlyMany period yeast recipes direct straining the liquid off the bran before setting it aside; leaving the solids in gives a thicker, faster-souring yeast. "When cold" should be read as at most lukewarm — comfortably below hand-hot — before the seed yeast goes in, since real heat will kill it.
• The teacup of yeastThis assumes a cup of live yeast held back from the previous batch, the usual chain in a working kitchen. Starting from scratch with a modern packet of dry yeast will ferment the liquid, but the result behaves differently and less predictably than the original.
• Do not cork it tightlyThe instruction to cork tightly comes from a period of thick stoneware and heavy glass, and even then bottles burst. An actively fermenting two gallons builds real pressure; use a loosely covered crock or a vessel with an airlock.
• Keep cool means coldA cellar at 50-60F was the target. Refrigeration slows it further and is the sensible modern equivalent. Expect a week or two of usable life; a sharp sour smell or a slimy texture means it is finished.
• Using itShake or stir before pouring, since the active matter settles. The recipe gives no proportion for use; something on the order of a teacup to a large loaf's worth of flour, with a correspondingly long rise — several hours, not forty minutes — is the right order of magnitude.