4 large potatoes, or six small.
2 quarts cold water.
Double handful hops, tied in a coarse muslin bag.
4 tablespoonfuls flour.
2 tablespoonfuls white sugar.
Peel the potatoes, and put them with the hop-bag into a saucepan
containing two quarts cold water. Cover and boil until the potatoes
break and fall apart. Take these out with a perforated skimmer, leaving
the water still boiling, mash them fine with a potato-beetle, and work
in the flour and sugar. Moisten this gradually with the _boiling_
hop tea, stirring it to a smooth paste. When all the tea has been
mixed in, set it aside to cool. While still slightly warm, add four
tablespoonfuls of lively yeast, and turn all into a large open vessel
to “work.” Keep this in a warm place until it ceases to bubble up, or
until next day. In summer it will work well in a few hours. When quite
light, put in earthen jars with small mouths, in which fit corks, or
bottle it, and remove to ice-house or cellar. It will keep good for a
fortnight—longer in winter.
When you wish to use it for baking, send a small vessel to the cellar
for the desired quantity, and re-cork at once. A half-hour in a hot
kitchen may spoil it.
YEAST (_Self-working_).
8 potatoes.
2 ounces hops.
4 quarts cold water.
1 lb. flour.
½ lb. white sugar.
1 tablespoonful salt.
Tie the hops in a coarse muslin bag, and boil one hour in four quarts
of water. Let it cool to lukewarmness before removing the bag. Wet
with the tepid liquor—a little at a time—the flour, making to a smooth
paste. Put in the sugar and salt, beat up the batter three minutes
before adding the rest of the tea. Set it away for two days in an open
bowl covered with a thin cloth, in a closet which is moderately and
evenly warm.
On the third day peel, boil, and mash the potatoes, and when entirely
free from lumps and specks, stir in gradually the thickened hop-liquor.
Let it stand twelve hours longer in the bowl, stirring often, and
keeping it in the warm kitchen. Then bottle or put away in corked jars,
which must be perfectly sweet and freshly scalded. This will keep a
month in a cool cellar. It is more troublesome to make it than other
kinds of yeast, but it needs no other “rising” to excite fermentation,
and remains good longer than that made in the usual way.