[Sca-cooks] Barm yeast

[Terry Decker]

Actually, I was quibbling about your terminology and just pointing out that 
there are distinct differnces between beer and ale yeasts and that it was 
top fermenting ale yeast that is commonly used for baking.  The dry active 
yeasts you get at the grocery are all developed from ale yeast, 
Saccharomyces cerevisiae.  If you are working with an ale, then skimming the 
top of an active fermentation should produce a good barm for bread.  A 
bottom fermenting beer would be best siphoned from the bottom of the 
fermentation where the yeast is most active although you could probably get 
enough yeast by skimming the top.

In either case, barm is "the yeasty foam that rises to the surface of malt 
liquors."  Barm is not sediment.  And for bakers from Pliny to the 
Renaissance, barm meant top fermenting ale barm.   You might talk to your 
brewing friends about  setting up a simple ale pot with a wide neck for 
dipping (a one gallon jar perhaps) using malt extract and brewers yeast. 
It's inexpensive, so if the experiment fails you aren't out much and it can 
be repeated as necessary.  The ale produced is usually a mediocre drink, but 
that wouldn't be the object of the exercise.

As for your starter, that's good work.  It is not an experiment I have 
tried, so please keep me posted on how it is doing.

Bear


> So I don¹t want to be using the "dredges" from when my brewer friend racks
> his carboy?  I want instead the bubbles from the top?  Sorry...I'm not a
> brewer....
>
> The starter I have running right now I made from sediment that I dryed out
> and then "reconsitituted" about 3 months later.  It is working well - made 
> 2
> loaves from it.
>
> Vitha
>
> On 4/16/05 9:52 AM, "Terry Decker" <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> Sediment?  Whachoo wan sediment for?  Proper barm is taken from the top 
>> of
>> an active ale pot where the top fermenting S. cerevisiae bubbles merrily
>> along.  S. cerevisiae is the yeasty beast found in baker's yeast or 
>> brewer's
>> yeast.  If you're doing beer, that is usually S. carlsbergensis (sic?) 
>> and
>> is bottom fermenting.  It will work, but it is not the barm being 
>> discussed
>> in the recipes.  There are some 18th and 19th Century recipes for washing
>> sediment to extract yeast, so it may be that any malt liquor was fair 
>> game
>> later on.