Sec. 23.] THE BREAD QUESTION. 375 



nnd free from all the difficulties usually jittributed to grown wheat. 

 The addition of a little butter or lard to any flour will not do any liarni. 

 Try it. 



396. Yeast — Ilow to Make it. — ^Tiic chemists hare proved that yeast is a 

 plant, as much so as mold or any other fuii^^tis. As we get it fresh from tiio 

 brewer, yeast appears to bo a yellowi.sh gray or fawn-colored, frothy licjuid. 

 It soon settles down and appears dead, but is still active. The taste is bit- 

 ter, and it emits a rather di.sagreeuljle odor. lis effect upon all moist sub- 

 stances is to cause them to ferment, by a rapid increase of its growth, and a 

 generation and difl'usion through the mass of carbonic acid gas, which makes 

 the dough pufFup and assume the condition called light. 



The great secret of bread-making is to use just the right quantity of yeast 

 to produce a light loaf without having any of the flavor or odor of the 

 yeast imparted to it, as it will if too much is used, or if the action of the 

 yeast is not arrested at exactly the right time. 



We give in No. 397 the most convenient form for preserving yeast ready 

 for use. If liquid yeast is jiruferred, it can bo made by mixing wheat flour 

 and water into a paste and letting it stand two or three days in a mod- 

 erately warm place, when it will begin to emit a disagreeable sour odor, 

 ■which afterward passes off or changes to a vinous odor at the end of six 

 days. Then if you have the opportunity to get malt from a brewery — and 

 if not, you can make it by sjirouting barley or Indian corn, which must 

 then be dried and crushed — you will nuike an infusion of malt and boil it in 

 water with a handful of hops, and cool it till lukewarm, and add it to the 

 paste previously thinned into a soft batter with tejiid watiT. This mi.xtiu'c 

 kei)t in a warm ])laco a few hours, begins to show activity. Fermentation 

 has commenced, and will work the mass until tliere is a clear liijuid on the 

 surface, which ])our ofl', and the (ijnKpie liquid at the bitttom is good yeast, 

 which you may keep as long as you like in winter, and in summer upon ice, 

 or hermetically sealed in bottles till wanted for use. 



A good yeast can be made, when you luivo the seed — tliat is, active yeast 

 — fiom four pounds of peeled i)otatocs boiled in four (piarts of water and 

 a large handful of hops in a bag. The potatoes are mashed and tlioroughly 

 mixed with the water and a little salt, moliu<ses, and flour to make a batter, 

 to which a couple of spoonfuls of good yeast are added, and this will I'tTment 

 the whole and make it tit for use as leaven for bread ; it may be kept a long 

 time in a cool place. 



Yeast is sometimes preserved by <lipping clean twigs in it and drying 

 them and preserving them dry till neiMKd, when they are soaked and tlio 

 liijiior added to the sponge. 



It has also been dried by spreading it with a brush upon a hoard nnd n»- 

 pcating it as fast as each layer is dried until of considerable thickness, when 

 it is scaled otf, broken up and bottled, and sealed air-tiglit ; it will then 

 keep for years. 



A yeast-plant has been found in California capable of reproduction to aa 



