Home-brewed Yeast more easily made.
Boil a handful of hops half an hour in three pints of water. Pour half of it, boiling hot, through a sieve, on to nine spoonfuls of flour, mix, and then add the rest of the hop water. Add a spoonful of salt, half a cup of molasses, and when blood warm, a cup of yeast.
Hard Yeast.
This often is very convenient, especially for hot weather, when it is difficult to keep yeast.
Take some of the best yeast you can make, and thicken it with Indian meal, and if you have rye, add a little to make it adhere better. Make it into cakes an inch thick, and three inches by two in size, and dry it in a drying wind, but not it the sun. Keep it tied in a bag, in a dry, cool place, where it will not freeze.
One of these cakes is enough for four quarts of flour. When you wish to use it, put it to soak in milk or water for several hours, and then use it like other yeast.
Rubs, or Flour Hard Yeast.
This is better than hard yeast made with Indian.
Take two quarts of best home-brewed yeast, and a tablespoonful of salt, and mix in wheat flour, so that it will be in hard lumps. Set it in a dry, warm place (but not in the sun) till quite dry. Then leave out the fine parts to use the next baking, and put up the lumps in a bag, and hang it in a dry place.
In using this yeast, take a pint of the rubs for six quarts of flour, and let it soak from noon till night. Then wet up the bread to bake next day.