Cooking experiment part 2

On Sunday afternoon I made a batch of Lemon Yeast, supposedly Grandma Anderson's recipe. I have since found the exact same recipe, word for word in a 1930's edition WMU cookbook.

The photo below is after 36 hours, no action happening there. It just smelt like floury lemon water. I thought to myself, well the instructions said ready for use after 24 hours, so I gave it a whirl and made quarter of the original recipe. I had my suspicions that nothing would happen and I didn't want to waste so much flour.


After mixing allow to sit for 2 - 3 hours


Then knead for 20 minutes - looks nice and smooth, then allow to rest till well cracked.....?

After 2 hours resting, no cracking, just a well kneaded lump of play dough!


I let it sit overnight and the lump looked exactly the same this morning.

Of course I have to question why it didn't work

1. Lack of warmth in my kitchen, I would imagine that most kitchens in the 30's and 40's would have had a wood stove thus keeping the kitchen warm.
2. No wild yeast in the ferment, might be best to cover jar with an open weave cloth instead of a lid
3. Not using a seasoned jar i.e one that has been used for yeast making before. (I read this in the WMU book)

I wonder if anyone still uses this type of yeast or a potato yeast? Perhaps a sourdough starter is similar to those homemade yeasts used in bygone days.

Oh well, it was a bit of fun, maybe I'll try again when the weather warms up.

Hope you have a lovely day
Cheers
Lisa