When I started blogging I searched around for an original name. Not an easy task, blogger rejects any blog name that has already been chosen. I reached deep inside myself and thought about who I truly am, my background, my influences, formative experiences and I came up with the moniker MsMarmitelover.
For I am a Marmite baby. I had Marmite on toast for breakfast every morning. On getting home from school, my brother, sister and I devoured an entire white loaf smeared painterly with Marmite: dark brown paste on soft white bread with yellow butter. Once, on being asked what earthly object I’d like to take with me to heaven, pharaoh style, I said, with only the briefest reflection, “a pot of Marmite”.
It never occurred to me that you could make your own until a chap I met on a dating site casually let drop that he was a keen home brewer and that he knew people that made their own Marmite. My ears pricked up, incredulous, you can make your own? I felt like I’d discovered The Great Work, the philosopher’s stone.
Internet research led me to geeky home brewing forums, which didn’t reveal much. Delving further, I was led to the Marmite Facebook group where fans were posting tentative recipes. Some of these recipes used alien foreign ingredients such as Braggs: it seemed even Marmite-deprived Americans were getting in on the act.
My role as MsMarmitelover meant that I was able to go straight to the top: after some negotiation with the Marmite authorities, I was given a telephone date with St.John O. Skelton, Master Blender of the Marmarati Order or, more prosaically, Quality and Innovation Expert at the Marmite factory in Burton On Trent. He was willing to help me but darkly intimated that making Marmite was “dangerous and hard to control”.
The location of the Marmite factory is due to its proximity to all the breweries. Marmite is seasonal; beer is more watery in summer, and batches are blended together to ensure consistency. There is fluctuation in texture but the hallmark of Marmite lay in its smoothness as opposed to the more granular Vegemite.
St.John, yes that is his first name (‘don’t ever call your kids St.John, computers don’t recognise the full stop in email addresses and you get teased at school’) could not of course disclose the highly guarded secret recipe to make Marmite but gave me indications, a starting point from which to embark upon home-made Marmite.
St. John suggested using baker’s yeast rather than brewers yeast.. But my experiments revealed that baker’s yeast is too cloudy, while brewers yeast will eventually separate, evincing a dark clear solution.
To obtain the brewers yeast, I visited a local London micro-brewery, Redemption Brewery in Tottenham to obtain ‘beer scum’ or ‘top fermentation’.
I’d always assumed that celery and carrots formed the ‘vegetable extract’ part of the flavouring process, but St. John let slip (was it a mistake or a red herring?) the word ‘turnip’. Could turnips be the Marmite secret ingredient?
Recipe for home made Marmite:
A litre of Brewer’s yeast (top fermentation from a brewery)
A little sea salt
1 onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 turnip, diced
1/2 celery stick, diced
1) Put a litre of brewer’s yeast with a little salt, in a bain-marie. Simmer at blood heat, 30 to 40 ºc for ten hours or overnight.
2) Then simmer this mixture at 50 to 60 º c for 2 to 3 hours.
3) Boil at low temperature 90ºc for half an hour. (In the factory they have a special machine for this, or you could ascend a mountain of 10,000ft, to achieve low altitude boiling)
4) Filter though coffee papers or a sieve and cheesecloth
5) Let it cool for a day or so. It separates further.
6) Filter again.
7) You then want to convert it to a paste. This is best achieved by putting it in a large flat pan and simmering. On an Aga, you can simply leave the pan on the lid for a few hours. Keep an eye on the mixture.
“We have a man in the Marmite factory whose job it is to watch Marmite evaporate. Literally like watching paint dry” explained St.John cheerfully.
8) Meanwhile boil up all the vegetables until they are cooked. Strain off the liquid and incorporate into the Marmite paste.
9) Let the mixture reduce into a Marmite like texture. Do not allow it to burn:
“We do not want to develop caramel notes” warned St.John.
The entire process takes about ten days.
This home-made Marmite admittedly tastes different, like something German and healthy in a tube. Lacking the specialist equipment to ‘debitter’ the yeast, it will have beerier flavours, rather like the Guinness or XO Marmite.
It was a comfort to know that I could, in a pinch or say, a calamitous event such a terrorist attack on the Marmite factory, DIY my own Marmite. But realistically, I’ll probably stick to shop-bought.
Have you experimented with making your own Marmite? Or any other easily bought condiment such as mustard or ketchup? Do they compare with the famous brands such as Colman’s, Maille mustard or Heinz?
Update: the main problem was the bitterness of the brewing yeast. The solution is to wash the yeast. You achieve this by putting the top fermentation in a jar full of water. Eventually the yeast will settle on the bottom of the jar. Pour off the water and fill the jar again with fresh water. Do this several times to wash the yeast. Then follow the recipe above.
Update: the main problem was the bitterness of the brewing yeast. The solution is to wash the yeast. You achieve this by putting the top fermentation in a jar full of water. Eventually the yeast will settle on the bottom of the jar. Pour off the water and fill the jar again with fresh water. Do this several times to wash the yeast. Then follow the recipe above.
Portrait of myself (by Audrey Gillan after 7 bottles of wine.)
Vintage pot of Marmite with metal lid.
love this love you! going to pass this post on to my favorite couple. a brit married to a kiwi. they get along great, except when it comes to who's marmite is better!
I will most certainly give this a go, with one notable ingredient substitution: spinach and/or swiss chard stems for the celery … or maybe Belgian endive …
A brother (of a different Mother – Father too) is quite allergic to celery, and this may WELL be the reason the product is frowned upon so to the North and East, in the lands where the Sun don’t shine (awesome fjords- bad celery allergies).
I’ll let you know, even though likely a decade after the recipe.
please do!
Canada here … how do I used dried brewer’s yeast in this recipe? There’s a terrifying lack of Marmite here at present (thank you COVID) and my British husband is bereft.
I used literal brewers yeast not dried. Go to your local beer brewer and ask for some of the top fermentation
Brewer from chile here
Never tasted the marmite, didn’t want to drop a possible ingredient, to a foreign and interesting flavors… Have read about everything… Fishy flavor… Wonder flavor…. Battery acid and transmission oil…. Want to try it want to test its cooking!!!
Also… Is it real the “vitamin b”? Comes from the process or is it added later???
Greetings and i love your recipes!!!
Maybe a video conference tutorial???
I would really like to meet you!!
Synthetic B vitamins are added to it, yeast already is a source of B vitamins but obviously not enough for the manufacturers so they added more so they can market it as a health product and meat substitute (yeast does not contain B12 like meat does). The problem is synthetic B vitamins are not healthy at all so it is kind of a con. Making your own marmite minus the synthetic stuff is the plan.
Hey! I have a brewery in Argentina, am a Marmite addict, and have problems getting the stuff! Your story has inspired me! Could even get a side hustle going and start Argenmite to sell to the expats. Did you do any more experiments? Do you have any other links to share?
haha well I need to retest it…
Well please tell me more about it I really want to know all about how to make it
Best regards, Paul.
Hope everything is ok
Haven't made marmite but have made worcestershire sauce . . . a lot of effort but worth it for the sense of adventure! Am going to make some Harveys sauce next, culled from Good Things in England (Florence White) a book I have wanted to get my hands on for literally years. BTW . . . while buying GTIE at Waterstones in Charing X, your beautiful book was displayed very prominantly. It is next on my list, I promise!
I love this story!… my aunt made a documentary about the Marmite factory years ago… I'll see if I can hunt it down for you x
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant! I sooo love the portrait – after 7 bottles of wine. I don't know who had what on which side of the camera, but I can't walk pr talk after 3.5 bottles of wine. Although at the time I always think I can…
Hi,
This is such a lovely post. I just love the Marmite. I really liked the pictures as well. Well done. It is quite a well compiled post.
🙂
I'm afraid Mr chumbles, it was Audrey that had all the wine. Still it made for a nicely blurry photo of me!
What a brilliant idea, making your very own marmite. Interesting to note the differences between bakers and brewers' yeast, great post.
amazing that you made it! That is dedication! xxx
This is brilliant! I love the warning that Marmite is "dangerous and hard to control" and have a new found respect for Marmite. Imagine being the man watching Marmite evaporate all day.
Have you ever tried the Australian alternative, Vegemite? Have to admit to liking it. Slighty lighter in taste than Marmite, perhaps? Nice, old-fashioned packaging, too.
Greasy spoon: yes I have. Gotta say I prefer Marmite. I think it depends what you are brought up with…
Fantastic! I particularly love the picture of you with the Marmite jar on your head! I jest. More seriously, I wish I could try your recipe. Unfortunately, as an ex-pat, it is all I can do to hunt down a few precious jars of ready made Marmite – I wouldn't stand a chance of finding brewer yeast nor, would you believe it, parsnips!
Shame, because my husband would happily live of the sticky stuff. He gets it sent over from UK for his b/day!!!!
Thanks for this fascinating post. My new love is marmite pasta. Nigella makes a spaghetti version and I have tried it with many different types of pasta – favourite so far is spelt ridged tubes. I also like it on buttered toast topped with tomatoes cooked in olive oil.
Lot of hits from desperate Brits in Denmark I imagine. 🙂
Years ago when I was little someone I remember being called Basil Bell (maybe I dreamed that bit) came to our house in East Africa and made marmite. I only remember it involving boiling a lot of carrots. i don't think we had access to brewers yeast at the time but we probably used lots of bakers yeast. Anyway, I dropped the jar before we had a chance to taste it and it smashed. But we were so desperate for marmite we sieved it through a fine sieve and used it anyway…. your post has reminded me to go through all my mum's old recipe notes and see if she wrote down Basil's recipe!
Hi, I'm a brazilian home brewer and I'm interested in doing my own Marmite. Thank you for posting this recipe. I'll try do do this after my beer batch. As soon as I taste this I'll return with my experience. In about 10 days I'll be back!
Hi, I'm a brazilian home brewer and I'm interested in doing my own Marmite. Thank you for posting this recipe. I'll try do do this after my beer batch. As soon as I taste this I'll return with my experience. In about 10 days I'll be back!
Still waiting…
I just finished making this and I've gotta say I'm pretty pleased at how it turned out!
I'd had one previous attempt which I tried without following a recipe, I just poured some salt onto some yeast and started boiling it, DO NOT DO THIS! It made something which didn't smell or taste like Marmite but rather exactly like vomit! So thanks for the recipe,it worked much better that trying to make it up on fly. The only point I departed from your recipe was using vegetable bouillon powder rather than making my own stock.
I'm a homebrewer so I used my own home grown yeast. I live in South Korea where we can get neither English beer nor Marmite so I'm very happy to have killed two birds with one stone!
When you filter it, do you take the stuff left in the filter paper or the stuff filtered out?
Also, when you boil the vegetables, do you mash up the vegetables or take the water and put it in the yeast sludge?
Stuff filtered out.
Take the water and add it, reducing it.
Hey, a few questions about this.
Could you be a little more specific about the amount of salt you used? Mine came out a little too salty, I'm not sure exactly how much I used, I went with "a bit" but considering I ended up with about 50mls from about a liter of yeast, small differences at the start could give pretty big differences in the end.
Also mine came out paler than real marmite, Yours looks dark in the photo but mine looks dark in photos too, did you get the proper marmite colour? If you did do you have any tips?
Rowan: I added salt to taste…until it tasted equally salty to Marmite.
Re the colour, I have the advantage of cooking on an Aga, which means I can slow cook things for days, even months in different bits of the cooker. It took a couple of days to reduce my marmite to that colour.
In fact one of the first things you notice about an aga is that you can't leave a dish on the lids…they carry on cooking, reducing.
Do you have a hot radiator you can leave it on?
If anyone can work out a way of making it less bitter…let me know.
Hi, I'm a Brit living in Guatemala and my Marmite supply ran out 2 months ago. I thought i would give Clifford's recipe a go, but had to make some alterations due to what's available here. So I used:
1.5 teaspoons Panela (dried cane juice)
1 (heaped) teaspoon dark miso
4 tablespoons Nutritional yeast flakes
1 tablespoon brewers yeast
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder
2 tablespoons Braggs
0.5 teaspoons salt
I added about 200ml of water and stirred it well. I made the mixture in the pot of my 2 qt slow cooker and set it to low. I left it to do it's thing for about 24 hours, then for about 3 hours every 20 minutes lifted the lid off carefully and disposed of the condensed water on the lid to get the consistency. each time i disposed of the water I scraped the goo off the sides of the pot and stirred it back into the bulk of the mixture. I then let it cool a little and spooned it into an old marmite jar i had kept. the result was pretty good, consistancy was very marmitey, colour was dark and good, maybe a little lighter than it should be….and the taste…..well, it's close but lacks the necessary bite, it's closer to vegemite (if you'll excuse my use of the word). I've now got the second batch going. I have changed the recipe a little:
1 tablespoon Panela (dried cane juice)
1 tablespoon dark miso
2 tablespoons Nutritional yeast flakes
3 tablespoon brewers yeast
1 tablespoon vegetable stock powder
2 tablespoons Braggs
1 teaspoon salt
Maybe i should change one ingredient at a time, but i think this may give it sufficient bite. I'll find out tomorrow!
What exactly is Braggs? My husband is a Britt but we live in the states. Impossible to get Marmite in the shops. Would love to try your recipe. I have different things from Braggs, but are unsure what you mean.
Hey! Im Terry, official title Master Missionery in the Marmarati (Second Circle). I also had the worlds only and first Unilever approved Marmite wedding (google Marmite wedding couple), in 2011. This is awesome and i will give it a go! Having taken our sacred spread to 56 countries, i currently live in spain, and whilst it is sporadically available, id love to make my own! Thanks
Braggs is an American thing: follow the link…it's a kind of condiment a bit like soy sauce but has amino acids that are good for digestion….worth trying!
I am a little confused about getting a litre of brewers yeast. I only know yeast in a solid form. I purchased some brewers yeast online and it is also a powder. How much powdered yeast would I need to use to prepare a litre?
Many thanks
You need to use the yeast to make ale first then use the leftover spent yeast.
Thank you so much! I already have Braggs then. Can't wait to try this out. Just finished pickling some onions too. Many thanks and Merry Christmas.
This is so cool! I would love to try this. My extract of choice, though, is Promite, Aussie cousin to both Marmite and Vegemite, but "sweeter" and more savory. I love it. I'd like to try to find out how to make that. At any rate, this Yank thanks you for this post!
I'm afraid Andyman that I have tried Promite and it's totally bloody disgusting. I guess it depends what you grew up with….
Oh thank you, I am a South African who just recently moved back to Europe without a huge supply of our staple diet – Marmite, will definitely be giving this recipe a bash!!
Nice read. I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that. He actually bought me lunch as I found it for him! Therefore let me rephrase: Thank you for lunch!
I searched all over the place (even the internet) about three years ago for a marmite recipe and found nothing, I even emailed marmite (without result). so we tried making a recipe up (as we make our own beer). we tried two or three variations, but they were all as horrible as each other!
We'll certainly give this a go, thanks!
Natalie and the anonymice: Glad you got lunch and hope this recipe works for you. My main problem with it is to reduce the bitterness.
I need to work on that but if anyone comes up with anything…
You don’t need to remove the bitterness if it’s not there in the fist place – it comes from the hops, you can make a simple ale without hops, colloquially known as ‘small beer’. Right, then use the spent yeast, no need to ‘wash’ it as there’s no bitterness without the hops!
Thanks for this Alice. You sound like quite an expert.
Well lots of people will be looking at your website now that the only New Zealand producer of Marmite cannot make any for some time as the factory has had to close down after the Christchurch earthquake. Have a look at the New Zealand news website about it. People here have begun to panic and shops are being emptied of the last stocks.!!!
Thanks for this – just as I run out of Marmite, the entire country does too :(. Hopefully your recipe is close enough to NZ Marmite to keep the withdrawl symptoms away!
LOL you are a legend!
I am now convinced to go to the supermarket and buy it. To much time and energy required. I noted a comment that it is not available in the USA, there is an English food shop in Houston that have it, I worked there for a while and got it regularly along with stilton cheese, maybe they mail it ?
The jar is empty and stocks (entire country) are running low. This may just get us through! Thank you!
A very interesting post.
I live in Turkey and bring back a jar whenever I visit England.
I also brew my own beer so may have a go at making my own Marmite.
My father who died 12 years ago made his own Worcestershire sauce, I only finished his last two gallon batch last year.
Hi Peter, please share us your father’s recepi 🙂
What a lovely memory of your father…
I live on a small island in Greece and so far have depended on friends to bring me Marmite. I make my own pickled onions but Marmite – ooh, that would be great although brewers yeast… no. For the desperate ones I have used http://www.britstore.co.uk and they're excellent. I will try your recipe with bakers yeast in the meantime! Sounds great and many thanks!
Love this post. Might give it a go as I am an addict and its not so easy to get hold of where I live. I rely on visitors to be my Marmite mules. I have made hoisin sauce, sweet chili sauce, mustard with honey, beetroot pickle, mint sauce and a few more. They mostly work well and are a fraction of the cost to buy. Does anyone know how to make Worcestershire sauce? Bloody Marys are just not the same without it.
Let us know how you get on!
I think I'm going to have another go. But this time I will rinse the yeast.
I'm so excited and can't believe my luck. Living in a small town in Ecuador at about 2,500m and quite literally living above a brewery. Missing marmite like you wouldn't believe, I feel like this is some kind of divine intervention!!!
It may be divine intervention! i have just got a load of yeast slurry from a local microbrewery. And now i am in the dark. I think i want to rinse the yeast? But the stuff is still fermenting! I am waiting till tomorrow and then i am going to see if i can siphon off the liquor and replace with water. Any advice not on this page much appreciated….mark
Mark: yes rinse the yeast to lessen the bitterness. Let me know how you get on.
Karen: which town in Ecuador? I spent some time there a while ago. I remember a British tourist giving me a pot of Marmite in Quito, I was so thrilled. I know well that desperation!
Let me know how you get on too…
Love this post! I am a home brewer and have been experimenting with this for the past week. I am having trouble filtering the yeast. It just gums up the works and nothing strains out. Any suggestions?
Amelia: hmm not sure. I need to have another go myself.
At the moment however I'm buying trying to recreate hobbit food such as elven bread.
I must give thanks to theundergroundrestaurant for sharing this. I am brewing my first batch of "somethingmite" right now. Maybe I'll call it "davemight." I am new at this but not at brewing!
My only gift to you is this, get a brewers yeast that is either hopless (without hops) or made with light floral hops only and no bittering hops. So a brew made particularly for this recipe will serve you well as far as lowering the bitterness, some of which is needed because it is essential vitamins that make the mite mighty, cheers!
I’m gonna try with my yeast sludge from Cyder. It should overcome the ho bitterness problems. Fun fun fun.
Let me know how it goes
How was it?
Love this post! Stumbled across it randomly all the way from New Zealand where we have just had a year of no Marmite thanks to our Marmite factory being earthquake damaged – Marmageddon its been called. The whole country is counting down till it goes back on sale in a week or so.
I feel for you guys… I hope you are all back up and running again, on the breakfast front at least…
Amazing! My 9-year-old daughter has been an avid Marmite junkie since she started eating solid foods. She asked me this morning at breakfast (while having her Marmite-toast) if we couldn't make Marmite at home. Hence the google-search. Before reading your piece, I was sure it was a highly processed food (pretending to be traditionally derived), and am really delighted to learn that it is related to "real" foods.
I am a farmer and grow my own mustard. We regularly make our own mustard paste with honey, salt and pepper. It is really sharp and great for cooking.
Oh, and perhaps I should've mentioned that I am a Pakistani woman (mother of the 9-year-old Marmite lover).
Lovely to hear from you…are you a farmer in Pakistan? Have you made your own mustard?
I work in a microbiology lab in Canada and know a number of brewers who can give me yeast (or I can grow my own!). My first step was to spin it down in a centrifuge, decant the beer and re-suspend in water. The hops pelleted with the yeast, I did my best to remove it but there was still some hoppy scent to it.
I'm in the reducing step right now (laboratory vacuum over for reducing, yay!) but when I first read it, I was under the impression I would mash in the cooked vegetables. I might go with some vegetable stock instead of making my own and see how it turns out. Being in a lab also means I can add my own B-vitamins after the fact to make it super healthy 🙂
This post was definitely very helpful, thank you! I will be back to let you know how it turns out in a week or so. I'm hoping for it to be more like Vegemite personally, but Marmite is good too 🙂
Cool! Yes you can do it with vegetable stock too. Yes they use a centrifuge at the marmite factory. What do you mean by 'pelleted'? the hops became pellets with the yeast?
Please let me know how you get on and thanks so much for the comment.
I'm a new convert to Marmite. I was born in Romania and live in the USA, so I had no exposure to it until well into my adult age. But I am a food lover and I will try anything… so I did, and loved it. I am also a biochemist by profession, a cook and a homebrewer by passion. Marmite is available here, but not easily, and when you find some it can be expensive ($8 for a 4oz jar).
So I set to make my own, from curiosity. I always like to experiment.
I started with Mark de San Marcos' recipe above and changed it as follows:
1 tbsp turbinado sugar instead of Panela
1 tbsp red miso (I make my own; alternately you can use aged red miso that you find at stores like Whole Foods)
2 tbsp yeast flakes (also from Whole foods)
3 tbsp dry baking yeast (the kind you can get at Costco in 1-lb packets)
1 tbsp Vegeta instead of vegetable stock powder (Vegeta is a Polish-made seasoning mix made mostly of dried vegetables; you can find it at ethnic markets)
2 tbsp soy sauce (the real, brewed kind – not the ones made from hydrolyzed protein – Kikkomans is a good one)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (240ml) water
A comment on the soy sauce vs Braggs: Braggs is akin to soy sauce with reduced salt… so why add Braggs and then salt, if you can use straight soy sauce instead? Plus by doing so you can choose a good, traditionally-brewed brand (Braggs is made from hydrolyzed soy)
I put all of this in a 1-pint jar, mix together and put the jar in a slow cooker set to low. Now, the low on my slow cooker must be different from Mark's, because it was all done in 10 hours or so (if I had left it for 24h I would have ended up with the dried remains of what could have been a Marmite substitute). At the end I mixed it all well together, and simply put a lid on the jar I cooked it in – didn't transfer it to anything else. I turned out very smooth and creamy.
I'm very happy with the taste I obtained, and will surely make more soon.
Wow that's cool Silvu, thanks so much for sharing that!
This is the BEST thread ever! I make several condiments now (ketchup, mustard, chili sauce, etc) using maple syrup and Pple cider. I'm attempting to make my own version of marmite. If it works, I'm cling it VERMONMITE!
I work in the quality lab of a microbrewery. The substances that makes beer bitter are called alpha-acids. They are derived form hops, and as the name implies, they are acidic. The membranes of yeast cells tend to be negatively, charged, and attract acidic substances. In fact, anywhere from 10% to 40% of the alpha acids in beer before fermentation end up sticking to the yeast cells, and get pulled out of the beer at the end of fermentation when the yeast settles out. Washing the yeast several times with water should remove most of the bitterness, but it sounds like you have tried this and want a better solution. I wonder if washing the yeast with vinegar wouldn't work better. The acetic acid might have a stronger affinity to the negatively-charged yeast cells than the alpha-acids. The alpha acids would therefore be displaced into solution: let it all settle, pour off the standing liquid and the bitter substance with it. Follow with a water wash. Any residual vinegar will get boiled off in the lengthy cooking process. Maybe its a nutty idea, but I'm curious to try it.
hi Cullen, I haven't tried it yet but will when I have time. Thanks for all the scientific info and please let me know if you try the washed yeast version.
some aussies tried out your recipe and it didn't turn out too well… http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/diy-marmite-video-4823308
I think it's unfair that they didn't credit me properly and that they didn't say that I said it was much more bitter in my blog post. Very rude and misleading and that cook's version didn't look like mine.
But thanks for letting me know.
I salute you lady!
Wow, never heard of anyone trying to make Marmite. As a Yank (of Norwegian descent), but occasional visitor to the UK, I was introduced to Marmite on toast, and over time it's really grown on me. I'll stick to the store bought but wanted to say you really went the distance on this one.
Enjoying the blog!
Quotes of your text above:
"The location of the Marmite factory is due to it's proximity ….. "
"…the hallmark of Marmite lay in it's smoothness…"
Not being of English mother tongue myself I am always utterly surprised to see that the British do not know the difference between "it's" and "its". Possessive pronoun neutrum 3rd person singular is what, "it's" or "its"? Find out yourself
And no, not being British I do not like marmite at all, neither from the 7th Day Adventists' factory nor DIY.
I know, it's pathetic isn't it? My daughter is always having a go at me about that.
Is Marmite owned by 7th day adventists?
I like both Bovril and vegemite and am often involved in the arguments over which is better trying to say they are both good. I rarely have Marmite
Thank you thank you thank you for this. I am a lover of both Marmite and DIY, so this is going on the list. I managed to find plenty of Marmite when I was in Thailand, but when I lived in Australia, I had to have the big BIG jars shipped over specially (£15 in postage per jar way back in 2001!) as the local variants were all abysmal substitutes…
I had no clue that half of this stuff was even in Marmite, how very interesting! Thanks so much for sharing, this was very interesting!
Hi there! I've been looking at your recipe for years and am finally going to give it a go! I have a couple of questions.
Step 7. How long does this take? Is it obvious when it's finished? What am I watching for?
And step 9 – again, how long does this take? A few minutes, hours, days?
Thanks!
Hi john
Yes for both steps it's pretty obvious because you are looking for a marmite texture. It's really a mature of reducing down the liquid to a concentrate. It's easy to do this on an aga as its on all the time. The main problem with this recipe is the bitter notes which you must remove from the yeast.
Do let me know how you get on
your could ask a frendly homebrewer to add hops say in the form of a hop tea and or a small bittering boil with priming sugar into the bottling bucket. the yeast in the original fermentation bucket will then not have that bitterness.
interesting idea
I baked our christmas ham in Guinness with herbs and spices for 7 hours and the result was a marmite like residue. Separated the fat filtered and reduced to the correct consistency.
perhaps more bovril like? but a porcine version?
Has anyone tried the vinegar wash?
I am dedicating 5 weeks to trying to make a perfect imitation of English marmite. I really appreciate this recipe.
What changes to the original recipe makes it taste closer to English marmite?
What changes to this recipe will make it taste closer to the original English marmite?
Washing the yeast seems helpful. Has anyone tried the vinegar wash?
I recently made it again. Worked very well in the vitamix then straining but I didn't do the wash.
Tell me about the vinegar wash idea?
Hello and well done! I shall be giving this a try maybe using my bread dough culture? (No idea here were I'd find a brewery although vineyards are a go go and Marmite did use champagne be fermentation for a valentines didn't they)?
I've just finished (4 days) making my own Heinz 57 Hot Tomato Ketchup from rosehips. 2kg rosehips for 2,5 litres of sauce. Taste, consistency the same.
Colour is slightly orangey-red but only noticeable when comparing with original. I have wood burner in kitchen and wouldn't attempt otherwise. As well as avoiding chemicals, plastics, etc, I don't like wasting energy/carbon footprint…
I didn't fill jars to top as I'll keep them in freezer. Too afraid to just leave bottled. I read it couldn't be frozen (separates) but I've had no problem.
In addition to hips, 200ml water, 200 ml white vinegar, salt I big but hot chilli with seeds and 90g sugar. Left on the stove overnight, strain in AM. Added more water to remains, left all day, strained more water to left overs. Three batches together and just left to evaporate to correct consistency,
sounds gorgeous
Would this work using nutritional yeast instead of brewers yeast? I would think that it would not be a s bitter as brewer's yeast.
gbsk: I don't think it'd work with nutritional yeast. Maybe if you soaked it in hot water and turned it into a liquid?
I want a Marmite Sauce with the constituency of Tomato Ketchup. Diluting does not seem to work very well.
Try brown sauce instead.
Thanks for a wonderful article!
So… what's a "aga"?
Is it like an American "crockpot" (electric slow cooking ceramic pot)?
Or is it like some other slow cooking device?
Cheers!
Yum—-uMMY. Neat.
Great ! But where do you find Brewer's yeast ?
Go to a local brewer and ask! they usually want to get rid of it. Take a plastic container.
I wish I had the recipe during the years 2011 to 2015 that we spent in Argentina. Totally unknown there. As a South African, I had to get Saffer and Brit friends to bring it in! My Marmite was almost confiscated in Santiago, Chile; as they thought the XRay machine had shown it to be a bottle of honey (yip, I take it with me!).
haha it's strong stuff alright.
just made 2 gallons wine from cheap grapes from a London market, making vinegar with the remaining liquid, and now I've got the sludge reayd to try this recipe with. Wino-mite? anybody ever heard of this getting done, no hops to worry about…thinking it might be like a Tartex spread or something?
winomite? hilarious 🙂
"baker's yeast is too cloudy, while brewers yeast will eventually separate"
What you're talking about here are the inter-related topics of dropping and flocculation, although brewers tend to talk about them interchangeably so if you ask a brewer for some yeast that "floccs well" you'll get the sort you want. Obviously it's a subject of enormous interest to brewers and publicans so all brewing yeast strains are well characterised in this regard. In particular pubs want the yeast in cask ale to drop quickly so that they can serve it quickly, and traditional British cask strains are generally the best in this regard. The Fuller's yeast is famous among homebrewers for how quickly it drops, a version of it is available as Wyeast 1968 or White Labs WLP002. The clean strains responsible for many US-style hoppy beers tend not to drop so quickly. With US-style beers you also have the problem that they tend to be generously dry-hopped, which means you will have a lot more hops in the fermenting vessel and hence ending up with the yeast. Traditional British beers generally have little or no dry hops.
So ideally you want to get your yeast from a brewery making cask ale in traditional British styles. It looks like Redemption use a trad British yeast (so it should drop quickly) but their website talks a lot about "generous late hopping" which sounds like their waste yeast will have a lot of hop waste in it. You could ask them which of their beers has the least dry hopping, and arrange to get yeast from that batch.
For those asking about AGAs – they're a traditional kind of cast-iron, always-on, range cooker. But like Teslas and Macs they're not so much a consumer item as the badge of a cult…
I love how an Aga cooks. But yeah I'm part of the cult.
Just what I've been searching for. I do prefer Tescos yeast extract to Marmite by~the~way. There is a difference! Any idea where the Nicotinic Acid, Thiamin, Folic Acid and Vitamin B12 come from?
Thank you for the article Kerstin.
Hi I guess they add it in. Ooh no, I don't do own brand unless desperate.
Thanks Stonemason. (My great grandad was a stonemason, he built a war memorial in Lambeth. He stipulated in his will that his veins be cut open to check he was dead as he's seen so many live people buried through his job as a stonemason for tomb stones.)
i too take photos of myself with marmite on my head after 7 bottles of wine
🙂
I went to a brewerand he filled up my jar. He said it was spent grains. Is that different from brewer's yeast? Can it still be used to make Marmite? Thanks
I honestly don't know. I got a cloudy liquid from the brewers.
Spent grains would be from the mash. It's before they add yeast. It won't work.
I got the brewer's yeast about a month ago. How long can you use it after it is made? It smells a little funny. Thanks
Hmm if it's liquid then I'd use it quickly.
I loved this. I'm a home brewer. I just brewed home brew beer batch 40, which is a stout. I love Marmite and hope to use this recipe. I prepared the beer in a way that kept the hops separate so that they wouldn't mix with the yeast and bitter them.
Another modification is that I'm washing the yeast with isotonic water, so as not to kill the yeast during the washing process. The way I'm doing this is by using 9g of table salt per liter to add to the yeast for washing. Then, when I am ready to heat the yeasts to form the extract, I'll add significant amounts of salt to start the cell lysis process.
Hello all Marmite lovers the blog over. My friend and I thought we had cornered the home-made Marmite recipe at Thanksgiving feast time in 2009. We put the carrots, parsnips, ruttabaga and many yellow onions to roast under a light olive oil and herb rub, at 350 degreesF, then went to play in her garden, or went for a walk, or somesuch distracting thing and came back, 40 minutes, or so, later! All was a dark and pungent mass, not burned as such, just very richly browned! The lot reeked of Marmite! We shrieked with joy while blending up the brown sticky mass.
No joy! Not quite! Aha, we both recalled wartime England and rationing! Brewrs yeast we yelled together! Lacking that vegan (?) condiment, we threw in 2 Tbsp bread yeast! Still not quite the taste nor consistency desired!
I have since worked at the recipe with increasingly tastier results! I now still overcook the vegetables in the prescribed manner, blend the lot with 4 tbsp of Tbsps debittered brewer’s yeast, one of bread making yeast, and cook the resulting mash all night in a jar under my Joule bath. The recipe lacks the saltiness of true Marmite; but I must avoid salt! Maybe a bit of Braggs could help; however, I am going to try celery stalks in the roasting vegetable phase first!
Then, I will try including a liquid yeast reduction from a liter of brewer’s yeast which I hope to score at the micro brewery folk here in Whitehorse, Yukon.
This is great! So wonderful to hear your progress. Still I do think salt is very important in Marmite and I also think good sea salt is good for your health. It has so many essential minerals. I know the health police have been critisizing salt for the last couple of decades but only 8% of the population is sensitive to salt. Salt has virtually no effect on blood pressure either.
Years and years ago, I would brew a fair bit. My specialty was mead, so I ended up with a ton of brewer’s yeast (champagne varieties, often enough).
I knew that salt made yeast cell shed their tough husks, thus achieving much of the taste and consistency of Marmite.
I don’t really recall my exact production method, but I thought I’d mention that leftover yeast from mead production works well.
Easier en cheaper to buy a jar.
I am a little confused about getting a litre of brewers yeast. I only know yeast in a solid form. I purchased some brewers yeast online and it is also a powder. How much powdered yeast would I need to use to prepare a litre?
Many thanks
You need to go to a local brewery and get some of the yeast fermentation from them
Cannot I not mix some of the beer yeast I have with water and leave to ferment? How much would I put in a litre of water if it is an option? Thank you.
This is what I did. But give it a go, why not? It’s worth a try.
Add barley malt syrup to the water (not tap water) and boil it, when cooled to lukewarm add the ale yeast then allow it to grow until you’ve got ale with enough yeast for making marmite. You could then also drink the ale as well, or use it to make bread.
‘‘Twas an episode of Taskmaster that led me here. The task was to “make Marmite,” and I realized that, faced with a task like that, I’d have no idea what to “make”it out of. The only thing I definitely knew was brewer’s yeast, but beyond that, no clue. Incidentally, I believe they were given 20 minutes.
Please, please help a 76 year old who has driven everyone in the house mad for three days attempting to make home made marmite. (I see you are the prime ‘home marmite’ source. Every recipe on the internet is really yours. Mine tasts and smells awful. I thought I had followed all the steps correctly, but the word ‘separates’ now jumps out at me. I filtered mine and it produced a lovely looking light brown creamy affair – but there was no ‘separation’. and your step 5 indicates aprevious seperation?) The final reduced product was darkish brown and marmite consistency – but oh dear, it did not have the marmite taste! I see from your website you are a dynamic professional, dashing from one assignment – but I think you’re actually a big softie.. If you have a minute please advise an old geezer so that when he is really old he can say, ‘I once made my own marmite in the lockdown of 2020. It tasted nearly as good as the real thing!’
You got me. I am the biggest softie.Sounds like you did everything right but I have to say, the taste is far more bitter, hence the suggestion in the comments to ‘wash’ the yeast to try and get rid of the bitterness. One of these days I’ll have another go Garth.
Try using celery salt i.e. celery seeds and salt combined instead of celery stalk. The original Marmite recipe contained celery seeds.
Only one jar of ‘Our Mate’ (British Marmite is distributed in Australia under this name as the Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing company baggsed ‘Marmite’ for its own Southern Hemisphere spread many years ago) left in our store cupboard at Wollongong, New South Wales. British-born husband starting to fret. Coles supermarkets no longer have trays of Our Mate next to the Branston Pickles in the ‘Foreign’ aisle. There’s a yeast shortage because of all the furious COVID-isolation-inspired bread-making I guess. Wonderful to find this site. Ten days long and quite complicated. My kind of task. But this will have to wait until I have completed my elaborate floral bathing cap decorated with brightly coloured scrunched-up mesh produce bags imitating flowers for Melbourne Cup Day at the local ocean pool, home of the Bathing Beauties group, aged between 52 and 96. We swim at 6 am.
I want to see that bathing cap Diana.
I have been making my own sugar shine for hand sanitizers since Covid 19 pandemic began here in North America. The leftover yeast and distillate were a great base for creating this recipe, LOL. I think I made it like I enjoy. I cannot quit tasting the spoon as it thickens. Tomorrow is the toast test! Thanks so much for your insight and recipe for a great starter to a delicious DIY yeast spread.
Do you have a quantity of marmite that this recipe will yield?
Looking for ways to create things that are relatively zero waste, and since there is a brewery over the road this makes a lot of sence. Plus it tastes amazing.
Thanks
Probably about 200ml
Ms Kerstin MarmiteLover, You are beyond awesome. Love your quest, your description of your quest and the sharing of your recipe. Devouring every word on this page made my day.
Is it possible to use one of the Marmite wannabes as a “starter”?
I don’t know. Tell me more!
Gotta admit that I prefer supermarket own brand Yeast Extracts to Marmite particularly Sainsbury’s low salt but am always more than happy to eat regular Marmite.
Recently I bought a Pinter machine from The Greater Good company to brew some beer (which it does very nicely). It basically has ‘sump’ to collect all the frothy yeast stuff that you don’t want in your beer. People have used this for breadmaking and pizza bases but I was wondering whether this would fit into your Marmite recipe in any way?
I think that would work very well
My dad homebrews his own brown sauce and Branston-style pickle, because he’s in Germany and can’t get these condiments easily there. Apparently the recipes are passed around the expat community in Bayern like gold, and when someone makes a large batch they have a LOT of friends interested in visiting with spare bottles and jars…
Love this. You have to stick together!