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Bread

Good Yeast

A yeast starter made from grated potatoes, hops, sugar, salt, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Good Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil 1 gallon of water with 3 handfuls of hops.

  2. Strain the hot mixture over the grated potatoes, stirring until thickened.

  3. Add 1 teacup of sugar and ½ cup of coarse sea salt.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then stir in 1 cup of good yeast.

  5. Allow it to stand until a thick foam rises on top.

Use and store

  1. Use 1 coffee cup of yeast for 6 loaves of bread.

  2. Store in a cool place to keep the yeast fresh.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starch that thickens the mixture and provides food for the yeast to grow.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the starter.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, helping it become active and foam.
Yeast
Leavening agent that produces carbon dioxide, causing bread dough to rise.

The step that matters

Letting the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the hot mixture must cool before the yeast is stirred in. Adding yeast too early can prevent the starter from foaming and leavening properly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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