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An Unfailing Yeast

A yeast starter made by steeping hops in boiling water, adding grated potatoes, sugar, salt, and yeast, then allowing it to rise.

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 ↓

An Unfailing Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop water

  1. Place the hops in a bag and steep in boiling water.

  2. Wash, peel, and grate the potatoes.

  3. Remove the hops and add the potatoes to the boiling water.

  4. Boil the potatoes for a few minutes, stirring continuously.

Add the yeast

  1. Add the sugar and salt, then let the mixture cool.

  2. Stir in the yeast and let it rise until foamy.

  3. Stir down and transfer to a jug, sealing it tightly.

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. Hops + potatotop 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 breaks down into sugars to feed the yeast and thicken the mixture.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbon dioxide that makes the starter foamy and active.
White or light brown sugar
Provides readily available food for the yeast to ferment.
Hops
Adds bitter flavour and aroma, and helps preserve the starter.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed or weakened by very hot liquid. Cooling the mixture first keeps the yeast alive so it can ferment and become foamy.

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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