Skip to main content
Dessert

Dry Yeast

A method for making dry yeast using hops, potatoes, flour, brewer's yeast, and Indian meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Dry Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hop and potato liquid

  1. Boil hops in 2 quarts of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Boil potatoes for 30 minutes, then mash them without removing the skins.

  3. Strain the boiling water from the hops over the mashed potatoes.

  4. Add 2 tablespoons of salt.

  5. Strain the mixture over 1 pint of flour.

  6. Let the mixture cool to lukewarm.

Make the yeast

  1. Add 1 pint of brewer's yeast.

  2. Let it rise for 6 hours.

  3. Once risen, stir in enough sifted Indian meal to make a thick paste.

Dry and store

  1. Spread the paste on a cloth or board, about as thick as a knife handle.

  2. Let it dry in a cool, dry place for 2 to 3 days, avoiding direct sunlight.

  3. When hard, bag the paste.

  4. Store in a cool, dry place for up to a year.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Hops + potatotop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Their starch and mash give the paste body and food for the yeast to work on.
Brewer's yeast
Its live cells ferment the starches and sugars, causing the mixture to rise.
Flour
Adds starch that thickens the mixture and feeds the yeast.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma and helps preserve the liquid against spoilage.
Sifted indian meal
Stiffens the risen mixture into a thick paste that can be spread and dried.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast cells are killed by very hot liquid, so adding yeast too early can stop the rise. Lukewarm liquid lets the cells stay active and ferment properly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour. 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.

More dry yeast recipes

Bread 3 See all 12 →

You might also like

Deep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes