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Drink

Potato Yeast

A fermented beverage made from grated potatoes, hops, yeast, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Potato Yeast

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 ↓

Potato Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Pour boiling water over hops and strain it onto the grated potatoes.

  2. Let the mixture sit until it is warm to the touch.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add yeast and 2 quarts of boiling water to the mixture.

  2. Stir in coarse sea salt and sugar.

  3. Bottle and cork 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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
Provide starch that yeast can convert into sugar and alcohol during fermentation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that carbonates the beer.
Sugar
Supplies readily fermentable sugar that feeds the yeast and adds sweetness.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the potato mixture.

The step that matters

Bottle and cork tightly. Fermentation keeps producing carbon dioxide after bottling. A loose cork lets gas escape, so the beer goes flat, and a tight seal lets pressure build for natural carbonation.

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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