Skip to main content
Starter

Unrivaled Yeast

A fermented yeast mixture made from hops, water, salt, sugar, flour, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Unrivaled Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let the mixture cool to the consistency of new milk.

Make the starter

  1. In an earthen bowl, combine the cooled liquid with salt and brown sugar.

  2. Beat the flour with some of the liquid and mix everything together well.

  3. Let the mixture stand for three days.

  4. Add the boiled and mashed potatoes.

  5. Let it stand for one more day.

  6. Strain the mixture.

Bottle and keep

  1. Bottle the yeast.

  2. Stir frequently while it ferments.

  3. Keep the bottle in a cool place.

  4. Shake well before using.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + potatotop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. 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

Hops
Adds bitter flavour and aroma, and its compounds help hold back unwanted microbes.
Flour
Provides starch that the yeast and microbes feed on during fermentation.
Brown sugar
Feeds the fermentation and adds sweetness and depth of flavour.
Potatoes
Adds starch and moisture that the fermentation can break down, feeding the culture.

The step that matters

Cool the liquid before combining it. Adding liquid that is still hot can kill live yeast and beneficial microbes. Cooling it to the stated consistency first lets the culture survive and start fermenting.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, sugar, 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 yeast starter recipes

Potato 58Homemade 13Hop 9That Will Not Sour 4Bread 3 See all 138 →

You might also like

Deviled OystersDeviled Oysters25 recipes