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Yeast Without a Start

A fermented mixture of hops, water, salt, sugar, flour, and mashed potatoes used to cultivate yeast.

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

Yeast Without a Start

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in 1 gallon of water for 1-2 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Let it cool to the warmth of new milk.

Build the starter

  1. Add a small handful of coarse sea salt and 1-2 lb. sugar.

  2. Beat 1 lb. of flour with some of the liquid.

  3. Mix everything well.

  4. Allow the mixture to stand for 3-4 days.

  5. Add 3 lb. of mashed potatoes.

  6. Let it stand for 1 more day, stirring often.

Store and bottle

  1. Store in a 2-gallon stone crock in a warm place at the temperature of new milk.

  2. Strain into glass jars.

  3. Keep in a cool place.

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
Provide bitterness and aroma that flavour the liquid and help preserve it.
Flour
Supplies starch that feeds the yeast and thickens the starter.
Mashed potatoes
Add starch and moisture that the yeast can ferment, adding body to the starter.
Sugar
Provides food for the yeast, driving fermentation and sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the liquid cool to the warmth of new milk before adding ingredients. Yeast works best at warm, body-like temperatures. If the liquid is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is too cold fermentation becomes slow or stalls.

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.

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