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Bread

Hop Yeast

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

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 ↓

Hop Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a cloth and let it cool to lukewarm.

  3. Add salt and sugar to the hop water.

Make the batter

  1. Mix flour with some hop water to form a thin, smooth paste.

  2. Stir the paste into the mixture.

  3. Set the batter in a warm place for 3 days, stirring occasionally.

  4. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  5. Add the mashed potatoes to the mixture.

  6. Let the mixture stand for another day, stirring frequently.

  7. Strain the mixture through a colander.

  8. The mixture is now ready for use.

Use

  1. Use 1 cup of this yeast for 5 loaves of bread.

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 bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the liquid while it ferments.
Flour
Provides starch that feeds the fermentation and thickens the batter.
Potatoes
Supply starch and moisture that feed the wild yeast in the batter.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, driving fermentation and gas production.

The step that matters

Setting the batter in a warm place for 3 days. Yeast and bacteria are active only within a suitable temperature range. Too cool slows fermentation, and too hot can kill yeast or favor spoilage, so the batter needs steady warmth and regular stirring.

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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