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Drink

Hop Yeast

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hop Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the hops in a cloth and set aside.

  2. Peel the potatoes and place them in a kettle with 1 quart of water.

  3. Sift flour and mix with cold water to create a paste.

Make the mixture

  1. Once the potatoes are cooked, pour the boiling water over the flour mixture while stirring continuously.

  2. Mash the potatoes and add them to the mixture.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool, then stir in ½ cup of yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise until very light.

  2. Strain the mixture through a wire sieve and transfer it to a jug, then 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.

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
Provide starch and body, and their mashed pulp thickens the liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a paste that gives the brew body.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that makes the mixture rise and turns it into beer.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the starches.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour paste while adding boiling water. Pouring boiling water onto flour without constant stirring can form lumps that stay raw and unevenly thickened. Continuous stirring disperses the starch so the mixture thickens smoothly.

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.

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