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Hop Yeast

A yeast made by boiling potatoes with hops, sugar, salt, and yeast, then allowing to rise.

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

Hop Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the yeast

  1. Boil the potatoes in water with the hops bag until tender.

  2. Remove the potatoes and mash them in a dish.

  3. Take out the hops and return the mashed potatoes to the water.

  4. Add the sugar and salt to the water.

  5. When lukewarm, stir in the made yeast.

  6. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise for 12 hours.

Store

  1. After rising, keep the yeast 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. 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

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps the mixture ferment and keep.
Potatoes
Provide starch and body to the liquid, feeding the yeast culture.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast, driving fermentation and rising.
Made yeast
Starts the fermentation that makes the mixture rise.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast when lukewarm. If the liquid is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it is cold fermentation will be slow. Lukewarm liquid keeps the yeast alive and active.

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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