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Potato Yeast

A fermented potato beverage made with boiled potatoes, hops, sugar, salt, water, and yeast.

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

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 ↓

Potato Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil the potatoes and hops together until done.

  2. Mash the potatoes and strain the water through a colander.

  3. Add sugar, salt, and enough boiling water to make 2 quarts total.

Add yeast

  1. Before it cools, stir in 1 cup or more of yeast.

  2. Stir well before using each time.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Potatoes
Provide starch and body that gives the brew its substance and mouthfeel.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the brew.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, supplying the fermentable sugar that produces alcohol and carbonation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning the liquid into beer.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast before the liquid cools. Yeast works best at lukewarm temperatures. If the liquid is too hot it can kill the yeast, and if it cools too far fermentation may be slow to start. Adding the yeast while the mixture is still warm but not hot gives it a good start.

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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