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Potato Yeast

A yeast starter made by boiling hops, adding grated potatoes, salt, sugar, cooling, and yeast, then letting rise.

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

about 4 loaves of bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil a good handful of hops in 1 quart of water.

  2. Pour the hot hop water over 2 teacups of grated potatoes and stir until it just comes to a boil.

  3. Add ¼ teacup of coarse sea salt and ½ teacup of sugar, then let the mixture cool.

  4. Once cool, add the usual quantity of good yeast to start it.

Store and use

  1. When raised, transfer it to a jar, cover closely, and set in a clean place.

  2. Use 1 teacup of this yeast for about 4 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.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Grated potatoes
Provide starch and body that feed the yeast and thicken the starter.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, giving it fuel to become active and rise.
Good yeast
Provides the live culture that leavens the starter and later the bread.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to hot potato and hop water can stop it from working. Cooling to lukewarm or cooler keeps the culture alive so the starter can rise.

“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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