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A fermented mixture of hops, water, flour, sugar, salt, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in 2 quarts of water for 15 minutes.

  2. Add 1 quart of cold water and boil for a few more minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture and slowly pour it over ½ lb of flour in a basin to prevent lumps.

Build the starter

  1. Stir in ½ lb of brown sugar and a handful of fine salt.

  2. Mash and strain 6 boiled potatoes until smooth, then add to the mixture.

  3. Let it stand for 3 days, stirring occasionally.

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. Flour + sugartop 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
Boiled hops supply bitterness and aroma that help preserve the starter and flavour the liquid.
Flour
Starch from the flour thickens the liquid and gives the starter body for the yeast to feed on.
Brown sugar
Sugar provides food for the yeast, driving fermentation and adding sweetness and depth.
Boiled potatoes
Potato starch and mashed texture add body and extra food for the yeast during standing.

The step that matters

Pouring the hop liquid over the flour. Pouring slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so it hydrates evenly without lumps that would stay dry and starve the yeast later.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour, sugar):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, 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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