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Potato Yeast

A yeast starter made by boiling hops with water, mixing with grated potatoes, salt, sugar, and yeast, then fermenting.

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 hop water

  1. Boil 1/2 cup of hops in 1 quart of water for 20 minutes.

  2. Pour the hot hop water over 2 teacups of grated potatoes.

  3. Stir until it just comes to a boil.

Make the yeast

  1. Add 1/4 teacup of coarse sea salt and 1/2 teacup of sugar.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add 1 cup of good yeast to the mixture.

  4. Transfer to a jar.

  5. Cover tightly.

  6. Place in a clean area.

  7. 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).

  2. Hops + potatotop 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 preserve the yeast mixture.
Grated potatoes
Supplies starch and moisture that feed the yeast as it develops.
Sugar
Provides food for the yeast, helping it become active.
Good yeast
Acts as the starter that leavens the new batch.

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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