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
makes 1 gallonIngredients
Directions
Prepare the wort
Pare and cut the potatoes into small pieces.
Boil the potatoes with the hops in a bag until the potatoes are well done.
Sieve the potatoes with the boiling water.
Add sugar, salt, and enough water to make 1 gallon.
Ferment and bottle
When lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast cake.
Cover and set in a warm place for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.
Bottle and cork tightly in heavy bottles and keep in a cool place.
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.
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 that is converted to fermentable sugars, giving the brew its body.
- Hops
- Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the brew.
- Sugar
- Serves as readily fermentable food for the yeast, producing alcohol and carbonation.
- Yeast cake
- Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, making the drink fizzy.
The step that matters
Adding the yeast when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mixture must cool to lukewarm before the dissolved yeast is added. Too hot and fermentation will fail to start.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Cucumberfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- 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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