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Unrivaled Yeast

A homemade yeast starter made from hops, water, salt, sugar, flour, and potatoes.

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

Unrivaled Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil the hops in the water for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the liquid and let it cool to the consistency of new milk.

Build the starter

  1. In an earthen bowl, combine the cooled liquid, salt, and brown sugar.

  2. Beat the flour with some of the liquid, then mix everything together well.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 3 days.

  4. Add the boiled and mashed potatoes, then let it stand for 1 day.

Bottle and use

  1. Strain and bottle the yeast.

  2. Stir frequently while making and keep it near a fire.

  3. Before using, shake the bottle well.

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. Sugar + flourtop 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 into the liquid to add bitterness and aroma, and to help preserve the starter.
All-purpose flour
Provides starch that the yeast feeds on, giving the starter body and fuel for fermentation.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds a mild molasses sweetness.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture, giving the yeast extra food to ferment.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand for 3 days. Fermentation is slow and depends on warmth and time. Ending the stand too early leaves the yeast weak, because the wild yeast and bacteria have not yet multiplied enough to leaven bread.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, sugar, flour. 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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