potato water yeast

I am need to this forum but have a question for making a potato water yeast starter for making bread I am trying to get one started not sure i'm having any luck any info would be great

most yeast starters need some sugar to get going, potato water is starch so you would need amylase (which is an enzyme that converts starches to sugars) to add to the potato water to get a good bloom of the yeast.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:most yeast starters need some sugar to get going, potato water is starch so you would need amylase (which is an enzyme that converts starches to sugars) to add to the potato water to get a good bloom of the yeast.

adding a little bit of malted barley might provide the necessary amylase. once the yeast get going, I believe they'll make their own, though fairly slowly.

Being a brewer, I can say that malted barley does indeed contain amylase, both alpha-amylase and beta-amylase. If you have a local home-brew shop, pick up a small amount of grain and mill it fresh. 6-row barley has much more diastatic power (more enzymes and ability to convert starch) than 2-row. Heat is necessary to activate these enzymes and get them to chew on starch chains, approximately 142-152f for beta amylase and 148-160f for alpha amylase, with a small temperature window where both are active. Home-brew shops usually also have a liquid amylase ready to use if you don't want to fuss with milling grain and applying heat for 30-45 minutes to get conversion.