Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I've had much experience making these for my lithuanian husband and learning from my mother-in-law. The key reason these fall apart is because the raw potatoes are being "grated" on the wrong setting. Look on your vegetable grater. It usually has a few different choices. You want to "shred" the potatoes on the sharpest setting. That is the little holes with spikes pointing up. Make sure you use potatoes with high starch content as well.

When dropping them into the water, bring the water to a rolling boil. BUT then you want to bring the heat down, and reduce the water to a gentle boil/simmer before carefully dropping your zeppelins.