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Drink

Small Beer

Small beer is a lightly brewed beverage made from water, bran, molasses, corn or oats, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and corn work together. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 644 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Small Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil the water, bran, molasses, corn or oats, and hops together once.

  2. Remove from heat and sweeten with the molasses.

  3. Transfer to a tub to cool until it's slightly warmer than milk.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Add the yeast and cover with a blanket until the next morning.

  2. Bottle the mixture.

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. Molasses + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + hopstop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Molasses + hopstop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the liquid, producing alcohol and carbonation.
Molasses
Provides fermentable sugar for the yeast and adds sweetness and dark colour.
Hops
Add bitterness that balances the sweetness and help preserve the beer.
Corn or oats
Add starch and body, contributing fermentable sugars and a fuller mouthfeel.
Bran
Adds body and flavour to the liquid during boiling.

The step that matters

Cooling to slightly warmer than milk before adding yeast. Yeast works best at a moderate warmth. Adding it to liquid that is too hot can kill it, while liquid that is too cool slows fermentation.

“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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