Why it works: Malt and hops work together. They rank in the top 49% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Beer or Ale
Ingredients
Directions
Pour hot water (not boiling) over the malt and let it infuse for 3 hours, covered.
Mash the mixture during the first half hour and let it stand for the remaining time.
Run the mixture over the hops that have been infused in water.
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.
-
Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1 recipe
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
- Malt
- Provides the sugars that yeast later ferments into alcohol, giving the beer its body and base flavour.
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.
The step that matters
Keeping the water below boiling during the infusion. Boiling water can damage the enzymes in malt that convert its starches into fermentable sugars, leaving less sugar for 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.
More beer recipes
You might also like
Vegetable Soup350 recipes
Raspberry Vinegar214 recipes
Brown Coffee with Egg175 recipes
Blackberry Cordial129 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.