Name: Harvest Beer
Ingredients: 3 pints of yeast; 3 pints of molasses; 2 gallons of cold water; 3 quarts of molasses; 3 gallons of boiling water; 1 ounce of ginger

Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Harvest Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Combine 3 pints of yeast, 3 pints of molasses, and 2 gallons of cold water in a keg.
Let the mixture stand for a few minutes.
Mix together 3 quarts of molasses, 3 gallons of boiling water, and 1 ounce of ginger.
Pour the mixture into the keg and fill it up with cold water.

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.

Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 molasses, producing the gas and alcohol that give the beer its character.
Molasses: Provides the sugar that yeast ferments, along with a dark, rich sweetness.
Ginger: Adds a warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the finished beer.

“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.