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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented beverage made from sugar, ginger, lemon, water, yeast, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

  1. Dissolve the sugar and bruised ginger in boiling water.

  2. Add the juice and peel of the lemons.

  3. When lukewarm, stir in the yeast and whipped egg whites.

  4. Cover the mixture with a heavy blanket.

Bottle

  1. The next day, skim off any foam and bottle the ginger beer.

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing carbonation and the drink's characteristic fizz.
Loaf sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments, and sweetness in the finished drink.
Ginger
Supplies the spicy, aromatic flavour that defines the drink.
Lemons
Add acidity and citrus aroma, balancing the sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped whites help clarify the liquid by collecting particles as they settle.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mixture must be cooled to lukewarm before adding it. If added too hot, fermentation may fail and the ginger beer will not fizz.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Dillfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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