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Drink

Molasses Beer

A fermented beverage made from hops, wheat bran, water, molasses, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and molasses work together. They rank in the top 24% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 702 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Molasses Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Boil hops and wheat bran in 15 gallons of water for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture and pour it into a cask with one head removed.

  3. Stir in 5 quarts of molasses until well mixed.

Ferment

  1. Cover the barrel with a cloth and let it cool to a moderate warmth.

  2. Add 1 quart of good yeast and stir it in.

  3. Seal the cask tightly with a cloth and board.

  4. Once fermented and clear, bottle the beer using clean bottles.

Bottle

  1. Soak corks in boiling water for 1 to 2 hours before sealing the bottles.

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. Wheat + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Hops + wheattop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Hops + molassestop 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

Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the molasses.
Molasses
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and gives sweetness and dark color.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, carbonating and clearing the beer.
Wheat bran
Contributes starches and body to the liquid during the long boil.

The step that matters

Cooling to a moderate warmth before adding yeast. Yeast is killed or slowed by very hot liquid, so the wort must cool to a warm but not hot temperature before it is added. Adding yeast too early can stop fermentation before it starts.

“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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