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Drink

Edinburgh Ale

A historical ale brewed from pale malt, hops, and water, with multiple mash steps and separate fermentation.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Edinburgh Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Mash the first wort

  1. Mash 2 barrels of malt at 180°F for 45 minutes.

  2. Let the mash stand for 1 hour.

  3. Run off the wort for 30 minutes.

Mash the second wort

  1. Mash 1 barrel of malt at 183°F for 45 minutes.

  2. Let the mash stand for 45 minutes.

  3. Run off the wort.

Mash the third wort

  1. Mash 1 barrel of malt at 170°F for 30 minutes.

  2. Let the mash stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Run off the wort.

Boil and ferment

  1. Mix the first and second wort.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1 to 1.25 hours with hops.

  3. Ferment the second wort separately to produce small 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. Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Pale malt
Provides starches that enzymes convert into the fermentable sugars that feed the yeast.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.

The step that matters

Holding each mash at its stated temperature. Enzymes in malt convert starch into sugar, and their activity depends on temperature. Mashing too hot slows or stops that conversion, leaving less sugar for fermentation, so each mash should be held at its recorded temperature for its full time.

“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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