Why it works: Sugar and wort work together. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
To Cure a Hogshead of Four Ale
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the isinglass
Dissolve isinglass in 2 quarts of new ale.
Let it sit by the fire overnight.
Make the mixture
Boil 2 pounds of coarse brown sugar in 1 quart of new wort for 15 minutes.
Combine the boiled sugar with 2 gallons of new ale in a pail.
Whisk for an hour until frothy.
Add 1 pound of plaster of Paris to the mixture.
Finish in the cask
Whisk well in the cask for 30 minutes to remove sediments.
If the cask is not full, top it up with new ale.
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.
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Sugar + worttop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together24 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Isinglass
- Acts as a fining agent, binding haze particles so they settle out and the ale clears.
- Coarse brown sugar
- Adds fermentable sugar and a rich, sweet flavour to the brew.
- New wort
- Unfermented malt liquid that carries the dissolved sugar and adds body and malt flavour.
- Plaster of paris
- Calcium sulfate that helps the ale settle and clarify while adjusting its mineral balance.
- New ale
- Forms the main liquid base of the cured ale and sets its overall flavour.
The step that matters
Whisk well in the cask for 30 minutes to remove sediments. Thorough whisking lifts sediment and haze so the fining agents can bind and carry them down, leaving a clearer ale. Skipping or shortening this lets cloudiness remain.
“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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