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Drink

Lemon Ginger Beer

A fermented beverage made with lemon, ginger, sugar, tartar, water, and yeast.

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 ↓

Lemon Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Peel the lemons.

  2. Squeeze the juice, straining it into a large earthen pan.

  3. Add the lemon peel, bruised ginger, cream of tartar, and loaf sugar to the pan.

  4. Pour 3 gallons of boiling water over the ingredients.

  5. Let it stand until just warm.

Ferment

  1. Add the fresh yeast. Stir well.

  2. Cover the pan with a cloth.

  3. Let it sit near the fire overnight.

  4. Skim off the yeast.

Bottle and rest

  1. Carefully pour the liquid into another vessel, leaving the sediment behind.

  2. Bottle immediately and tie down the corks.

  3. The ginger beer will be ready to use in 3 days.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast and provides the sweetness and alcohol for fermentation.
Fresh brewer's yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and the drink's fizz.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, giving the beer a tart edge and helping it keep.
Bruised ginger
Supplies the spicy aroma and flavor that define the drink.
Lemons
Provide the citrus acidity and aroma from juice and rind.

The step that matters

Bottling immediately after straining. Yeast is still active, so pressure builds in sealed bottles. Leaving the sediment behind and sealing promptly keeps the fermentation controlled and the bottles less likely to burst.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, cream. 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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