Why it works: Sugar and beer work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 699 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Root Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the starter
Dissolve the yeast and 3 tablespoons of sugar in the lukewarm water.
Keep in a warm place for 12 hours.
Stir well and strain through a piece of cheesecloth.
Brew and store
Add the root beer extract, 2 pounds of sugar, and 2½ gallons of lukewarm water.
Mix thoroughly, then bottle and seal.
Keep in a warm place for 48 hours.
After cooling, it is ready for use.
Store in a cellar or a cool place.
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 + beertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together699 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 gas that give the drink its fizz.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness to the finished drink.
- Root beer extract
- Supplies the characteristic root beer flavor.
The step that matters
Sealing the bottles after mixing. Yeast keeps fermenting during the warm rest, so carbonation builds inside the sealed bottles. Bottles left unsealed lose the fizz, and sealed ones can build pressure, so the seal and the cool storage both matter.
“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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