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Drink

Corn Beer

A fermented beverage made from corn, molasses, and water, optionally flavored with spruce or lemon oils.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. Combine cold water, corn, and molasses in a keg.

Ferment

  1. Seal the keg tightly and let it ferment for 2 to 3 days.

  2. If the mixture becomes too sour, add more molasses and water in the same proportions.

Flavor

  1. If desired, flavor with oils of spruce or lemon by adding 1 or 2 quarts of boiling water to the oils.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + lemontop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn
Supplies starches and sugars that yeast and bacteria ferment into alcohol and acidity.
Molasses
Provides fermentable sugar that feeds the fermentation and adds dark, sweet flavour.
Cold water
Forms the liquid base that dissolves the sugars and carries the fermentation.

The step that matters

Keeping the ferment from turning too sour. Fermentation continues as sugars convert to acids. If the mixture becomes too sour, adding more molasses and water in the same proportions dilutes the acid and supplies fresh sugar to keep the brew balanced.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, molasses):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, molasses. 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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