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Drink

Spring- Beer

A fermented beverage made from herbs, hops, molasses, bread, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pine and potato work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 96 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Spring- Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

  1. Boil the herbs and hops in 3 to 4 gallons of water with the sliced potatoes for 5 to 6 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture and add 1 quart of molasses.

  3. Brown ½ pound of bread and add it to the mixture for richness.

  4. If the mixture is too thick, dilute it with cold water.

Ferment and bottle

  1. When lukewarm, add 1 pint of fresh yeast without salt.

  2. Cover loosely and keep in a temperate location to allow fermentation.

  3. Once fermented, transfer to a tight keg or bottle and cork it.

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. Pine + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together96 recipes

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

  2. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pine + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + breadtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Potato + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together197 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the molasses.
Molasses
Provides sugar that yeast ferments, and adds sweetness and dark color.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and alcohol.
Bread
Browned bread adds toasty flavor and body to the brew.
Potatoes
Add starch that contributes body and some additional fermentable material.

The step that matters

Add the yeast only when lukewarm. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must cool to lukewarm before adding it. Too hot and fermentation fails; too cold and it starts slowly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pine, hops, molasses, bread):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Lettucefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pine, hops, molasses, bread. 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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