Name: Another Method Op Brewing Ale
Ingredients: 2.5 bushels pale malt; 3 pounds sugar; 2.5 pounds hops; 1 ounce coriander seed; 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper; a handful of coarse sea salt; some wheat flour

Why it works: Coriander and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,949 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Another Method Op Brewing Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil the sugar until it reaches a color.
Combine the malt, hops, coriander seed, and cayenne pepper in a large vessel.

Ferment and clean

Work the mixture for 2 to 3 days, beating it well once or twice a day as it begins to fall.
Cleanse the brewery by adding a handful of coarse sea salt and some wheat flour.

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.

Coriander + peppertop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,949 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Coriander + wheattop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together170 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Malt + wheattop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together64 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

Pale malt: Provides the fermentable starches and sugars that form the base of the brew.
Hops: Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.
Sugar: Adds extra fermentable sugar and sweetness, boiled to a color first.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (malt, sugar, hops, pepper, wheat, flour):

Cinnamonfits better
Gingerfits better
Turmericfits better
Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against malt, sugar, hops, pepper, wheat, flour. 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.