Name: To Make Sugar Beer
Ingredients: 10 gallons of water; 3 pounds of sugar; 1 teaspoon of yeast; 1 tablespoon of flour; ½ pound of hops

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

To Make Sugar Beer

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the liquid

Boil a peck of bran in 10 gallons of water, then strain the bran.

Make the mixture

Mix the liquid with 3 pounds of sugar, stirring well.
Add 1 teaspoon of yeast to the mixture.
Add 1 tablespoon of flour to the mixture.

Ferment and rest

Let the mixture ferment for 1 hour.
Mix the fermented mixture with the remaining liquid.
Add ½ pound of hops to the mixture.
Put the mixture into a cask and ferment for 3 days.
After 3 days, bung the cask; it will be ready to drink in a week.

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + hopstop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10 recipes

Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).