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Stkofo Beer, English Improved

A traditional English improved beer brewed with malt, brown sugar, hops, yeast, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 325 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Stkofo Beer, English Improved

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the malt

  1. If using barley instead of malt, steam it in an oven after baking bread.

  2. Grind the malt coarsely.

Make the wort

  1. Pour 34 gallons of water at 170°F over the ground malt in a tub with a false bottom.

  2. Stir well and let it stand for 8 hours, then draw off the liquid.

  3. Add 7 gallons of water at 180°F, stir, let it stand for 2 hours, and draw off again.

  4. Add 1-2 gallons of cold water, stir, and draw off the liquid again.

  5. Mix 6 lbs of coarse brown sugar with an equal amount of water and combine with the wort.

  6. Boil the mixture with hops for 1.5 to 2 hours until you have about 8 gallons.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Once cooled to 80°F, add the yeast and cover with a sack for 18-20 hours.

  2. Transfer to sound iron-hooped kegs or porter bottles, seal tightly, and let it ferment for two weeks.

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. Malt + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Malt + hopstop 49% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1 recipe

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Malt
Supplies the starches converted to fermentable sugars that feed the yeast and give body.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma, and help balance the sweetness of the wort.
Coarse brown sugar
Adds fermentable sugar for alcohol and a rich, molasses-like flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, carbonating the beer.

The step that matters

Cooling the wort to 80°F before adding yeast. Yeast is killed or stressed by hot liquid, so the wort must be cooled to a safe temperature before pitching. Adding yeast too early can stop fermentation before it starts.

“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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