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Excellent Spruce Beer

A fermented beverage made with water, molasses, spruce essence, and ale yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Excellent Spruce Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. Pour 8 gallons of cold water into a barrel.

  2. Boil 8 gallons of water and add it to the barrel.

  3. Stir in 12 pounds of molasses and ½ pound of essence of spruce.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add ½ pint of ale yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir or roll the mixture in the barrel and leave the bung out for 2-3 days.

  2. Bottle the beer, cork it well, and pack in sawdust or sand.

  3. Let it mature for 2 weeks before drinking.

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol and carbonation.
Ale yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that give the beer its fizz.
Essence of spruce
Supplies the resinous, piney flavour that defines the beer.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool slightly before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the wort must be cooled enough for the yeast to survive and start fermenting.

“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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