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To Brew Very Fine Welsh Ale

A method for brewing a fine Welsh ale using malt, hops, yeast, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Malt and beer work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 55 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

To Brew Very Fine Welsh Ale

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mash and boil

  1. Pour hot water over the malt and let it stand for 3 hours.

  2. Infuse hops in a little hot water and add to the tub with the wort.

  3. Boil together for 3 hours.

  4. Strain off the hops and keep for small beer.

Ferment

  1. Let the wort cool in a high tub before adding yeast.

  2. Mix thoroughly and often.

  3. When the yeast sinks, remove it and turn the ale as it works out, pouring in a quart at a time gently.

  4. Cover the bung-hole with paper for 2-3 days before sealing.

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 + beertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

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

  2. Hops + beertop 42% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  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
Provides the sugars that the yeast ferments into alcohol and gives the ale its body and colour.
Hops
Add bitterness that balances the malt's sweetness and contribute aroma and preservative character.
Ale yeast or small-beer yeast
Ferments the sugars from the wort into alcohol and carbon dioxide, producing the ale.

The step that matters

Letting the wort cool before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by high temperatures, so the wort must cool enough before pitching. Adding yeast too hot can stop fermentation entirely.

“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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