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To Brew Very Fine Welch Ale

A traditional Welsh ale brewed from malt, hops, and yeast.

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 Welch Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wort

  1. Pour 42 gallons of hot water (not boiling) over 8 bushels of malt.

  2. Cover and let it stand for 3 hours.

  3. Infuse 4 pounds of hops in a little hot water.

  4. Add the infused hops and water to the malt mixture and boil together for 3 hours.

  5. Strain off the hops and reserve the liquid for small beer.

  6. Let the wort cool in a high tub until it's ready for yeast.

Ferment and transfer

  1. Mix in 2 quarts of ale yeast or small beer yeast thoroughly and often.

  2. When the wort stops bubbling after 2-3 days, remove the yeast that sinks in the middle.

  3. Transfer the ale gradually, pouring in 1 quart at a time to prevent excessive fermentation.

  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
Starches converted to fermentable sugars during the hot soak, which yeast later turns into alcohol.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.
Ale yeast or small beer yeast
Ferments the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbonation.

The step that matters

Transfer the ale gradually, one quart at a time. Adding the ale slowly keeps fermentation from becoming excessive, which can push out foam and cloud the brew with stirred-up sediment.

“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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