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To Brew From Two Bushels of Malt a Quarter-hogshead of Strong Ale and a Quarter-hogshead of Table-beer

A brewing method for producing a quarter-hogshead of strong ale and a quarter-hogshead of table beer from two bushels of malt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

To Brew From Two Bushels of Malt a Quarter-hogshead of Strong Ale and a Quarter-hogshead of Table-beer

Ingredients

Directions

Mash and sparge

  1. Mash the malt with 18 gallons of water at 182°F for 2.5 hours.

  2. Draw off into the underback.

  3. When the mash surface appears, sparge with 12 gallons of water at 190°F until you have 24 gallons for the first copper.

  4. Sparge another 20 gallons of water at 195°F for the table-beer wort.

  5. Cover briefly.

Boil the strong ale

  1. Put the strong-ale wort into the copper with 1 pound of hops.

  2. Boil for 45 minutes.

  3. Add another ½ pound of hops.

  4. Boil for 30 minutes longer.

  5. Cool a portion of the wort to 60°F and check the strength with a saccharometer.

  6. Add sugar to reach a gravity of 1.15.

  7. Draw off.

  8. Distribute into coolers.

Make and ferment the table beer

  1. Put the table-beer wort into the copper.

  2. Ensure there is enough in case of deficiency.

  3. Return the boiled hops to the copper.

  4. Add another ½ pound.

  5. Let this second wort boil for 2 hours.

  6. Cool a portion to 60°F and check its strength.

  7. Add sugar to achieve a gravity of 40 to 45 as desired.

  8. Draw off.

  9. Cool to 80°F.

  10. Ferment with 1 English pint of yeast.

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. Hops + sugartop 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
Provides the sugars that yeast ferments, setting the beer's strength and body.
Hops
Add bitterness that balances the malt sweetness and aids keeping quality.
Sugar
Raises the gravity so the finished beer reaches the intended strength.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, producing the beer.

The step that matters

Cool the wort to 60°F before checking strength and adding sugar. Hot wort gives inaccurate saccharometer readings, and adding sugar before checking gravity can overshoot the target strength. Cooling to a set temperature first keeps the reading reliable.

“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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