Why it works: Hops and sugar work together. They rank in the top 43% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Hop Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the wort
Boil hops and water together for 45 minutes.
Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved.
Strain the mixture into a bowl or tub.
Ferment and bottle
Once lukewarm, add the yeast and let it work for 48 hours.
Skim well and strain into bottles or a small cask.
Cork securely and let it sit for a few days before using.
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.
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Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6 recipes
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
- Hops
- Provide bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the sugar.
- Brown sugar
- Supplies the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars, producing alcohol and carbonation in the beer.
The step that matters
Add the yeast only once the liquid is lukewarm. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so adding it while the wort is still hot can stop fermentation before it starts. Waiting for lukewarm temperature keeps the yeast alive to convert the sugar.
“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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