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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
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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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

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

  2. Infuse hops in a little hot water.

  3. Add the infused hops to the tub and boil together for 3 hours.

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

Ferment and cask

  1. Let the wort cool, then add the yeast and mix thoroughly.

  2. When fermentation slows, remove the yeast and gently pour in a quart at a time to prevent over-fermentation.

  3. Cover the bunghole 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 yeast ferments into alcohol and gives the ale its body and color.
Hops
Add bitterness that balances the malt's sweetness and help preserve the ale.
Ale yeast
Converts the sugars in the wort into alcohol and carbonation during fermentation.

The step that matters

When fermentation slows, remove the yeast and gently pour in a quart at a time. Yeast left in the cask keeps fermenting and can over-ferment the ale, giving harsh flavors. Adding the wort gradually, a quart at a time, controls this and prevents the batch from over-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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