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Treacle Beer

A fermented beverage made by mixing boiling water, treacle, cold water, yeast, and optional hops, malt, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,577 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Treacle Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the wort

  1. In a large pot, combine 2 quarts of boiling water with 1 pound of treacle and stir until well mixed.

  2. Add 6 to 8 quarts of cold water and 1 cup of yeast.

Ferment

  1. Transfer the mixture to a clean cask and cover it with a coarse cloth folded two or three times.

  2. Let it sit for 2 to 3 days until ready to drink.

Bottle

  1. For bottling, use clean, dry bottles and leave them open overnight to allow the beer to flatten before corking tightly.

  2. If making in large quantities, add a handful of hops and malt for better preservation.

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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Malt + raisintop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14 recipes

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

  3. Molasses + malttop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together20 recipes
  4. Molasses + hopstop 41% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5 recipes
  5. Hops + malttop 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

Treacle
Provides the sugar that the yeast ferments, and the dark flavour of the beer.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbonation, driving the beer's fermentation.
Hops
Add bitterness and help preserve the beer, according to the record's note on large batches.

The step that matters

Leaving the bottles open overnight before corking. Fermentation keeps producing carbon dioxide, so corking too early can trap excess gas and cause bottles to burst. Letting the beer flatten first reduces that pressure buildup.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, hops, malt):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, hops, malt. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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