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Molasses Beer

Molasses Beer is a fermented beverage made from molasses, yeast, ginger, and water, bottled with raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,242 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Molasses Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the beer

  1. In a vessel, combine molasses, yeast, and powdered ginger.

  2. Pour in 2 gallons of scalding hot soft clear water and shake until it ferments.

  3. Add 13 gallons of the same water to fill the cask.

  4. Let the mixture ferment for about 12 hours.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the beer with a raisin or two in each bottle.

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. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments, giving the beer its body and dark, sweet flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, which makes the beer fizzy.
Raisins
Added to each bottle, they supply a little extra sugar for a second fermentation that carbonates the beer.

The step that matters

Pour in the scalding hot water and shake until it ferments. The water must be hot enough to dissolve the molasses fully, but the mixture must be cooled enough before yeast is added, since very hot liquid kills yeast. Shaking mixes the yeast evenly through the liquid so fermentation starts uniformly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, raisin. 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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