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To Brew Vebt Fine Welsh Ale

A traditional Welsh ale brewed from malt, hops, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Vebt Fine Welsh Ale

Ingredients

Directions

Mash

  1. Pour 42 gallons of hot water (not boiling) over 8 bushels of malt. Cover and let stand for 3 hours.

  2. Infuse 4 pounds of hops in a little hot water.

  3. Add the hop infusion to the tub and boil together with the wort for 3 hours.

  4. Strain off the hops and reserve for small beer.

Cool and ferment

  1. Let the wort cool in a high tub until ready for yeast.

  2. Mix in 2 quarts of ale yeast or small beer yeast thoroughly and often.

  3. When the yeast sinks after 2-3 days, remove it and transfer the ale as it works out, pouring in 1 quart at a time gently.

  4. Cover the hole with a bit of 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 fermentable sugars that the yeast converts into alcohol and flavour.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness of the malt.
Ale yeast
Ferments the sugars in the wort, producing alcohol and carbonation.

The step that matters

Letting the wort cool before adding yeast. Yeast is killed or stressed by hot liquid, so the wort must cool to a warm, safe temperature before yeast is mixed in. Adding yeast too early can stop fermentation before it starts.

“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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