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Ginger Beer Powder

A homemade ginger beer made by mixing ginger beer powder, sugar, water, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and beer work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 210 recipes. Both carry methyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Ginger Beer Powder

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a 3‑gallon stone vessel, combine the packet of Ginger Beer Powder and granulated sugar.

  2. Pour in the boiling water and let it stand for 2 hours until warm.

  3. Add the fresh brewer's yeast and stir well.

  4. Set the mixture in a warm place for 10 to 12 hours.

  5. Strain through flannel and bottle the ginger beer, laying the bottles on their sides.

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 + beertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together210 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + beertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together699 recipes

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

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Feeds the yeast, which turns the sugar into carbonation and alcohol during fermentation.
Fresh brewer's yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing the carbonation that makes the ginger beer fizzy.
Goodall's ginger beer powder
Provides the ginger flavour that defines this drink.

The step that matters

Setting the mixture in a warm place. Yeast works fastest within a moderate warm range; too cold and fermentation stalls, too hot and the yeast can be killed. Steady warmth gives even carbonation.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, beer):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, beer. 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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