Name: The Middle Ale
Ingredients: 2 pailfuls of second wort; 2 pounds of fresh hops; 15 pounds of sugar (if using 30 gallons of wort)

Why it works: Wort and sugar work together. They rank in the top 28% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

The Middle Ale

Ingredients

2 pailfuls of second wort
2 pounds of fresh hops
15 pounds of sugar (if using 30 gallons of wort)

Directions

Pour the two pailfuls of second wort into the empty copper quickly.
Add 2 pounds of fresh hops to the copper.
Transfer the strong-ale wort into coolers, ensuring the depth does not exceed 4 to 5 inches.
Stir the fire and let the second wort boil briskly for 1.5 hours.
After 1 hour of boiling, add ½ pound of fresh hops.
Twenty minutes later, cool some wort to 60°F and check its strength with a saccharometer.
If it reads 57, add sugar to bring it up to 74.
Boil the sugar with the wort for a few minutes, then draw off the contents of the copper and distribute it in the coolers.

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.

Wort + sugartop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Hops + sugartop 43% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Wort + hopstop 49% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together0 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).