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Ginger Beer, No. 1

A fermented ginger beverage made with ginger, sugar, lemon peel, water, and ale yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Beer, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bruise the ginger and lemon peel with ½ lb. of sugar in a mortar.

  2. Combine all ingredients in a pan.

Ferment

  1. Add 6 quarts of boiling water and let it cool to lukewarm.

  2. Stir in 2 tablespoons of ale yeast.

  3. Let it ferment for 10 hours.

Bottle and rest

  1. Drain the mixture clear, cork tightly, and tie down.

  2. It will be ready for use in 10 hours.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + gingertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ginger and sugar 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

Ale yeast
Starts fermentation, turning the sugar into carbonation and a light alcoholic flavour.
Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast, providing the sugar that fermentation converts into carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity, giving the drink a tart edge and helping keep it stable.
Cochin ginger
Supplies the main ginger aroma and pungent flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let it cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the water must cool enough for the culture to survive and ferment the sugar.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Orangefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, ginger, sugar. 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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