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Drink

Root Beer

A fermented beverage made from burdock root, hops, roasted corn, water, molasses, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and bread work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 547 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Root Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the brew

  1. Boil burdock root, hops, and roasted corn in 6 gallons of water until the strength is obtained.

  2. Strain the mixture while hot into a keg.

  3. Add enough cold water to make 10 gallons.

Sweeten and ferment

  1. When nearly cold, add molasses or syrup until palatable.

  2. Add fresh yeast and place the keg in a cool place.

  3. In 48 hours, enjoy your sparkling root beer.

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. Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together547 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Burdock + corntop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Burdock + molassestop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + breadtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Burdock root
Provides the main root flavor and bitter backbone of the drink.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma that balance the sweetness.
Roasted corn
Adds toasty, caramel-like color and flavor to the brew.
Molasses or syrup
Adds sweetness and depth, and gives food for the yeast.
Fresh yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing carbonation and a light alcohol content.

The step that matters

Add the yeast when the brew is nearly cold. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to a hot liquid stops fermentation. Cooling the brew first lets the yeast survive and carbonate the drink.

Swap the burdock

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Burdockthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, corn, molasses, bread. 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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