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Drink

Hop Teast

A fermented beverage made by boiling hops, mixing with flour, salt, ginger, molasses, and yeast, then fermenting for 24 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hop Teast

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil hops in 4 quarts of cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Slowly pour the hop water over 1 quart of unsifted flour, stirring quickly.

Ferment

  1. When the mixture is warm, add 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 tablespoon of ginger, 2 tablespoons of molasses, and 1 cup of yeast or 2 yeast cakes.

  2. Let the mixture stand for 24 hours, stirring often.

  3. Transfer to a jug, but do not press the cork tight.

  4. Keep in a cool place.

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 + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Hops + gingertop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Provides the bitter and aromatic flavour characteristic of the tea.
Unsifted flour
Supplies starch that the yeast feeds on, building body in the fermenting liquid.
Yeast
Ferments sugars in the mixture, producing gas and the lively character of the drink.
Molasses
Adds sugar for the yeast to ferment and contributes a dark, sweet flavour.

The step that matters

Transfer to a jug without pressing the cork tight. Fermentation releases carbon dioxide. A tightly pressed cork can trap this gas and build pressure in the jug, so the cork must be left loose to let gas escape.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, molasses. 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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