Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Ginger Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the wort
Combine boiling water, sugar, ginger, and cream of tartar in a vessel.
Stir until the sugar dissolves.
Let the mixture cool to about the temperature of new milk.
Ferment
Add the yeast and pour it onto a piece of floating bread.
Cover the vessel with a cloth and let it sit undisturbed for 24 hours.
Bottle and serve
Strain the mixture and pour it into bottles, filling them three-quarters full.
Cork the bottles tightly and tie the corks.
In warm weather, the ginger beer will be ready to drink in two days.
If storing for a week or two, reduce the sugar by a quarter.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Ginger + breadtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,789 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
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
- Sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the food the yeast ferments into carbonation and alcohol.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugar, producing carbon dioxide that makes the drink fizzy.
- Ginger
- Adds the spicy, aromatic flavour that defines the drink.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity, giving the drink a tart edge and helping keep the mixture stable.
- Bread
- Floated on the mixture to hold the yeast against the surface where it can work.
The step that matters
Bottling before fermentation is finished. Yeast keeps producing carbon dioxide inside sealed bottles. Filling them only three-quarters full leaves headspace for gas, and tight corks hold the pressure. Too much sugar or too long a wait can build enough pressure to burst bottles.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, bread):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Celeryfits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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