6 lb Amber Malt Extract 60 min boil 4 cups Honey 60 min boil 1 oz Fuggle Hops (4/3 % AA) 60 min boil 1 oz Fuggle Hops (4/3 % AA) 30 min boil 6 bags Sleepytime (tm) Chamomile Tea 15 min boil 2 packs Australian Ale Yeast Primary
Directions and Notes:
Dissolved Malt, and Honey in 4 gallons water, brought to a boil. Added pellet Hops at 60 and 30 minutes to the boil. Tossed in tea bags at 15 minutes till end of boil. Cooled with Wort Chiller, and BOY OH BOY did it cool down fast! Racked to carboy, and aerated with the racking cane, by blowing into the wort. left in fermentor because I had to move houses and couldn't get to it. Developed some off flavors because of it. sort of winey tasting, not to bitter, just a little off. Not to bad. Notes:You can taste the tea, but only lightly. next time i will add more tea bags, or boil longer, and use crystal malt (?1/2 lb) to sweeten it up a bit.
1500s Beer making
By Lord Frederic Badger
This Paper is an attempt to recreate as close as possible an beer from the year 1503. The inspiration comes from a quote found in a quote from a book by Richard Arnold entitled, Customs of London printed in 1503. The Quote can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (online at the University of Washington), and is read thusly...
Original:
"To brewe beer x. quarters malte. lj. quarters wheet ij. quarters ootos/ xl. ll weight of hoppys.// To make lx barrell[es] of sengyll beer
arnold chron. (x-um 20), fol.xciv.r/b (r.i.r/b)"
Translation:
"To make 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of wheat, and 2 quarters of oats, with 40 pounds of hops."
This is one of the earlier hard data references to brewing beer that I have been able to find, and forms the basis for this attempt. Further in this paper I will document, and explain my use of grains, water, hops, techniques, and storage. As the amount of information of brewing in the early sixteenth century is very sparse, I have chosen to use techniques from the latter part, and into the early part of the seventeenth century as it is very documented.
Recipe: (to make 5 gallons)
5 lbs. Pale 2-row Malt 3 lbs. Brown Malt .25 lbs. Chocolate Malt .25 lbs. Scottish Peated Malt 1.5 lbs. Wheat Malt 1.5 lbs. Flaked Oats 1.5 oz. English Fuggle Hops 3 Varieties of Yeast: Yeast Lab Whitbread Ale Yeast Yeast Lab Australian Ale Yeast Lallemand Nottingham Ale Yeast "Burton-on-Trent" Water Treatment Mixture (Gypsum, Epsom Salts, and Potassium Chloride) The Math: (or how did I get these numbers)
1 barrel = 36 imperial gallons = 36(1.2 us gallon) = 43.2 us gallons
So...
To make 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of wheat, and 2 quarters of oats, along with 40 pounds of hops.
translates to
To make 2592 gallons of single beer, use 4220 lbs. of malt, 844 lbs. of wheat, and 844 pounds of oats, along with 40 pounds of hops
Grain: Here I equate the yield with total grain, and use the simple algebraic formula of a/b = x/y and solve for x. x = ay/b. If I do a similar equation, and solve for 5 gallons, I discover the amount of grain needed.
5908 lbs. grain to 2592 gallons = 11.3966 lbs. of grain to 5 gallons of beer.
With percentages of each type of grain at 71% malt, and 14% each of wheat and oats, I yield numbers like 8.0916 lbs. malt, 1.5955 wheat, and 1.5955 oats. Rounding to even half pound units for simplicity I yield a grain bill of 8.5 lbs. malt, 1.5 lbs. wheat, and 1.5 lbs. oats.
Hops: Here is use a similar method as I did with the grain, and also rounding into half oz. units for ease of use.
640 oz of hops to 2592 gallons = 1.2346 oz. of hops to 5 gallons of beer.
Rounding up to 1.5 oz. This is a convenient measurement because commercial sold English hops often (and in my specific case) come packaged in .5 oz increments
Final Result:
To make 5 gallons of single beer, use 8.5 lbs. of malt, 1.5 pounds wheat, 1.5 pounds of oats, with 1.5 oz. of hops.
The Ingredients: (or why I used these specific items)
Here I shall explain all of the ingredients that I used, why I used these specific things, and what might have been used in period.
Water:
One might think that water is water, but in brewing that is not quite so. The presence of the different minerals in water that make up its relative "hardness" also affect the taste of beers and ales. One of the most well known water profiles is that of Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire England. There is a mixture available at my local brewing store here in Seattle that is specifically designed to bring the relatively soft water we enjoy, to the appropriate hard levels of Burton-on-Trent.
In the book "A Description of England" by Harrison, he describes what he considers to be the best brewing waters.
"In this trade also our brewers observe very diligently the nature of the water which they daily occupy, and soil through which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodness, sith the fattest [note: hardest, fullest of mineral particles] standing water is always the best;"
So with the addition of the mixture of Gypsum, Epsom Salts, and Potassium Chloride into my brewing water, I can "harden" my water from the fairly "soft" water of Seattle, and closer approximate the brewing water of one area of England.
Grain:
Malt: As water is not just water, neither is malt just malt. The term Malt here refers to "malted barley". The technique of malting the grain to improve storage time, and activate naturally occurring enzymes in most grains that allows the conversion of starch to sugars, and since grains are primarily starch, this allows for conversion of grain to fermentable sugars. The currently available malted grains benefit from the advances science has brought the malting industry and is there for not entirely appropriate for reproducing period malts. But as it is a difficult, equipment intensive process to malt your own grain, I have to make do with these malts until such time as I can produce my own malts. One of the major differences is the automating of the production, and the method used to supply the heat. From Harrison we learn...
"they carry it to the kiln covered with haircloth, where they give it gentle heats (after they speard it very thin abroad) till it be dry, an din the meanwhile they turn it often that it be uniformly dried. For the more it be dried (yet must it be done with soft fire), the sweeter and better the malt is and the longer it will continue."
And from Markham we learn interesting things about drying the malt ...
"For they make a very subtantial fire, and much lasting, neither are apt to much blazing, nor the smoke so sharp or violent but may be very well be endured"
These little bits of information led me to thinking that the malt would have been a touch smoky tasting, unevenly roasted, and in some cases where the malt was near the fire, or in a case of negligence burnt. I chose a selection of grains that would give a resemblance of the flavor I theorize might have been the case. Choosing a grain bill of a mix certain commercially available malts to approximate the malt that might have been used gives me something to work with. Using this logic, I decided to use Pale 2-row malt from England which is, barring agricultural advances, fairly similar to what was probably used, and adding in Brown malt, which is bit more roasted, and darker colored, with a small portion of Scottish Peat Smoked malt to simulate a bit of smokiness, and finishing it up with a small portion Chocolate malt, which is roasted almost to the point of burnt. While this is just a theory, it is a starting point, and can allow the brewer to "fiddle" with grain amounts to reach a pleasing flavor in future beers.
Wheat:Malted wheat fortunately is available to brewers, and I used the what the local brewing store had in stock. I am uncertain as to whether wheat was malted or not. Since both malted and unmalted wheat is still in use to day and unmalted wheat is mainly used for head (foam) retention, and body I theorized that the mediveal brewer would be more interested in the malted wheat. Also the malting process allows the grain to be stored for longer periods, malted wheat makes an uncommon amount of sense to me as the choice.
Oats: Markham mentions several techniques for malting oats, and refers to "oatmalt".
On the other hand, malted oats are not available to the brewer these days, and I had to settle for plain old rolled oats, which does contribute some character to the beer, and has been used by modern brewers with excellent results. I hope to one day track down a source for malted oats, but so far have been unsuccessful.
Hops:
Hops was another of those variables, that the modern brewer cannot reproduce, as the cultivation of separate strains of hops is of a relativly recent introduction, and I was unable to establish one strain as better than another. Hop strain cultivation is purported to be period as evidenced by a reputable web page called "breWorld" as has the following information to tantilize us with.
"1520 AD:
The weavers of Flanders settled in Kent to take advantage of that county's prosperous wool indus-try and brought with them new varieties of hops and the knowledge of how to use them effectively in beer.
1574 AD:
Reynolde Scott, the "father of English hops" wrote the first definitive work on the English hop industry in which he described every stage in the cultivation of hops. Unusually for a farmer at that time, he was educated at Oxford University and had his own hop gardens in which he tested his observations. "
Since I have no idea exactly what strains were used, I chose to use English Fuggle hops because they are lower in the acids that cause bitterness in beer than a lot of the currently grown hops, and impart a pleasing aroma and flavour to my beer. Hop bitterness was one of the main characters that hop growers have been breeding for, and the hops of yesteryear would not be as bittering as the newer ones. Fuggles is the oldest hop strain that I have found, being identified as a separate strain in 1795.
Yeast:
In modern brewing there are a plethora of separate ale yeast strains available. The strains are mostly single strains pure cultured which is something the medieval brewer would not have been able to do. Yeast culturing was developed in the 1800's and has been developed into a fine art. Since most period texts give us little information about what yeasts they were using, what the flavors resulting from the yeast (one way to identify strains) or nearly any information, the modern brewer must use what he has on hand. Fermentation in period was done using "wild" yeasts using open fermentation. In other words they uncovered vessels which were exposed to the air for fermentation. This is not something that modern brewers are comforatble with. There are many things floating around in the air, many of which are bad tasting in beer. Some of the wild yeasts that can infect a batch of beer, can ruin all the hard work, and energy put into it. Late in period, the brewers had identified yeast as substance, and used for example Markham writes...
"You shall in the bottom thereof set a great bowl of barm, and some of the first wort mixed together, that it may rise therein"
Barm is another word for active yeast (Ren) and the above sentence tells us to prepare a large quantity ahead of time, and make sure it active before adding it to the beer. Mixing the barm (presumably left over from a previous batch or bought from a yeast seller) with some of the wort (or the water which has been run through the grain, and contains a large amount of sugar) activates the yeast, which reproduces at enormous rates, and begins to eat up the sugar. If you add this active yeast to the unfermented beer it will take off, and begin rapidly turning your wort into beer. One reason to create a large amount to begin with is to ferment your beer using the yeast you want, before it gets infected with something else.
For this experiment, I used a combination of three separate yeast strains to sort of randomly approximate a period yeast. I save about 600 ml of "sludge" from a previous fermentation that contained two separate strains, and pitched this yeast along with a packet of dried ale yeast. The result was a amazingly quick start (4 hours as opposed to 24-48 hours) because of the high volume.
The Methods: (or how I made the beer)
The method I used to brew this beer was taken from Markham, as it is the clearest written instructions, and close the earliest. The earliest step by step instructions I could find were 1577 (harrison), and echoed what markham used. I break the procedures down into its separate components..
Mashing:
Markham: "Now for the brewing of ordinary beer, your malt being well ground and put in your mash vat, and your liquor in your lead ready to boil, you shall then by little and little with scoops or pails put the boiling liquor to the malt, and then stir it even to the bottom exceedingly well together (which is called mashing of the malt) then, the liquor swimming in the top, cover all over with more malt, and so let it stand an hour and more in the mash vat, during which space may if you please heat more liquor in your lead for your second and small drink; this done, pluck up your mashing strom, and let the first liquor run gently from the malt, either in a clean trough or other vessels prepared for the purpose...."
My steps are fairly close to this. First I take my grain mixture, which I had ground at the brewing store when I bought into my boiling kettle-cum-mashing vat. I placed 7 gallons of water on to boil previously. When it reached boil, I pulled it off the stove, and began to scoop it a bowlfull at a time into my mash vat. I installed a colander in the top of my mash vat to diffuse, and spray the water over the top of the grain bed so as not to "scorch" the grain, and render it useless. After quite some time of laboriously pouring the water into the mash vat, and stirring it all up, I checked the temperature. It had settled to about 158 degrees. Which is close to the ideal temperature for enzyme conversion of the grain. This is how the medieval brewer accomplished a very temperature sensitive operation without the use of a thermometer. I then wrapped my stainless steel kettle in a blanket to reduce heat loss, as the mashing vat was probably much better at retaining heat than my thin walled kettle. After about an hour the temperature had dropped to 152.9 degrees which is still pretty good. Then I slowly drained the wort into a separate bucket through the ball valve I had installed in the bottom, which had a strainer attached to it.
Boiling:
Markham: "Then your lead being emptied put your first liquor or wort therein, and then to every quarter of malt put a pound and a half of the best hops you can get, and boil them an hour together,.. "
After I had cleaned the grain out of the kettle, I drained the bucket back in the kettle, as I only had 1 pot big enough to handle the volumes. I turned on the heat, and began to bring it to a boil, using my derived amounts for hops from the 1503 recipe instead of Markhams. I boiled the wort for an hour, and then instead of letting it sit overnight, and be exposed to infection, I instead used a modern gizmo called a force cooler to bring the temperature down to safe yeast temperatures. The force cooler is 25 feet of copper tubing coiled up into a small package that has tap water flowing through it. This cools the wort from 200 degrees to 80 degrees in about an half and hour.
Fermenting:
Markham: " This done, put the wort through a straight sieve, which may drain the hops from it, into your cooler... Standing over the gyle vat, you shall in the bottom thereof set a great bowl of barm, and some of the first wort mixed together, that it may rise therein, and then let your wort drop or run gently into the dish with the barm which stands in gyle vat... [let it stand overnight] .. and the beer well risen, with your hand stir it about and so let it stand an hour after, and then, beating it and the barm exceedingly well together, tun it up into hogsheads being clean washed and scalded, and so let it purge."
Here is where my methods and period method begin to diverge a bit. What I did was drain the cooled wort through the same valve and strainer assembly on my boiling kettle into a 5 gallon glass carboy, into which I added the yeast mixture I had prepared. I then attached an airlock to the neck of the carboy. An airlock is a plastic water trap that allows air out, but not in. As the yeast begins to eat all the sugar it can reach, it gives of two waste products: alcohol, and Carbon Dioxide. The constant CO2 production needs to be vented, but outside air, and bacteria needs to be kept out. This is what Markham calls "purging". One thing to note is the "beating it and the barm exceedingly well together" that Markham mentions. This is done to aerate the wort, to give the yeast enough oxygen in the liquid to be happy and healthy yeast.
Casking:
Markham: "when it hath purged a day and a night, you shall close up the bung holes with clay, and only for a day or tow after keep a vent hole in it, and after close it up as close as may be."
Here is where my method really diverge. Since pitch-lined European oak casks in a 5 gallon size are almost impossible to come by these day (not for lack of trying mind you.) I had to use my modern kegging equipment instead. What I did was drain my fermented and un-carbonated beer into a 5 gallon stainless steel soda canister that I have adapted for my use. When Markham says " and after close it up as close as may be" he is saying to stop the cask up, while fermentation is still going on. The fermentation is almost done at this point, and when you stop it up like this, the CO2 that ordinarily be vented is absorbed into the liquid resulting in carbonation. Since this is a rather imprecise method of carbonation, I opted instead to use "force carbonation" wherein I use a CO2 canister, and force by means of pressure CO2 into the liquid.
Bibliography
The Complete Anachronist: #81 "Period Metrology: A study of Measurement, Part 1" The Society for Creative Anachronism Inc., 1995 #82 "Period Metrology: A study of Measurement, Part 2" The Society for Creative Anachronism Inc., 1995 Renfrow, Cindy. "A Sip Through time: A collection of Old Brewing Recipes", 1994
Markham, Gervase. "The English Housewife", 1615. edited by Micheal Best, 1994
Harrison, William. "The Description of Endland" (reprinted from Hollinshed's Chronicles published in 1577.)
Oxford English Dictionary Online. Telnet: uwin.u.washington.edu
Beer Making
Beer is a very simple drink to produce. In its simplest form it is quick to produce, but almost unpalatable to modern tastes!
Before I describe how the beer is made, here are a few background details:
Correctly any beer made in our period should, in fact, be referred to as Ale. The word Beer used to refer to a brew containing hops, or Beor (honey). Hops were not used in this country until much later. The first record of their use being 1236 A.D.
Malt. This is the name given to the cereal (nearly all cereals can be used in brewing) once it has been "Malted". Malting is the process by which the grain is soaked over a few days and then laid out to dry. Once it starts to germinate, it is very roughly crushed or ground so that the husks are just starting to break away from the grains. This ensures that as much as possible of the food contained is available for fermenting.. Mash No not the potato variety! Mash is the name given to the mix of malt and gruit which are allowed to ferment together. Gruit The name given to the flavouring. It is well known that nowadays we use almost exclusively the hop flavour for beer, but in Saxon times many other things were used, such as: Bog Myrtle, Honey, Yarrow, and Cinnamon, to name but a few. Sometimes a mix or blend was used often incorporating a blossom. Blossoms can add additional yeast to the brew. Yeast Normally yeast would not be added to the "first brew", instead , it would rely on natural airborne yeast to "infect" it. Before final straining of the brew any yeast that had grown would be removed and added to the next brew at the start of the next fermentation. Some extra yeast can be obtained from certain gruits. The purpose of yeast in the brew is to create alcohol. As some of you may have noticed this is a particularly popular ingredient in any beer.
How to Brew I will assume we are starting afresh.
Using, if possible, a copper cauldron as it adds a bit of flavour, simmer (bring it to the boil and keep it gentle boiling) the malt in soft water (hard waters can alter the taste of some ales) for around two hours (some brews may need more, some less). Transfer to a wooden barrel or similar container and leave to cool down to a temperature of around 16°C (around 60°F).
Add the gruit and leave to ferment in a warm location. After about six to eight hours cover with a thin cloth. Apart from the occasional stir there is no need at all to touch the mash and looking at it every five minutes will not increase the speed of fermentation!
Leave to ferment for at least 24 hours but no more than three days. The final strength of the beer will be affected by the length of time the brew is left. (the alcoholic content of Saxon beers was probably low, but the point of the process was to produce a safe and pleasant drink with any intoxication being a bonus) . Other factors such as ambient temperature contribute to the end result. Now you can strain the mash. This can be done with a fairly course sieve as a second and third straining are always needed to remove the yeast. By now you will (should) have a wooden container full of an insipid yellowish opaque liquid and a sieve full of mash. Do not throw the mash way, as this contains a lot of yeast and can be used to make bread. The liquid should now be left to stand for a further hour or so to let the sediments drop to the bottom of the container. It is quite drinkable at this point, but may cause wind amongst those who drink it.
For the second straining a fine weave cloth may be used as this retains a great deal of the yeast. Leave again for an hour and repeat. If a second brew is anticipated keep this and add it to the start of the fermentation of the next brew. By this method the same strain of yeast can be kept alive for a long period. In Belgium , one abbey, where brewing takes place, have been using the same yeast for over eight hundred years.
After the third and final straining the ale should be ready to drink. It must be drunk quickly, after a day or so it begins to go off and after a week would possibly cause an upset . One Saxon writer of the time wrote "...after two days only the bravest or silliest men of the village would drink the ale, but usually it was only fit for pigs." The stale brew was often fed to the pigs as it was said to improve the flavour of the meat (and also gave rise to the saying "as drunk as swine").
At Preston we had an attempt at brewing and I am pleased to report that the brew was a complete success. It was called Dennis and here is the recipe.
Malt - Wheat pre malted Gruit - Locally collected Elderflower blossom Boiled for one and one half hours and allowed to ferment. Straining took place over two days and a good time was had by all those that assisted in this later process. Some of the cooks on duty that day took the mash and made a very nice, but slightly flowery tasting bread which they named Denise.
Since I first penned this article further brews have been produced using such flavourings as Apple & Honey, Bogmyrtle, Elderberry & Honey with Barley malt.
Bringing things right up to date, an old type of beer, similar to our saxon style brewed today is Lambic. The main difference being the addition of hops ( albeit so dry that they add no flavour, their purpose being to stop the beer going off quickly ) but the process would be familiar to our saxon forebears.
Postscript: Beer and other brewed fluids had quite possibly another more hygienic task to do. The key to this is the fact that all beer production involved boiling and simmering of the brew, rendering it fairly sterile. Whilst the Anglo-Saxon gut was far more robust than ours is today, (which is always a keen talking point as to whether we are indeed weaker to the bugs in the soil etc.), good drinking water was a luxury. Especially in the towns and cities that were evolving a thousands years ago. Digs from York and elsewhere, demonstrate that our ancestors back then had little concept of public works, with wells and cess pits or toilets situated within feet of each other. So beer, held few dangers other than intoxication.
Many of the large cauldrons that have survived were in all likelihood intended for the production of vast amounts of beer for feasts and celebrations, rather than boiling up pork and other meats, not that they couldn't be pressed into being expensive saucepans as well. Toasting and swearing of oaths were probably far more meaningful with a belly full of beer.
With thanks to: Sue Levick, Tim Hague, Betty Hale, Andrew Whiting, Camra, and all others who helped me with the brewing.