How I Make Beer Today
Charlotte_0'Neil
and http://ourworld.cs.com/omsapphire/beer/onequart.html ) are all as
simple and standardized as I can make them, but aren't always exactly
what happens when I actually make the ale. I have moved on in some
areas, but don't want to change my beginners' instructions. I thought I
would try to write down what I actually do as I make a batch of ale,
which isn't always as neat and uncomplicated as the recipes call for.
Today, Sunday 17:32 28/05/06, I bottled my 10th batch of gruit ale. On
Tuesday, I will get another pound of malt extract so I can start my
11th batch, but now I am getting ready for the next batch. I'll start
to prepare the starter, the sugar, the grains and maybe the gruit.
Starting the Starter
The starter is the sludge at the bottom of the plastic jug that I made
batch #10 in. I added some warm water to it and let it settle. The
clear liquid that stays at the top will have live yeast swimming in it,
the heavy sediment that falls to the bottom will be indigestible globs
of starch. I poured off the top, clear liquid into another bottle, with
a little of the in-between layer. To keep the yeast fed so they don't
start eating each other, I added a little sugar syrup to the starter
bottle. I then poured the sludge into a flannel jelly bag and let it
drip for a few hours. That recovers a small amount of liquid that was
still in the goop.
Inverting the Sugar
I have developed a liking for invert sugar. At least, I think it is
invert sugar. I don't make it the same way everyone else does (as
usual, <sigh>), but I think what I make could be called invert sugar,
too. Anyway, I poured out some of the sugar -- as much as would fit --
into an aluminum pie pan. I say 1 1/2 pounds of sugar in the recipes,
but I don't measure it. I just use a 1-kilo sugar bag and then fill it
up to less than full and hope that's somewhere around a pound and a
half. I suppose it probably really is more than a pound and a half, but
a pound and a half of white sugar is the amount I had originally
figured should go with a pound of malt extract.
So, I take this pie plate of around a cup of sugar and put it under the
broiler and toast it until it melts and turns a golden brown.[1] After
it's mostly melted and brown I turn off the heat and leave it alone for
awhile for it to cool down. Then, I turn the whole thing over (it will
be like a sheet of brown glass with maybe some untoasted white sugar
mixed in) and repeat the toasting and cooling process on that side.
I'll finish toasting the rest of the sugar later if I get around to it,
otherwise, I'll just use the white sugar when I make the beer. Either
is okay to make beer, I just happen to prefer the taste of the toasted
sugar to white sugar if I have time to toast it.
I broke up the sheet of toasted sugar and put it in a jar with some
water to dissolve over the next couple days. The end result will be a
syrup that looks and tastes very much like maple syrup.
The grains.
I grind all the grain I use in beer making in a blender until it is a
fine powder. I then keep these containers of powdered flour in jars in
the refrigerator. I ground some barley flakes, steel-cut oatmeal, brown
rice flakes and maltstar flour. Maltstar flour is a combination of
wheat malt, wholemeal/wheat flour, malted barley flakes and rye flour.
I'll measure out 7 tablespoons of whatever inspires me at the time I do
it into a quart of water, bring that to a boil until it thickens, let
it cool a bit and then set it on the slow cooker until I'm ready to use
it.
The slow cooker
I guess I should mention this. Most recipes call for setting brewing
beer "in a warm place". The warm place I have chosen is next to a small
crock pot set on low that is on almost constantly now. I put the jugs
and bottles of whatever I am brewing next to the crock pot and then put
a tablecloth over everything to keep the warmth in. I then use the
actual crockpot for making the gruit and for long-time heating the
grains, to try to break down the starch as much as possible. I don't
know if it works, it's just what I do for now. It seems to improve the
way the batch ferments.
The gruit
Finally, the gruit. I make it as a tea by snipping a small sprig of
mugwort and putting it into about 300 mls of water in a ceramic bowl
and setting that on top of the slow cooker that's always on for a day
or a few days or until the water has a pale cast of green to it. It's
not very much, I'm sure, but that's what I do now for starters.
Mugwort[2] can be strong medicine/drug in some uses, so I don't want to
use too much. But the tea smells good and smells "right" somehow.
I'll pour this into the fermenting liquid at some time when it seems
like the right time to do, or when I get around to it. After I've been
doing this for awhile, I may find that there is a best time to add the
gruit to bring out the taste or aroma, but I don't know what it is now
so I just chuck it in whenever I think of it. I never boil it in the
boil stage, but I did add the sprig along with gruit into a batch of
beer that is fermenting now, only because I would otherwise have thrown
out the sprig because it was obviously used up and not putting any more
color or taste to the gruit.
___________________
[1] It can get as dark as a deep mahogony-red, but be careful not to
burn it, which will be black and charcoal. It takes very little burnt
sugar to impart the taste of charcoal to an entire batch of invert
sugar, so if you burn any sugar, turn off the heat immediately and let
it cool off. When it's cool enough to handle, you can break off any
spots of black and then return the rest of the sugar to the broiler to
continue toasting it.
[2]The word "wort" is medieval English for "plant" and "mug" refers to
a mug of beer, so "mugwort" roughly means "beer-plant". In its day, it
was considered the quintessential plant for flavoring beer, so I don't
believe those gruit ale sites that say that gruit must always be
yarrow, gale and rosemary. The fact is, no-one that made gruit revealed
their recipes (back in the days when it was made by alewives.) I
suppose I should also mention that there is a real good chance that
alewives were accused of being witches when the church wanted to take
the very profitable of business of making gruit away from women. But I
digress...) Anyway, mugwort is also called wormwood or artemisias, and
it was an ingredient in Absinthe that supposedly caused Van Gogh to go
insane and cut off his ear, and Absinthe is now illegal in the U.S., so
if you feel uncomfortable about using wormwood in your beer (it also
expels worms when used in large quantities), use green tea or green tea
with other herb(s) in it and make a cup of tea with that to use as your
gruit, or use the herbs that you have in your area available to you
and/or that smell like they would taste good in beer to you. I am sure
that is how alewives chose their herbs for their gruit in the old days.