Lacto Fermenting Ales and Small Beer
Charlotte_0'Neil
old traditional (no hops) brewing but adapted to modern situations. I
made several lacto-fermentation tests. They all came out varying
degrees of fine after varying amounts of time.
I would suggest to anyone interested in lacto-fermenting beverages do
the following:
Make a cup of tea and add 2 Tablespoons of sugar. Stir until
dissolved. (If you make kombucha, use your sweetened tea. If you are
an herbalist, add any herbs from your garden that you like.)
Mix the tea with an ale starter and a lacto-fermenting starter. If you
make kefir, the simplest way to do this is to mix it with some kefir
whey. If you don't have kefir, make some whey from some yogurt by
putting yogurt in a clean cotton flannel bag (like a jelly bag) or 4
layers of cheesecloth/muslin and let it drip overnight. Take the
yogurt whey and mix it with a little ale starter and add this to the
sweetened tea. I have also used plain yogurt whey with no ale starter
and it fermented the brew but it took a lot longer. I don't know if
the entire fermentation was from the lacto-bacteria or if there was
some yeast contamination in the bottle. But the end product was OK.
Next, put the liquid in in a clean plastic soda (pop/fizzy drink)
bottle and
screw the cap on tight. Set it in a warm place and wait. When you
can't squeeze the bottle, it is ready to drink.
After you drink it, you can make your own adjustments to taste for
your next batch. If you want it sweeter, add more sugar, for a beer-
ier taste, add malt extract to the sugar. For more alcohol -- and you
can make a fairly potent tipple here to almost the amount of alcohol
in commercial wine, add a little more sugar and take more time
fermenting. If you want more flavors, add some more herbs and spices
to the tea next time. Whatever you have in your kitchen and garden
will probably do because they are what you like best.