'Original ale'

[vai]

I saw on tv a few days ago a docu type program about how ale used to be made, roughly it was:

Grains + hot water + honey + herbs. Left to ferment and the liquid squeezed out at the end is ale.

Does anyone have a recipe in this style? I am thinking something like:

Dissolve 340g honey in 3.9L strike water (2.6 L per kg), heat to mash temp
Put ~1.5kg crushed Maris Otter and herbs (not sure which and how much) in a demijohn
Add strike water to demijohn
Leave to cool naturally
Add any old yeast to it (I guess they wern't too picky 'back then') and leave for a month or so
Drain and force out as much ale from the demijohn as possible into bottles and leave without priming for another few weeks.

Any thoughts? I have a feeling it will come out strong, look horrible and taste about the same, but will it be how it used to be made?

[Beer O'Clock]

I saw on tv a few days ago a docu type program about how beer used to be made, roughly it was:

Grains + hot water + honey + herbs. Left to ferment and the liquid squeezed out at the end is beer.

Does anyone have a recipe in this style? I am thinking something like:

Dissolve 340g honey in 3.9L strike water (2.6 L per kg), heat to mash temp
Put ~1.5kg crushed Maris Otter and herbs (not sure which and how much) in a demijohn
Add strike water to demijohn
Leave to cool naturally
Add any old yeast to it (I guess they wern't too picky 'back then') and leave for a month or so
Drain and force out as much beer from the demijohn as possible into bottles and leave without priming for another few weeks.

Any thoughts? I have a feeling it will come out strong, look horrible and taste about the same, but will it be how it used to be made?

It's not beer. As the Shepherd Neame Headbrewer said, it's ALE. It didn't become beer until hops were brought over by the Flemish.

[fatboylard]

Alreet val,

Conditioning in one of my fv's right now is a two gallon batch of 'Viking Heather Ale' - I say conditioning because it tastes like a mouthful of earth and bark. Still in two minds whether to chuck it and use the FV for a proper brew or wait a little longer to see if it actually becomes drinkable...

Mind you I think the Vikings would have just drunk it, it's safer to drink than the water and it gets you slightly pissed.

The recipe iirc is;

Øl
9 litres
OG:1.033
FG: 1.002

750g pale malt
50g crystal malt
500g lidl blossom honey

20g dried heather (60)
10g dried heather (5)
10g dried Yarrow (5)

Leftover muntons yeast from the back of the fridge

Maybe one day it'll be drinkable, then again maybe one day I'll lose my senses of smell and taste...

Cheers,
Sam

[critch]

mumms and gruit are a challenging experience to the unwary........

[Patterd Ale]

"Add strike water to demijohn"

err, boom.
Buy new demijohn

[far9410]

i'd just brew some beer

[far9410]

unless you're a history teacher

[Laripu]

Øl
9 litres
OG:1.033
FG: 1.002

750g pale malt
50g crystal malt
500g lidl blossom honey

I don't want to comment on the herbs, because I've never made a gruit ale.

For the malt though, I wouldn't think pale malt was available back then. If you're going for authenticity, find a brown malt, and use only that, no crystal. In fact a smoked brown malt would be best, so if you can't find one, I'd smoke at least a pound of it. (In a smoker, mind you... put away those rolling papers. )

Honey is a good addition, and I think up to half the gravity is ok, but I think gravity should be more like 1.080. I'd use a strong tasting honey too, like heather honey in your part of the world or buckwheat honey over here.

Anyway, that's "free advice, worth what it costs". Good luck.

[fatboylard]

Some good pointers there lari.
To be fair I'd love to recreate a proper dark age brew using smoke-dried malts & maybe even a little astringency from some slightly scorched grains. I think the premise was just to use what you've got hence the Maris otter and El cheapo honey.

Just remembered the one I tried last year, made up a gallon with a couple of pounds of LME , heather and mugwort. It was going so well on the boil until I opened the wormwood... a quarter teaspoon's worth went in and the whole thing turned acrid. Like willow bark dipped in earwax!

Still, all in the name of our art

[Laripu]

Still, all in the name of our art

Now there's something with which I can wholeheartedly agree!

One thing: even if it tastes like crap, don't pour it down the drain. Bottle it. You can use it for salad dressing, marinade, basting liquid, braising liquid and it will serve well for all those, especially with the help of garlic, onions and spices.

By the time you get to the end of the batch, you'll have developed a taste for it and you'll be sad to see it exhausted.

Sorry about this:
DO IT! DO IT!
BREW YOUR GRUIT!!
.... A sports cheer for homebrewers...

[vai]

Thanks for the replies so far, I am thinking of giving it a go next weekend with the following:

Name - Medieval "Gruit" Ale
Notes -
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=50289
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pwp/tofi/medieva ... h_ale.html
MLT spray sanitised due to no boil
Yeast - Muntons Premium Gold Yeast
Yeast Starter - None
Water Treatment - None
Fermentables -
1.500kg - Maris Otter Malt
0.500kg - Maris Otter Malt (Roasted @ 108c for 60 mins in oven) - No smoker to smoke them in unfortunatley
1.000kg - Oats
0.680kg - Honey (added to primary)
Mash -
7.5L mash water (2.5L/kg)
65g Yarrow
120 minute mash at 67c
6.9L infusion water at 75c
60 minutes before lauter

Which will give me 2 demijohns/8L @ 1.091 (55% efficiency)

Just need to order the MO, and get some Oats, Honey and Yarrow

[danbrew]

Check out the 'saxon honey ale' thread and the book referred to in it... I got the book a couple of days ago but don't have it to hand right now. The author makes all sorts of suggestions iirc...

[Laripu]

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pwp/tofi/medieva ... h_ale.html
MLT spray sanitised due to no boil

Thanks for the web site.

I may try a small (11 litre) batch of something similar one day. I'll boil it if only for 10 minutes to sanitize. I'm going to shoot for 1.080, so maybe it's the local lord's version of ale, rather than the version of the poor peasant grubbing around in the filth.

I think I can get UK brown malt at my LHBS. I'll smoke a portion of it (maybe 1/3), and let it rest for a couple of weeks.

Use of oats makes good sense to me. I'll be looking for unfiltered wildflower honey from elsewhere, because Florida honey wouldn't make sense in this kind of recreation.

I have both Nottingham and Windsor handy, as I like these yeasts for ales.

Before I decide on my variation of gruit, I'll spend some time reading a bit more. Maybe I'll even try no gruit at all. Dunno yet.

[Laripu]

This whole idea still interests me, although I haven't done anything about it. Except read: I have found an interesting web-site: http://www.gruitale.com/intro_en.htm

It's all about gruit, written and maintained by a French-Canadian gentleman from Quebec, therefore a countryman of mine. I have to say, it's a nicely designed web-site, lots of good information.

[Invalid Stout]

If I were going to do a no-boil ale I'd definitely at least bring the mash up to pasteurisation temperature at some point. You know how bad spent grain stinks after a few days. Leave all those organisms on the grain alive and the ale will taste foul and probably grow a layer of fur on top.