Makeing and Keging beer

[Loyalist Dave]

OK so go and buy some King brand, Po-T-Rik, syrup. Some places call this molasses, but it's a mixture of corn syrup and unsulfured molasses. (they had corn syrup in the 18th century btw). What most folks are screwing up is they are using sulfured molasses when they brew....

CAREFUL...the King syrup company uses the same bottles and the same basic label, but they change the wording and the colors...Po-T-Rik has a purple label...

You will need:
3 16 oz. bottles of King brand Po-T-Rik syrup
1 oz. of hops...nothing fancy, alpha acids at between 3 and 5
Five gallons of water.
Two packets of dry ale yeast...Edme or Munton's

You bring the water to a boil and add your syrup, stir so that it doesn't settle on the bottom and burn.

Add the ounce of hops, and boil for 20 minutes.
Cool to proper temperature, and then pitch your yeast. The hops is only for bittering NOT for flavor as this is cheap, small beer, so they wouldn't have wasted the money. Take a hydrometer reading, and then check after a week to 10 days to be sure it's finished and not stuck.

Add a 1/4 cup of corn sugar to the small beer and bottle. Wait two weeks and open...it will be slightly carbonated a bit like Nehi.

It will taste a bit "odd" with a slight molasses aftertaste...but it's not bad, and would work as a breakfast beverage or for the hired hands.

LD

 

[colmoultrie]

If you add one quart of amber barley malt to three pints of unsulphured molasses, bitter with approximately 1 1/2 oz. of spruce extract, and use 3/4 oz. of Cascade hops 45 min into your boil and another 1/4 oz. 55 minutes in for flavoring and aroma, you get a beer that is anything but small. It runs about 5.8-6% ABV, and the taste develops and changes over time, so the spruce notes and what I can only describe as a spicy taste develop as the beer ages a few months. People either like or hate it - in general those who like stout like this beer; those who don't dislike it.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Thanks guys. :thumbsup:

I wonder where the OP went? his cask beer has me curious.

 

[Woods Dweller]

I'm still here. I don't get to the computer as much as I like. I have been reading the post.
The psi that the "Carbonation - What You Need to Know To Help You Serve Draft Beer" In a wood keg is to strong. The wood keg was sealed and soaked 3 days in water to seal it. The carbonation forced the beer to seep out. I am learning that beer in the 1700's and later did not have a second fermentation to create high carbonation. And bread yeast would have been used to create the formation in beer.
Drinking beer at room tempter in the 1700's meant NOT drinking beer ice cold. or right from a keg.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Don't confuse bread yeast of the 1700's with supermarket bread yeast of today.

Supermarket bread yeast like RedStar brand will not make good beer, it is not a beer strain and has been developed especially for the making of bread. Trust me I learned the hard way.

What type of beer did you make in the keg?

 

[Sean Gadhar]

Drinking beer at room tempter in the 1700's meant NOT drinking beer ice cold. or right from a keg.

Almost two decades of running liquor stores taught me that "room temp" is cellar temp and about 15 degrees cooler then we think of as room. think 50-55 not 65-70

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I am learning that beer in the 1700's and later did not have a second fermentation to create high carbonation. And bread yeast would have been used to create the formation in beer.

You should read up on India Pale Ale...it did get the carbonation. The yeast used for bread was taken from the beer barrel, so it wasn't that bread yeast was not used for beer, it was that beer yeast WAS used for bread.

It works well, but it is different from the modern bread yeast, it acts different, but imparts much better flavor than the generic, modern, baking yeast.

LD

 

[coloradoclyde]

Right on Dave!
The bakers got their yeast from the brewers.

I made a beer once with modern commercial bread yeast just to see what it would be like.
It was highly carbonated and extremely heady.
The yeast never dropped out of suspension even after a month of cold crashing. it was extremely phenolic and estery. It was like a German hefewiezen on super steroids Mixed with kerosene. It was so overpowering it was undrinkable. :barf:
And I love my german wheat beers.

 

[Rifleman1776]

As you can see in the quote that you included, room temperature has a specific definition as being between 55 and 60 deg. F.

Yes it does in regards to beer. That is why I posted it.
As you will see by the link provided there is no standard room temp. So it is defined by use. For example measuring tools affected by temperature are calibrate to a specific/ listed temperature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_temperature

I drank copious quantities of "warm" English beer in pubs for three years. I can tell you it was not warm. Not refrigerator cold like in U.S. but cool from being in the cellar. Less carbonated than American beers but delightful to drink, especially when free after winning a darts game.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Free beer tastes good at any temp. :grin:

 

[Woods Dweller]

Was that in wood kegs? Was that in the south? Wood kegs might have been cool up north for a few hours once drought up to a tavern from the cellar. Then the keg would have sat for a day or two or three... would have warmed up to room temp. In the south [north Florida] under the ground only cools to 72. This is why you don't see any root cellars in the south. The Oldest city in the United States in Saint Augustine Fl.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Brewing in Florida is going to be challenging without some kind of temp control.

There is a reason that all of the oldest breweries in America are in the northern states

 

[Woods Dweller]

Dave your right about the Ale being the most drank beer. Also Stout were common. I made an Ale beer. I believe my problem is this. I made the beer the way we make beer today and after the second formation to create the high carbonation then bottle the beer, like I normally do. I kegged it in a wood Keg instead of my bottles. The PSI built up so much that the beer started to leak out of the keg. and a mold started to grow where the leaks were. All that said. Beer back 200, 400,.... Did not have a second formation to create the high {PSI} carbonation as were use to today. I just got this book: http://jas-townsend.com/libations-eighteenth-century-p-224.html
I am learning that beer back then had a bread taste that people liked, thinking that beer was a food to eat / drink. What come first, the beer or the bread? Bread yeast was made and keep as a starter for making yeast for the bread. This is don by many woman today. My wife got some "Bread started" / sourer dough starter from a woman that said this sourer dough starter was 150 years old. An old Farmer give me some corn that has been in his family since 1836. my quest moves on in making beer the way they did 200 years ago. And it may require me to change my thinking on beer making and taste buds.

 

[Woods Dweller]

The problem I have with this is that people drank beer all over the world, and with different climates.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Yes! they drank beer all over the world but they did not necessarily make it there. Beer was shipped to tropical and sutropical regions, because barley doesn't like to grow in that climate, nor hops.

The oldest brewery on record in Florida was the aptly named Florida Brewing Company. It was opened in 1896 by a group of cigar industrialists in Ybor City. In fact, the brewery they built still stands, and is the tallest building in Ybor to this day. The Florida Brewing Company made La Tropical Ale and Bock, and was the leading beer exporter to Cuba in the U.S. At their peak, they were producing over 80,000 barrels of beer a year.

Up in Jacksonville, Jax Brewing opened up in 1913. Their “Jax Beer” was described in advertising as “tangy and zestful”, “smooth”, “mellow”, as well as “fine”, “full-bodied”, and “refreshing”. I guess they wanted to cover all of their bases! At their peak, Jax Brewing was putting out over 200,000 barrels annually, and were distributed well through the South.

1905- The brewery (FBC) combined with Tampa wholesale liquor and Ybor City Ice Works.

The brewery opened well after the advent of brewery refrigeration.
In 1834, the first working vapor-compression refrigeration system was built. The first commercial ice-making machine was invented in 1854.

Read this article http://www.kegerators.com/articles/beer-and-early-refrigeration.php


This is also interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigeration

 

[coloradoclyde]

Here is a 3 part interview you should find interesting.

https://youtu.be/MqKQ1-VwC0M

https://youtu.be/HKg-p8ryxpI

https://youtu.be/9F5K_ZURnMY

 

[Woods Dweller]

Thanks for the site: "Beer Brewing at Black Creek Pioneer Village" As I thought, the beer was flat by today’s standards, and was cloudy.

Hops were imported from France, Holland and Germany and naturally import duty was raised on those; it was not until 1524 that hops were first grown in the southeast of England when they were introduced as an agricultural crop by Dutch farmers.
Hops were then grown as far north as Aberdeen near breweries for infrastructure convenience. It was another century before hop cultivation began in the present-day United States, in 1629 by English and Dutch farmers. Dried Hops would have been shipped to other parts of the world. Barley also was shipped all over the world and was used in bread, stews, and later used for beer.

Beer largely remained a homemaker's activity, made in the home. By the 14th and 15th centuries, beer making was gradually changing from a family-oriented activity to an artisan one, with pubs and monasteries brewing their own beer for mass consumption. In the 1700 colonels beer largely remained a homemaker's activity.

I have come to the conclusion that through time people would have made beer with whatever they had to make it with. They would have drank it at whatever tempter it was according to where they lived. As for my quest to make my beer the way they would have made it in 1776. I know what I did wrong trying to make it the way I normally make beer today. Too much PSI for the wood Keg.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Thanks for the site: "Beer Brewing at Black Creek Pioneer Village" .

Your most welcome. :grin:

Hops were imported from France, Holland and Germany

They also grew wild in America.


There are references to cask or wooden keg beers becoming infected, such terms as "rope beer" and "the fox", in almost every text of colonial brewing I have read.
My question is how do you sanitize your wooden keg?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Um no....hops are not indigenous to the New World....and neither are honey bees (trivia question..makes for a good "bar bet")

As for brewing in hot climates....this can be done without refrigeration...and is done, but the brew is consumed just after it completes itself...commercial brewing needs storage..., the Goodwife does not. BTW "steam beer" is lager beer fermented warm...a large inoculation of lager yeast is used, and the process makes a sort of cloud form over the cooling vats, hence the name.

Most barrels of traditional ale in England survive only 3-4 days before going bad when tapped. Now they add a small tank of nitrogen instead of an air filter to prevent the entry of micro-organisms at many pubs...but the ale when done as it was for centuries, would change flavor over that 3-4 day period, which was part of the process and the enjoyment.

Brewing was part of monasteries and manor homes as far back as the 9th century in Continental Europe. The guild controlled the gruit (herbs), and the ingredients for the gruit were often controlled by the local monks. Hops only started replacing the old gruit when it was found that it was a preservative (prior to cold storage you see).

IPA wasn't made as IPA...it was brewed, fermented, then shipped around Cape Horn...very hot, very long sea voyage, to India. The casks were made very strong, and the carbonation was captured...


LD

 

[coloradoclyde]

You owe me a beer.
I remember reading a text that stated early brewers used the wild hops but demand soon outpaced wild hop production. however I cannot find that reference at the moment, so this will suffice.

American Hops Origins

Hops have been grown in Europe for more than a thousand years, and the regional varieties developed there are the basis of modern varieties, including those in North America. These varieties were imported to the continent beginning in the 1600s. Some American hop varieties are the result of these traditional European varieties interbreeding, both accidentally and intentionally, with wild varieties native to North America. Other American varieties were developed from European stock alone. Since the 1970s, laboratory-based breeding techniques have allowed for greater control of the breeding process than traditional methods, resulting in new cultivars with greatly improved characteristics.


Wild American Hops

There are three varieties of wild hops native to North America. Humulus lupulus var. neomexicanus is found in the Southwest; Humulus lupulus var. pubescens in the Midwest; and Humulus lupulus var. lupuloides in the East. They grow in moist areas with well drained soil and prefer full sun to shade. Crosses between the traditional European varieties and the wild American varieties resulted in new cultivars with increased resin content, aroma and bitterness. An example of this type is “Cluster,” a very popular variety resulting from an accidental cross of wild American and European hops. Wild hop seeds collected in Canada in 1916 led to the development of the famous variety “Brewer's Gold.” Many of the most popular modern American varieties, such as “Galena,” “Nugget” and “Centennial,” are descended from "Brewer's Gold."