Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Tue Oct 12, 2021 7:18 pm

It's about time that I explained why the title is "a bit of the 19th Century".

Early in the 19th Century rotating kilns were brought in to produce the black malt for colouring Porters: The (occasionally dangerous) substances previously used had been made illegal.

As the 19th Century proceeded those rotating cylinder kilns were used for creating other malts.

Some malt types were obviously created in rotating cylinders; crystal malts being one entire family of malts created in rotating kilns. Some malts were started off in rotating cylinders, and then finished off in traditional directly heated kilns. All malts were eventually created in rotating kilns, as they are today.

Brown malt was one species often part kilned in cylinders before finishing off in traditional kilns (to pop or create "blown" malt). Brown malt so created may have been more darkly roasted to make up for the much smaller proportion of brown malt used in the Porter grists. Brown malt no longer had to be diastatic and often wasn't.

But I can't tell from records translated and recorded by, say, Ron Pattinson, which process was used. It's possible to sometimes guess. It's much easier to cop out and not try to cover the later 19th Century period (and early 20th).
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Fri Oct 29, 2021 1:19 pm

Cor blimey! What a find!

I was trying to figure out how much of Brupak's "Brewer's Caramel" to use and I came across this (Graham and Ron locking horns on this and that subject). WARNING: It's over ten years old and some people may have changed their opinions - I'll happily change my opinions over spans of 10 days!

viewtopic.php?t=39388

As Graham was involved I hope you got a coffee before attempting to read it; his posts were a bit "long" at times.

Anyway, I admit I was wandering off-subject a little; looking at 20th Century stuff (Barclay Perkin's 't'ween the Wars KK recipes). But the old posts did over-spill into the use of multiple barley grain sources during 19th & 20th Centuries. As what I'm doing is attempting to "recreate" old recipes ("emulating" historical malts for goodness sake!) I thought it was on subject. But my argument has been to follow the available information where I can, filling in any "missing" information with what I can imagine in my head (using my favourite word at the moment ... "conjecture"). Heck, I've even attempted to employ "holistics" in my recreations. The alternative is to declare a recipe can't be made and the beer lost forever - well that has got to be wrong! Wrong for die-hard historians; but we're home-brewers, not historians, aren't we?

What you do have to avoid: In coming up with something to "paper over the cracks", don't present it as "fact". Some people do apparently.



There must be tons more of this stuff from Graham hidden on the forum ...
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by Eric » Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:53 pm

Thanks for the link PeeBee, it's great to read unhindered comment from well and self-informed individuals. Later I'll read it again and see if my opinion changes.

Graham could, and often did, speak spontaneously on a vast range of brewing topic. Whether he was right or not I don't honestly know, but his opinions were frequently difficult to dispute.

Can anyone tell me what colour original diastatic malt might have been? I've been subjecting small quantities of lager malt to periods in a sandwich maker to find the influence it has on enzymes, but realise that will mean little if I don't achieve the correct colour.
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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:55 pm

Eric wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:53 pm
... Can anyone tell me what colour original diastatic malt might have been? I've been subjecting small quantities of lager malt to periods in a sandwich maker to find the influence it has on enzymes, but realise that will mean little if I don't achieve the correct colour.
I can kick off with that question and hope more ideas get presented 'cos my ideas are built on snippets from third party sources and my (slightly dodgy) imagination:

There will be more to it than colour. Originally I built my "emulations" from colour alone, but more recently switched to characters trying their hand at "experimental archaeology" or; actually trying to make the stuff! My favourite source at the moment is this guy: https://brewingbeerthehardway.wordpress.com/. He also puts out a few YouTube videos (and has a book; I've got it!). But check out his diastatic brown malt, it's not "brown"! But it has got dark bits.

What I could glean was they weren't trying to make "brown malt", they were making malt like the clever guys (who would have been burning straw originally) but much quicker and with less (expensive) care. It meant some got a bit burnt, it was pretty damp when kilned to avoid time consuming drying, the insides of some turned to caramel as it heated, and originally (17th century and earlier) was horrendously smoky due to using more easily accessible firewood. They got better at making it so that by the time Victoria came to the throne it wouldn't have been so smoky but still retained the brown colour and caramelised bits from making it quick. But they had already realised the fermentable extract from these brown malts wasn't as good as the classy (and properly pale) carefully made stuff. And making the classy pale stuff was getting (provenly) relatively cheaper, so pale malt was being used for the bulk of fermentables, and brown malts (and other "coloured" malts) used only to introduce the flavours people were used to.

Hence my "emulations" contain exotic and currently "trendy" malts like "Munich": Not because I'm "trendy" (I had to give up that delusion as I moved into my 50s! It's all a distant memory now in my 60s), but because Munich Malts are created by manipulating that other important factor making malt other than heat (and there are others); the green malt's moisture content. Crystal (Caramel) malts also depend on the green malt's moisture content.


And this is my favourite word in action: Conjecture! So it's open to others to present better arguments ...
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by Eric » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:25 pm

Eric wrote:
Fri Oct 29, 2021 2:53 pm
Can anyone tell me what colour original diastatic malt might have been? I've been subjecting small quantities of lager malt to periods in a sandwich maker to find the influence it has on enzymes, but realise that will mean little if I don't achieve the correct colour.
Well, after reading advice from one who made and brewed with Brown Malt by roasting pale malt, I put 3 lots of 80gm of lager malt into a sandwich maker for about 7 minutes per session. Those were then milled at 1.1mm gap, then placed in a grain bag and mashed at ~66C. 1.5 litres of tapwater was used, alkalinity was substantially reduced, but no calcium salt was added. After 60 minutes, 873gm of wort with an SG of 1.018 was freely released, about 21.5% of the potential extractable sugars. After sparging to collect almost 2 litres, 36% of the sugars were extracted and the grains were still quite sticky.

The glass to the front right shows the 1018 wort from the mash of toasted lager malt, beer to the left, was 1044 OG from pale malt.
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Again a picture to show colour at the start of a boil, gravity was 1013 at this point.
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Now the setup was rather poor, and I think it would be reasonable to expect a best efficiency of about 66%, so the 36% achieved suggests some amylase functionality remained and some was lost.

I'm quite pleased with the results, suggest a substantial colour change can be achieved while retaining enzymes and with care might retain enough to have enough to self convert.
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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by Eric » Sat Oct 30, 2021 9:30 pm

Couldn't post a second picture to show colour at the start of a boil, gravity was 1013 at this point
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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:23 pm

A bit off-subject: Here are two "Bitters" from that other bit of the 19th Century (late 19th Century) that were ready for Christmas. Each made from Chevallier barley malt and East Kent Goldings, about 1.058 OG and 40IBU (Wyeast "Ringwood" yeast). Spot the difference:
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Both 1880s recipes, from Simonds brewery (left - Durden Park Beer Circle researched recipes) and Morrell's (right - from Edd's old web site, he's started a new one now at Beer History Bloke). Similar recipes, but the Simonds one (left) has 14% pale amber malt (one of my "emulations") and the Morrell's was perhaps under-pitched with yeast and mashed to get a lower FG (discussed here Local topic ...), and fermented in a 44L batch rather than 22L. Both served hand-pumped with 150mbar top-pressure.

The Morrell's turned out with a slightly ("moonlight") haze, and was richer, more complex, fuller bodied, and with a very Chevallier barley induced "honey" flavour. Which is a surprise as it was more thoroughly fermented (1.012 against 1.018). But I'd perhaps prefer the marginally thinner Simonds recipe?

I could not conclude that the differences were due to the "pale amber malt" in the Simonds or the unplanned, more sedate, fermentation of the Morrell's. So an unworthy experiment?


The other two Christmas recipes, Black's 1835 Brown Stout (also DPBC researched) and Barclay Perkin's 1804 TT (Ron Pattinson researched) will follow later (when I get the Brown Stout's carbonation under control - "buckets of foam").
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by guypettigrew » Mon Dec 27, 2021 3:59 pm

Lovely photo PeeBee.

Good to see the nuts have returned!

Guy

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Tue Dec 28, 2021 6:23 pm

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The "clone" of Black's 1835 Brown Stout (Aberdeen) is in the tall wine glass. Not so much "brown" as very "black" (actually very deep garnet). About 7%ABV, it is built of equal parts pale, amber and brown malts, all compound formulations to "emulate" historic malts. Plus black malt that had been around for 8 years by this time ("invented" in 1817) along with Fuggles hops (which weren't about until 1875, but DPBC often used them to represent the use of "rougher" Golding-type hops). I'd succeeded in keeping the attenuation low (FG 1.024). I had high hopes for this one, but it didn't get off to a good start: The "Grainfather" brewing system baulked at the large amount of hops and sizable grain quantity (heavy "hot break") and had to be bailed out manually (because of this failure the Grainfather has been fitted with a large 2" diameter woven SS filter and full-bore valve and cam-lock coupling on rest of extraction pipework: Local link ...). Whether it was this or not the stout had a "stale" taint (oxidised?) reminiscent of my beers many years ago. Not bad enough to not drink it! But bad enough to invalidate this beer from the "project".

And the second beer: A clone of Barclay Perkins 1804 "TT" (Porter). This pre-dates black malt but otherwise is composed of the same malt "emulations" as the stout above. Only 5%ABV, but 20-25% higher IBUs (from EKGs) than the stout (hops were probably not so easy to get in Scotland, so they often used less in Scottish breweries than London breweries). No "stale" or oxidised flavours here, the beer is a very luscious glassful. One small distraction: It didn't taste anything like I'd expect a "Porter" to taste. Note this is a subjective POV.

At that time the "brown malt" (and "amber" malts) were being cut with more efficient (economically) pale malt. But the "brown malt" emulation I was using had a fairly high proportion of "crystal" (caramel) malt and nothing darker than pale chocolate malt. Historic brown malt was certainly charred, but not so much it threatened to burst into flames. And the "kilning" did subject the damp malt to temperatures high enough for some to convert to sugars in the time it took to dry. But I now believe I might of over-done these caramel elements (represented by crystal malts). And as brown malt no longer needed to be diastatic (the pale malt could do this) it was made with even less care (quicker, and riskier) at even hotter kilning temperatures to get that bit more colour into the finished porter. So perhaps I should reduce the crystal malt and also darken the resulting emulation?

Humm, working on it ...


I did use Chevallier barley malt in the "1804" pale malt emulations. Chevallier berley malt wasn't available until after 1820. But then neither were the barley hybrids used in today's malt. So, with nothing closer to old 1804 "landrace" barley varieties I was happy to use Chevallier barley. It also has the advantage of being very easy to manipulate the mash to achieve the historical low attenuations.

Some well matured beers might well have higher attenuations due to the action of Brettanomyces yeasts. A subject for future dabbling.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:04 pm

In my quest for brewing ales or beers from the mid-17th century (it is a challenge set by some, or "a", Civil War re-enactment enthusiasts) I'd reached something of a cliff edge at the beginning of the 19th Century (1800 or late Georgian period). The recipes from the beer historians was drying up. I'd just got a recipe for "Stitch" (a brown hopped ale) with a handful of "beers" translated and republished out of "The London and Country Brewer" of 1736 in CAMRA's "Homebrew Classics: Stouts and Porters" by Clive La Pensée and Roger Protz. This "cliff edge" can be expected; at that time industrialisation of brewing and the Industrial Revolution (and the required record keeping) had only just begun to get going strongly.

But after making some weak cries for help I was handed this link: The Industrialization of the London Beer-Brewing Trade, 1400-1750. This is a mighty 2014 dissertation by John R. Krenzke (Loyola University Chicago); I'm just a fraction of the way through attempting to read it. But already I can feel happy I'm only trying to go back to the mid-17th Century, what goes on before (Tudor period and beyond) gets really awkward!

Hops, hopped ales, industrialised brewing, all seem to be well established (in the towns at least), so attempting beers and ales for this period isn't too much of a "shot in the dark". The "beer historians" do make occasional sorties into this period, and there is useful information to be gleaned from blogs like "Shut up about Barclay Perkins" and "Zythophile".
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:18 pm

Before nudging into the depths of the 17th Century (1600s) I'll be trying the delights of the 18th Century. The original (100% historical brown malt) "Porter" and "Stitch" Ale. Beer drinkers will have turned their backs on "smoke reeking" malt during this period and hops will have established an unmoveable presence in beer and ale brewing.

But before all that, here's that early 18th Century porter I pictured before Xmas:
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Now four months old and my first (Xmas) observations that my malt "emulations" were a bit too "caramelly" can be brushed away. The extra time has allowed the flavours to meld and crystal malt (an element in the emulations) no longer dominates. However, while it was my intention to make the smokiness a merest hint (malt was still kilned on open fires, even if the fuels used had improved) the smokiness in my "clone" is barely detectable, some days not detectable. I think the amount of smoked malt in the emulations can be tweaked up a little (the crystal elements left unchanged).

The porter is still on free-flow taps (not hand-pump, they are not the best when throughput is limited) and subject to the lowest pressure my regulators will hold to. About 5 - 5.5 PSI (they are fairly good regulators; most wouldn't hold 7 PSI) but this is allowing an out of character carbonic edge. I might try the 300mbar LPG regulators I recently located with the "keg" arrangements, or (gawd forbid!) mixed-gas at ambient temperature (60/40 gas at 5.5 PSI should give just over 3 PSI of CO2 pressure).

I'd like to repeat a recipe like this, but a "keeping" version with more hops and a "Brett" fermentation. It can then be kept until next Xmas and "blended" with these "mild" versions. Bit more "authentic"?

The nuts are for Guy's benefit: If I don't include them, he'll declare my photos to be fakes.



[EDIT: Remember the pictured porter is an 1804 TT "clone" ... pre-dating the invention of black malt. The "emulated" malts used in the recipe, 46% "brown malt" 13% "amber malt" and 41% "pale malt", are composed of nothing darker than modern "pale chocolate" malt.]
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by f00b4r » Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:09 pm

If you are having issues holding low pressures but want higher than the propane regs can hold these look to be the solution (I’m thinking about moving to these later in the year so am relying on reviews, although some of those from breweries too):

https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product ... -adjuster/

They show a range of 4-5 PSI but I have seen them hooked into the input female part of gas manifolds, which will knock another 2-3 PSI off due to the check valves in them, giving you a very full range. A simple in-line gas check valve would knock less off (1-1.5 PSI?). Assuming cellar temperatures these give a very nice range of CO2 volumes. They are much cheaper to add additional ones and come with a range of connectors, it’s worth checking out the manufacturer’s site for details.

Picture of it being used to control pressure in a manifold:

D22D0DBC-4722-4D22-9CFA-C1593CDDA829.jpeg
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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:37 pm

Oooo ... they are pretty! But what a price tag!

I think I'll stick to the Cleese 20-300mbar LPG regulators (300mbar = 4.35psi) for the odd occasions I want to dip lower than 5psi (the common 50-150mbar - 2 and a bit PSI - variants I normally recommend are perfect for most of my beers). But the price tag may not put off some folk who'd like range without the hard work I went to getting the Shako UCR regulators to work (avoid those regs for beer, but they are pretty accurate).

[EDIT: It was probably worth pointing out you get two regulators for that huge price tag - the bit with a gauge is just the adjuster.]
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by f00b4r » Wed Jan 26, 2022 9:37 pm

Yes the starter set isn’t cheap, although the individual regulators are much cheaper to add to additional ones.
The LPG ones seem to have been used by people with beer engines successfully for a long time though, although the postage does add to the cost. I wonder if they are available from DIY places etc too?

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Re: Ales and Beers (17th, 18th and a bit of 19th Century)

Post by PeeBee » Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:39 pm

[EDIT: Careful! This clip is dodgy. See the next two posts ... Whitbread were an early adopter of black malt, not a late adopter!]

Interesting bit I dug up while planning my next "bit of 19th Century" brewing escapade:
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One of the last London brewers to adopt the use of black malt was Whitbread. As you can see in the table above, they were still using just pale and brown malt in 1844.

Pattinson, Ronald. Porter! (Mega Book Series) (Kindle Locations 2353-2395). Kilderkin. Kindle Edition.
I'm only looking at the "porter" and "KP" columns. "KP" is being translated as "keeping porter" which hasn't changed to my knowledge (history interpretations have a habit of being subject to change with time). Aged and "mild" porters were blended, and I was trying to glean when abouts this became a fixed proportion brewery thing rather than a (more random) pub thing? (The "keeping" variant would be subject to considerably more Brettanomyces fermentation).

But the "interesting" bit is the comment about Whitbread and "black malt". I've been protesting that the popular DPBC recipe for 1850 Whitbread Porter seemed very wrong (over 5% black malt, as well as people assuming the brown malt would be modern day brown malt - which DPBC do not say!): Here it is from the well-respected Ron Pattinson (zero black malt in 1844 Porter).

There's also the befuddling mention of near identical recipes for ordinary porter and keeping porter. This was information I was after 'cos some suggestions have more hops (preservative) in the keeping porter?
Last edited by PeeBee on Sat Feb 26, 2022 12:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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