calling any beer historians!

[Chard]

ive stumbled on a recipe from 1865 but it doesnt make a great deal of sense. for starters when i convert the quantities into metric units and scale down, i end up with 8.6kg grain for a 23L brew giving an OG of 1.091! not that im against strong beer but this seems a bit excessive. I would imagine that our grain today has more starch stored in it due to more intensive farming but then again maybe i just got my maths wrong.

the other confusing aspect is that the mashes seem to be done in reverse starting at 76oC then a 2nd at 85 and the third at 68.3 (all converted from Fahrenheit of course). any advice or interpretation would be welcome.

READING ALE

This is also denominated Kennet ale and has many staunch admirers, particularly amongst the Oxford gentlemen

Prime amber malt 8 bushels
Hops 8 lb.
Coriander seeds 2 oz.
Chillies ¼ oz.

Calculate your water so as to have upwards of 2 barrels of ale. Make three mashings and two boilings ; the first boil half an hour, the second boil three quarters of an hour. When the first wort is in the copper, add the coriander seeds and chillies. Set the first mash with 1½ barrel of liquor at 170 deg., the second set at 185 deg., with a similar quantity of liquor, the third mashing at 155 deg. with 2 barrels of liquor. Put in your yeast when the mixed worts are at 65 deg., and cleanse at 75 deg. with a full head. The product will be a very agreeable ale, and a great quantity of it is sent annually to the West end. It is not calculated to keep over nine, or at most twelve months; after that time it becomes vapid

im working on the idea that there are 34lbs to a bushel of malt barley (from wikipedia i think)

[nobby]

From what I have read they would make 3 beers from one amount of Grain. The first mash was the best beer that was quite strong and they got progresivly weaker ending up with what was refured to as a Childs Beer.

[Dennis King]

From what I have read they would make 3 beers from one amount of Grain. The first mash was the best beer that was quite strong and they got progresivly weaker ending up with what was refured to as a Childs Beer.

I believe thats where the saying small beer came from.

[Chard]

that was my first thought but this is what the author states later in the book and i think it makes his opinion of small or table beer pretty clear!

Many families adopt the long practised custom of brewing their table beer upon the remaining materials of strong beer brewing; this is altogether a practice based upon egregious error, for it is an expensive, dilatory method of producing a beverage which nine times out of ten is worthless. Such persons may rest assured that if they regard that sort of drink as necessary to economy and comfort, it is decidedly their interest to brew it alone, for the trouble and expense are little more, and the product not worthy of comparison in favour of the latter


HA HA HA i love this guy!

[EoinMag]

I'd have thought that you're looking at much less conversion when it comes to older malts, that's why the Germans typically decocted their pilseners, to help with conversion of malt that is not up to modern standards, so your yields will be much lower for a given amount of old malt. If you are not given an alcohol content or a starting gravity with the recipe, then you are reliant on someone knowing how much worse the malt of that time was to give you a conversion factor to modern malt. I daresay that the likes of Graham Wheeler might know such beer trivia.

[jubby]

ive stumbled on a recipe from 1865 but it doesnt make a great deal of sense. for starters when i convert the quantities into metric units and scale down, i end up with 8.6kg grain for a 23L brew giving an OG of 1.091! not that im against strong beer but this seems a bit excessive. I would imagine that our grain today has more starch stored in it due to more intensive farming but then again maybe i just got my maths wrong.

the other confusing aspect is that the mashes seem to be done in reverse starting at 76oC then a 2nd at 85 and the third at 68.3 (all converted from Fahrenheit of course). any advice or interpretation would be welcome.

READING ALE

This is also denominated Kennet ale and has many staunch admirers, particularly amongst the Oxford gentlemen

Prime amber malt 8 bushels
Hops 8 lb.
Coriander seeds 2 oz.
Chillies ¼ oz.

Calculate your water so as to have upwards of 2 barrels of ale. Make three mashings and two boilings ; the first boil half an hour, the second boil three quarters of an hour. When the first wort is in the copper, add the coriander seeds and chillies. Set the first mash with 1½ barrel of liquor at 170 deg., the second set at 185 deg., with a similar quantity of liquor, the third mashing at 155 deg. with 2 barrels of liquor. Put in your yeast when the mixed worts are at 65 deg., and cleanse at 75 deg. with a full head. The product will be a very agreeable ale, and a great quantity of it is sent annually to the West end. It is not calculated to keep over nine, or at most twelve months; after that time it becomes vapid

im working on the idea that there are 34lbs to a bushel of malt barley (from wikipedia i think)

I don't fully understand the methods, but if you wanted to brew that type of beer the Durden Park Circle spent years researching archives and converting old recipes for use with modern ingredients. I've tried a few from their book and can recommend it. Pete Brown's 'Man Walks Into A Pub' is also a very good book on the history of beer and pubs......very funny also.

[mentaldental]

1.091 is a strong beer in modern terms but not unusual historically.

Old books and brewery logs report all sorts of complex mash schedules probably used because they worked and no-one wanted to mess with the system. Remember they didn't have an understanding of the ezymatic reactions underlying mashing.

The temperatures noted for the mash are usually the liquor temperatures not the mash temperatures. Breweries didn't seem to bother with mash temperature measurement just relying on mixing a known quantity of liquor with a known quantity of malt to give a predictable result.

With a three mash system like you mention it would be usual practice to mix the three worts together in varying degrees to give a range of beer. Using each of the three separately was not usual because the third mash in particular would give a pretty shite beer. .

On the other hand using all the worts to make one beer was also unusual until the advent of porter and industrial brewing (hence the alternative name of "entire").

[SteveD]

The easiest way of sorting out your problem is to contact the Durden Park Beer Club (they used to be 'circle' but voted for 'club' recently). This is totally their field of expertise, having built their reputation of researching and decyphering old beer recipes and methods and converting them to modern homebrewing quantities/methods/ingredients often with stunning results.

http://www.durdenparkbeer.org.uk/

[jubby]

Good to see you back Steve.

[Chard]

cheers for the info guys! ill get their book methinks!

[Graham]

I daresay that the likes of Graham Wheeler might know such beer trivia.

Not really. I have not much of a better idea than anybody else. I used to drink with (read that as in the same pub) as a director of Doctor Who, but he never allowed me to use the Tardis. In fact, he was convinced that it was just a film prop, which just shows you how brain-washing can work.

The malts produced in those days were so wildly different to modern malts that it is probably not a good idea to try to replicate it - just yet. I have always thought that the Durden Park outfit, or their prime mover, have almost got away with murder due to certain misconceptions. Although the recipe specifies amber malt, the closest we have to the old-time stuff is German-malted Munich malt, as opposed to British-malted Munich malt

Even so, it is unlikely to get close. There are things like acidity, which was such an important part of beer in the old days, just as acidity balance in wine or cider is considered important today. It was quite a different world.

[jubby]

Graham wrote:
The malts produced in those days were so wildly different to modern malts that it is probably not a good idea to try to replicate it - just yet. I have always thought that the Durden Park outfit, or their prime mover, have almost got away with murder due to certain misconceptions. Although the recipe specifies amber malt, the closest we have to the old-time stuff is German-malted Munich malt, as opposed to British-malted Munich malt

I don't understand the misconceptions bit........ you might be right, but It has to be said that Durden Park openly acknowledge that their recipes can't be confirmed as true copies of the original beers, but there have been occasions where their beers have been tasted by those that supped them 'in the day'. This is explained in the Introduction. With reference to the Amber malt (at the risk of sounding like a librarian) appendix 1 explains that some of the ingredients used for the original beers are not readily available and there are instructions on how to reproduce Pale Amber, Amber and Brown Malt. I think it's a great book and has helped to preserve some of our brewing history.

[SteveD]

Yes, the question of athenticity is something that Durden Park raise themselves, and they openly acknowledge that methods and malts are different now, however, I'm not sure they labour under misconception, having researched the subject of old beers/methods, etc, to probably greater depth than the vast majority out there.

On the subject of 'how do we know we got it right, without a tardis' they offer 2 testimonials - from people who were alive at the time these beers would have still been in their original form.

In 1973 they brewed Whitbread 1850 porter, and at Christmas some was offered to a lady in her late 80's who'd asked for a Guinness. No mention was made by the brewer as to what it was but the old lady immediately recognised it as London Porter, and demanded to know where on earth did he get it! 1/3 pint unlocked memories of her youth where in service, they were given a daily quota of Porter to drink.

The other occasion is when they brewed Youngers No.1 Ale from 1871, it was given to some ancient ex-Youngers brewery employees, resident in the Youngers home for their elderly. They were brewing in the 20's and they recognised it as No1 ale, and said if anything it was cleaner and better than they remembered. Mind you OG was 1102 in 1871, in the 1920's No1 ale was at about OG1085

So although Durden Park are quite aware of the problems of trying to recreate old beers with any degree of accuracy, testimonials like that show they must at least be on the right track.