Brewing With Gruit Herbs part 1

Managed to get my hands on some Bog Myrtle ( Myrica Gale ) the other day and have decided to try a gruit beer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrica_gale#Cautions please read the cautions on this page.

The story is well documented for those who wish to read about it,  the short version being that before hops were wildly popular ales and beers were bittered using a herb mix known as gruit, with the church of one form or another collecting a tax on it.

As usual the tax on gruit continually went up leaving brewers looking for a substitute and finding hops. Hops while still taxed could be grown by anyone so were more easily available.

Its been estimated that by changing over to hops that brewers could achieve 40% better effiecency from their brew days, this was due to the hops having a preservative effect, meaning the alcohol percentage could be brought right down. ( For the Love of Hops, Stan Hieronymus pg 55 )

So anyway to the brew day, I was making a Rye beer and before adding any hops to the boil, removed 5L of wort to a separate pot. Once this was boiling, I placed 12g of bog myrtle into a hop sock ( they keep the boil cleaned and allow you to remove the waste without staining the wort )
and boiled for 35 minutes.

Once cooled I placed another 12g into a hop sock covered it with boiling water and allow that to cool before adding the wort.

It is now fermenting using US - 05 as this is one of the cleanest fermenting yeasts I have found.

Cherry Wine part 1

Brew day minus 5

After you have bought your cherries home, you need to de-seed and stem them, and once this is done put them into the freezer for a minimum of 3 days. The freezing breaks down the cell walls allowing more juice to be extracted.

 Brew Day minus 2

Remove your cherries from the freezer and place them in  to a large sanitised bucket to allow the to thaw. ( We place the fruit into a large grain bag inside the bucket, this makes removing the fruit later a much easier task )

Brew Day

With clean or gloved hands squash the cherries as much as possible, do this in the bucket as they will squirt juice everywhere.
Cover the cherries with boiling water, cover the bucket with a clean tea towel and allow to cool.
After cooling add 1 teaspoon of pectinase to every 5L of must, stir well and put the tea towel back on.

Brew Day plus 1

Add 1 crushed campden tablet per 5L of must and stir well (this will kill off any wild yeasts from the fruit).

Brew Day plus 2

Mix 2kg of white sugar with 4L of hot water till the sugar is dissolved and allow to cool.
Once cooled add the sugar solution to the must.
Add your chosen yeast and stir well, recovering when finished.

Brew Day plus 3

Stir morning and night, pushing the fruit back underneath the liquid.

The Kegerator

Thought I would share with you a couple of pics of our kegerator, it's just a chest freezer with a wooden extension collar fitted to allow the kegs to fit of the motor step inside.

It will take 6 kegs, or as it is now 5 kegs and the gas bottle. the timber on the front is a piece of huon pine.

Basic Sweet Mead

              Basic Sweet Mead   by Bjorn

This recipe has been developed, not only to be one of the easiest to make but to help showcase both the flavours of the honey and the yeast used.

I recommend using a single source  (varietal ) honey and a yeast with an alcohol tolerance of about 10 – 12%.

 Ingredients:

1.8kg of honey (orange blossom is my preferred honey)
5gm of yeast –Lalvin D -47 or white labs WLP 720
5gm of yeast nutrient
Water to make up to 4.7L

 Equipment:

5L demijohn with bung and airlock
Bar mix or whisk
Large bowl or jug
Funnel
Small drinking glass
Hydrometer

 Instructions:

Clean and Sanitise everything that will touch the honey or the equipment.
Pour into the small drinking glass ¼ cup of warm water and the yeast and allow to rehydrate.
Into your bowl place the honey yeast nutrient and 2L of water.
Using the bar mix or whisk combine honey and water and aerate as much as possible.
Pour this mixture into your demijohn, add the yeast and top up to 4.7L (this allows some headspace for the yeast to foam up.)
Take hydrometer reading here.
Allow to ferment somewhere cool (18 -25*c) for 1 month before racking to a new fermenter for aging.
There is no set time for aging meads but 1 month in the secondary would be the minimum.

Take hydrometer reading here

Bottle

Mead Beer Wine pretty well says it all I think. We ferment and produce all 3, in the best medival and modern traditions.

Currently we have going
 2 sack meads
2 viking experimental meads
1 cinnamon choc agave mead
1 sweet agave mead
And 1 semi sweet orange blossom mead

1 low alcohol experimental IPA

Peach and fig wine
Plum and cherry wine.

The plan is to keep you up to date with any new processess and to cross promote meads with the Australian Mead Makers f/b group.