EK-3: Weird things I've tried

Prev: Discussion of Wágner's recipe

I've made this a few times now, experimenting with different approaches. Most were pleasant, and obviously I thought it worth making again.

I've usually followed a parti-gyle procedure, which makes sense for getting a strong beer, which tends to have low extraction efficiency, and then getting a weaker beer from the remaining sugar. Here are the ingredients I used for a recent batch with 5.5 gal of the English wort in the kettle, post-boil:

Grain:

• 15 lbs German Pils malt
• 5 lb Wheat malt
• 1 lb Acid malt

Hops etc., English

• 4 oz Saaz whole leaf, 5.1% AA, first-wort-hopped, but removed when the boil started.
• 2 oz Northern Brewer pellets, 8.5 AA, 60 min
• ⅓ oz Bitter orange peel, 60 min
• ¼ tsp ground mace, in secondary
• ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg, in secondary
• ½ whirlflok tablet, last 15 min

Hops etc., ordinary

• 4 oz Saaz whole leaf, 5.1% AA, first-wort-hopped, transferred from English.
• 0.1 oz Bitter orange peel, 60 min
• ¼ tsp ground mace, in secondary
• ½ tsp ground coriander, in secondary
• ½ whirlflok tablet, last 15 min

Wyeast 1007, German ale yeast.

I did a protein rest in a large pot at 128°F for a half hour. I then heated to 150°F and rested for an hour. I then heated to a full boil, not just some foam pushing through the grain. This is a lot of stirring, but there's no transferring between the pot and a tun.

I added all the hops to the English wort while running off, then when that came to a boil I removed the Saaz and added it to the ordinary wort while it was running off. I had 6 gal of English wort and trub in the kettle post-boil, and transferred a half gallon of that wort to the ordinary wort before its boil. The English OG was 1.072, a little low, and the ordinary's was 1.043.

I added the spices in the secondary because I'd forgotten to add them when pitching the yeast. This is less likely to give an infection, and it may give stronger aroma and flavor.

The ordinary is quite pleasant though mild. The orange has an obvious impact on the aroma and taste but I don't immediately identify it as orange. The mace is not obvious. The hop aroma and flavor is subtle at most.

I'm aging the English for another month or so. At this writing it's quite sweet, but not cloying. The sweetness, maltiness from the boiled mash, orange, and nutmeg/mace make a pleasant combination, working very well together. The orange flavor is obvious but it's not too much. Less would work too. The nutmeg and mace aren't obvious but I can pick them out, knowing that I added them. They will likely fade with time, as they have in past batches. Again the hop aroma and flavor is subtle at most.

They're both hazy. I'd call the English cloudy. In an earlier batch I tried maltgems^® and also boiled the entire mash. That came out cloudy too. At the time I thought it might be something about the maltgems^® and the boiled mash, but since the current batch with pils malt is cloudy too, it's just boiling the entire mash that makes it cloudy. Odd, since the runoff appeared to be very clear. Maybe the boil extracts extra starch, and at that point there are no enzymes left to break it down.

There are a number of things I've tried in past batches, like a single infusion mash. This was quite good, though not as malty. It was very clear, not hazy.

For the ordinary beer I admit I had thought that Wágner's word unterhefe meant lager yeast, since untergärig and obergärig mean bottom-fermenting and top-fermenting, respectively. So several times I used lager yeast for the ordinary. Krennmair told me this incorrect, it means bottom-cropped, and pointed out that this fits with the way fermentation in the barrels was conducted, so that the yeast pushed out of the bung hole. In my most recent batch I used the same strain of altbier yeast for both English and ordinary.

I've tried aging the English beer with oak chips that I had simmered for a few minutes with crushed juniper berries. I was thinking it can't have zero effect on the flavor, but I couldn't detect either oak or juniper in the result. Of course I was not doing a side-by-side comparison, so I wouldn't call this conclusive.

A couple of times I tried soaking some crushed pitch in the ordinary while in the secondary. In one batch I only left it in for a few days, and I couldn't taste it. In the other I left it in for a month while lagering. This also had a little dried orange peel in the boil. It definitely had some pitch flavor, but with the orange it was weird. I'd gladly drink more if I had it or found it on tap somewhere, but I won't use it again. That is a bit of history I'll leave behind.

Modern interpretations of these beers can differ in a few reasonable ways. Ignoring the use of wood, juniper berries, and pitch is obvious. Either beer can be made by itself, without using a parti-gyle. The mash procedure can be modernized. I intend to keep a protein rest, since I suspect the good head retention in my batches may be partly due to that. I like the maltiness a decoction gives, so I'll keep a regular single decoction, though my single infusion mash batch was pleasant. I'd use more modern hopping procedures, maybe FWH with some of the hops and then late boil additions. Since the gravity is uncertain, I can imagine making a barley-wine-strength version, so the second-runnings beer would have fairly normal strength.

Next: Wágner's text and my translation