1503-Eng-Beer-art

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1503-Eng-Beer-art - 11/24/18

"Brewing Beer in 1503 England" by Master William Brewer.

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Brewing Beer in 1503 England

by Master William Brewer

To brewe Beer.

X. quarters malte, ij. quarters wheet, ij. quarters ootes, xl. Ib. weight of hoppys, To make Ix. barells of sengyll beer. (Arnold)

This document will define how to brew a beer from the 1503 book "The Customs of London: Otherwise called Arnold's Chronicle." The beers we drink today are very diverse in style, with different types of beers coming from, literally, all over the world. The ingredients used in late 15th and early 16th century England varied according to what was available or to taste, but the overall procedures used were very similar between brewers. English brewers were introduced to hops as a bittering and preserving agent in the mid-15th century, and by the 16th, hops were being grown wherever they could be planted. To quote Harrison:

Of late years alfo we haue found and taken vp a great trade in planting of hops, whereof our moorie hitherto and vnprofitable grounds doo yield fuch plenty & increafe, that there are few farmers or occupiers in the countrie, which haue not gardens and hops growing of their own, and thofe farre better than doo come from Flanders vnto vs.

Direct Translation to Modern English (my own):

10 quarters malt, 2 quarters wheat, 2 quarters oats, 40 lb weight of hops, to make 60 barrels of single beer.

Translation to Contemporary English:

To brew 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of wheat, 2 quarters of oats, and 40 pounds of hops

In this document, I will discuss the recipes and methods I used to recreate this period brew. If you see a word with which you are not familiar, check the glossary; the definition is likely there.

To begin with, we'll need some conversions. As I only wanted to brew three gallons, I had to convert the above amounts down to what I needed for 3 gallons or less.

Conversions:

The following conversions are all from the Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. When confronted with a modern measurement versus a "traditional" or older, dated measurement, I chose to use the traditional or older measurement where it made sense for the period at which I am looking.

Barrel (Simpson/Weiner, I.2)

A barrel for holding beer is 36 Gallons according to Arnold's Chronicle in 1502.

Quarter (Simpson/Weiner, 989, II.4a)

A quarter of grain is defined as "Four London bushels fully, and that is half a quarter" in 1523.

Bushel (Simpson/Weiner, 692, 1)

A unit of volume in the British Imperial system equal to 8 dry gallons, as defined in Henry VII, Act 12, v, "That the measure of a bushel contain 8 gallons of Wheat."

Gallon (Simpson/Weiner, 334, 1)

The earliest official definition of a dry gallon in Britain is a 1303 proclamation of Edward I, where the gallon is defined as the volume of 8 pounds of wheat. This was confirmed in 1542.

Pound (Simpson/Weiner, 244, I.1.a)

The avoirdupois pound weighed 16 ounces, and was equal to 453.6 grams. This is also equivalent to a modern American pound.

Utilizing these historic equivalencies resulted in the following amounts used in my recipe: (please see Appendix B for the detailed math):

INGREDIENTS:

· 12 lbs malted barley

· 2.4 lbs malted wheat

· 2.4 lbs oats

· 1.5 ounces hops

· 5 tsp Burton-on-Trent hardening salts

· Wyeast 1335 – British Ale II

INGREDIENTS DETAILS (Or Why I Used What I Used):

There are four main ingredients in beer: Water, barley, hops and yeast. You would think that would make it easy to decide what to use, right? Just fill a pot with tap water, grab some barley from the grocery store, mix it with some hops from your neighbor's garden, then dump in some bread yeast and you've got beer, right? Well… Not so much, actually. Let's take a look at some of the different types of ingredients we can use in our brewing, and what we can use to make it as close as possible to the ingredients that would have been used in 1503.

Barley is barley, right? Not so today, and not so even in medieval England. There are two major types of barley: 2-row and 6-row. They get their names from the way the kernels grow on the stalk. Two rows of kernels grow on 2-row, and six rows of kernels grow on 6-row. At the time this beer was being brewed, there was already a move toward making beer from the finest, freshest ingredients, as evidenced by numerous quotes from Harrison. Barley was being selectively bred to produce grains with more sugars per grain (2-row has fewer kernels on the grain's head, which allows them to become larger, ergo: more sugar per grain), which, in turn, produced higher alcohol content and greater flavor. I selected Two-row, because it is commonly associated with English beers. Wild barley evolved as 2-row, and was cross-bred later to 4- and 6-row. 2-row has been found in archaeological sites as early as 7500 BC (Zohary, 67). 6-row has been found in archaeological sites as early as 6800 BC (Zohary, 67), but doesn't grow as well in cool climates as the 2-row.

Malted barley is barley that has been allowed to begin the germination process and has then gone through a drying session in an oven. In period, the ovens were the same ones used to bake bread and everything else one might bake. A hot, relatively smokeless fire was used, as evidenced by this quote from William Harrison:

In fome places it is dried [at leifure] with wood alone, or ftrawe alone, in other with wood and ftrawe together; but of all, the ftrawe dried is the moft excellent. For the wood dried malt when it is brued, befide that the drinke is higher of colour, it dooth hurt and annoie the head of him that is not vfed thereto, bicaufe of the fmoake. (Harrison, 157)

This implies that the preferred brew was not very smoky at all, as a straw fire burns with a great deal of heat, but not a lot of smoke. Based on that assumption, I chose to use 12 lbs of standard 2-row barley.

As the recipe called for wheat and oats, I purchased 2 lbs each (standard packet size) of standard malted wheat and ground oatmeal. I cannot find anyone who malts oats, so I chose the only option I could get at my local brew shop, which was oatmeal.

We determined that there are acceptable and unacceptable barleys for brewing, so you likely won't be surprised to find that acceptable and unacceptable waters. Here is Harrison's opinion on it, followed by further discussion:

In this trade also our brewers observe very diligently the nature of the water, which they daily occupy, and soil through which it passeth, for all waters are not of like goodness, sith the fattest standing water is always the best; for, although the waters that run by clalk or cledgy soils be good, and next unto the Thames water, which is the most excellent, yet the water that standeth in either of these is the best for us that dwell in the country, as whereon the sun lieth longest, and fattest fish is bred. But, of all other, the fenny and marsh is the worst, and the clearest spring water next unto it. (Harrison, 160)

"…The fattest standing water," which means the hardest water in the area. You will notice that marsh (brackish/salty) water is the worst, and the clearest spring water "next unto it."

Water is not just water. The dissolved elements and salts that make water harder or softer also affect the flavor of the water. A well-known water profile in modern England is Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. You can purchase a hardening pack at most brew shops to bring your water up to the same chemical and hardness profile as that of Burton-on-Trent, to give it a more authentic modern English flavor and mouth-feel. I used 5 gallons of tap water to which I added the hardening packet. It gives the water the feel of being very basic (high pH); it feels slippery when rubbed between your fingertips.

Hops were known in Period, as referenced in Harrison, Markham and Arnold, and are written about by Abbess Hildegard of Bingen in 1067 ("If one intends to make beer from oats, it is prepared with hops."); however, it is unknown what actual strains would have been used at the time. I chose to use Willamette, which is a crossbreed of Fuggles. Fuggles are the oldest known "named" hop I can find in any of my references, and they only date back to the mid-to-late 1800s. As Fuggles hops don't grow well in the US, I chose Willamette hops. Willamette hops are a crossbreed of Fuggles that grow well in the US, and have a very similar flavor profile. I could have purchased Fuggles online, but chose to use Willamette hops that were produced locally, to support my local brew shop.

Yeast was maintained by the monasteries around the country prior to the thirteenth century. Details are scant, but it may have been in the form of small cakes that were used both for brewing and as the Body of Christ during Communion services. At the same time, bread yeast was often available through the local baker, who was also often the brewer. A small piece of rising bread will add enough yeast to overpower any wild yeast or bacteria. It was known by the 16th century that barm was responsible for making beer ferment (Eßlinger, 12), but I can find no evidence that they knew for a fact that the barm contained a microscopic agent called yeast. We don't know if the medieval monasteries were able to single out a particular strain of yeast, but I find it highly doubtful. Modern yeast is commonly packaged in foil packets, and is cultured from a single yeast cell. We have a manufacturer's guarantee that there is only one single type of yeast in the packet (unless we are purchasing a mixture).

The speed and temperature of fermentation will determine a large part of the flavor of a beer; yeast that is outside of its proper temperature range will ferment slower and add different flavors to a beer (I have gotten banana-flavored beer from a particularly slow and warm ferment). I have been unable to find any period beer/ale recipes, which describe the resulting flavor of the end result, so I can't base my type of yeast on period references. Most brewers will choose yeast that matches the period description of the style of brew and use that in their brewing. I chose standard Wyeast-brand British ale yeast, simply because it is commonly used today for both ale and beer.

PROCESS:

There are many similarities between period and modern brewing. The main differences seem to be in cleanliness, as Markham tells us several times to stir around the grains with our hand, or to use our hand to scoop off the scum that rises during the initial fermentation. Though I am sure I could change the flavor of this beer by following those instructions, I chose to use sanitized equipment through every stage of the process.

As I have only a recipe from Richard Arnold, I had to find a different period description of brewing processes. Gervase Markham wrote a book entitled "The English Housewife," which details the appropriate methods of brewing beer in period. "A Description of Elizabethan England" by William Harrison also describes the brewing process. He also describes how to find the best water, as mentioned above. I borrowed heavily from both of these books in the brewing of this beer, substituting Arnold's ingredients. Neither Markham nor Harrison were brewers, but Markham's wife was, and was the inspiration for his book.

Markham tells us this method for mashing grain:

"Now for the brewing of ordinary beer, your malt being well ground and put in your mash vat, and your liquor in your lead ready to boil, you shall then by little and little with scoops or pails put the boiling liquor to the malt, and then stir it even to the bottom exceedingly well together (which is called mashing of the malt) then, the liquor swimming in the top, cover all over with more malt, and so let it stand an hour and more in the mash vat, during which space may if you please heat more liquor in your lead for your second and small drink; this done, pluck up your mashing strom, and let the first liquor run gently from the malt, either in a clean trough or other vessels prepared for the purpose..." (Markham, 205)

I used a very similar method: I mixed my grains together into a 5-gallon water cooler prepared for the purpose, then heated my water to the point where bubbles were beginning to form on the bottom of the pot (ready to boil, in Markham's terms), and slowly (by little and little) ladled hot water onto the grains until the grains were submerged. I then inserted a thermometer lead and capped the cooler with its lid. The initial temperature was 159F. After an hour, the final temperature was 153F. No one will ever know the precise temperature at which Markham's wife or any other brewster brewed her beer, but this should be very close. It is also a very accepted temperature range in modern brewing.

Boiling - I drained the water out of the cooler into two pots (I don't have one stockpot large enough for this purpose), which I put on to boil. I added the hops as per my redaction above just as the water reached the boiling point. I skimmed the foam which came to the surface, then let it sit at a low boil for an hour. As per Markham:

"Then your lead being emptied put your first liquor or wort therein, and then to every quarter of malt put a pound and a half of the best hops you can get, and boil them an hour together,..." (Markham, 206)

Fermenting - Markham says to strain the wort, and let it sit overnight to cool (Markham, 206). This is where I diverged for the first time. Allowing wort to sit overnight to cool is a fine method to allow contamination into your beer, even if you cover it. Instead of allowing it to sit overnight, I used a wort chiller to bring it down to an appropriate pitching temperature (below 90F). I then strained it through a grain bag to remove any last bits of grain, and the hops that were used. From experience with previous batches, I realized that since I have been leaving the hops in for the entire brewing cycle, I am introducing extra hop flavor that would not have been in a brew that was fermented after the hops were strained out. I then moved the wort to a 3-gallon carboy, pitched the yeast, and installed a stopper with an airlock. The beer sat for six weeks, primarily because I never had time to rack it.

Casking -- Markham says I should put the beer into a cask and let it age (Markham, 206). Since I now have access to a prepared cask, I have casked this batch in a 5-gallon Oak cask. My previous batches were bottled, which meant they never aged in oak. Oak adds a lot of flavor to beer, for good or for ill (some people don't like the flavors oak imparts to a beverage). Sampling earlier this week revealed a great deal of oak flavor that is blending very well with the malt and hop flavors.

Alcohol Content -- When looking at the initial amounts of sugar in the original recipe after converting it to a 3-gallon batch, I feel that the numbers listed below make sense in comparison to what I brewed. For every pound of sugar, you gain approximately .008 points of gravity (modern brewing knowledge). There are 8.25 lbs of sugars in this batch, so 8.25 x .008 = .066. That's not too far off from the numbers I measured.

Initial gravity = 1.062

Final gravity = 1.010

Alcohol by Weight = (IG – FG) * 105

ABW = (1.062-1.010) * 105

ABW = .052 * 105

ABW = 5.46

Alcohol by Volume = ABW * 1.25

ABV = 5.46 * 1.25

ABV = 6.825

ABV = 6.8

CONCLUSIONS:

The period brewing concepts involved herein were very similar to our modern techniques. As home brewers today, the primary difference besides cleanliness is the amount of beer we are able to brew. The federal government legalized home brewing in the 1970s, leaving the legal amounts brewed per year to the individual states. So far as I am aware, no state allows more than 200 gallons per adult in the household (Tennessee allows 100 gallons per adult); the original recipe resulted in 2637 gallons of beer. That sounds like a lot until you realize that all members of the household would drink from this, as would servants, guests, travelers and pretty much anyone that came through the area. Beer would be brewed in some households as many as 4 times per year, not counting a March Beer that would be aged for one year before drinking, could last for 3-4 years in the cask, and endure the drawing to the last drop. (Markham, 206-207) Other period beers were meant to be drunk within a few weeks-to-months, and would go bad if aged too long.

The second most pressing difference is the type of yeast available to us. As described above, yeasts today are pre-packaged, with hundreds of millions of yeast cells cultured from the same original cell. Period brewers had access to the barm supplies of their local monasteries, but even there, there was no guarantee of getting the same yeast strain every time.

Using modern techniques and what we know about period concepts of water, hops, grain and yeast, I have produced a beer that should be similar in style and flavor to the original recipe from Arnold. As for how it tastes, the final judgment is, as always, left to the drinker.

Cheers!

Resources

Richard Arnold, The customs of London: otherwise called Arnold's Chronicle, 2nd Edition, London, Published for “F. C. and J. Bivington; T. Payne; Wilkie and Robinson, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown; Cadell and Davies; J. Mawman; and R. H. Evans,” 1811, p. 247

William Harrison

A Description of Elizabethan England, , 1577, pp. 155-161

A Description of England in Shakspere's youth, London, N. Trubner & Co., 1881, p. 134

Gervase Markham, The English Housewife, Best, M. ed., 1986 McGill-Queen's Press. (Originally published 1615, 1623, and 1631.), pp 204-208

Rowlett, R. A Dictionary of Units of Measurement, University of North Carolina. Web. 4/22/2010 and ongoing. [http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/index.html]

Cornell, M. Befuggled: doubts about a hop’s birth, Martyn Cornell’s Zythophile, Web, 4/23/2010 [http://zythophile.wordpress.com/2009/04/02/befuggled-doubts-about-a-hops-birth/]

Zohary, D., Hopf, M., Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, 1988, 1993, 2000, Reprinted 2002, pp 59-69

William Shakespeare

Othello, Barnes & Noble, 2007, from Act II, Scene 1, Page 8

Merriam-Webster Dictionary, definition of “sparge.” Retrieved 12/3/2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sparge

Merriam-Webster Dictionary, definition of “hind.” Retrieved 12/3/2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hind

Appendix A: GLOSSARY

Airlock – A convoluted piece of small tubing with a cap that fits tightly into the rubber stopper in the carboy and prevents air from getting into the brew while it is fermenting, but allows Carbon Dioxide to escape through a liquid (generally water or vodka)

Barley – A cereal grain grown all around the world, which is used both for eating and brewing,

Barm – The foam from a fermenting beer.

Beer – An alcoholic beverage brewed from water, grain, hops and yeast.

Brewster – A female brewer.

Carboy – A large glass or plastic jug with a narrow opening in the top, used to brew mead, wine and beer.

Ferment – Technical term for the conversion of sugar to alcohol and CO2 by yeast.

Final Gravity – The specific gravity of your Must after fermentation.

Grain Bag – A cloth bag in which you can boil your grains, or through which wort can be strained.

Hops – Flowers that are used to add bitter flavor or floral odor to the finished product. Also affect mouth-feel.

Initial Gravity – The specific gravity of your Must after all ingredients are added, but before fermentation begins.

Lees – The leftover gunk at the bottom of the carboy, composed primarily from dead yeast cells.

Must – A mix of grape sugars and water which, once fermented, will become wine.

Rubber Stopper – This is a plastic or rubber device that should fit tightly into the opening on the top of the carboy. It will have a hole in the center of it to fit an airlock.

Stock Pot – This is used for boiling the must or wort.

Specific Gravity – How much your Must weighs in relation to pure water.

Strainer – A nylon bag or a wire basket on the end of a wooden or metal handle, used to strain fruits and grains out of your brew.

Wine – An alcoholic beverage brewed from grapes, water and yeast.

Wine Bottles – Used to age, store and serve mead or wine.

Wort – A mix of grain sugars that, once fermented, will become beer.

Wort Chiller -- A copper pipe bent into a cylindrical shape with an input and output hose attachment at the top. Use this to run cold water through the chiller while it is submerged in the wort and it will chill it very rapidly, greatly reducing the amount of time in which bacteria and wild yeast have a chance to infect the wort.

Yeast – Single-celled creatures that eat sugar and produce alcohol and carbon dioxide as a waste product

Appendix B: Math

10 quarters * (8 bushels / 1 quarter) = 80 bushels

80 bushels * (8 gal / 1 bushel) = 640 gallons

640 gallons * (8 lbs malt / 1 gallon) = 5120 pounds malt

10 quarters malt = 5120 pounds malt

14 total quarters of malt (10), wheat (2), oats (2)

2 quarters * 8 * 8 * 8 = 1024 pounds each, wheat and oats

5120 pounds malt + 1024 pounds wheat + 1024 pounds oats = 7168 total pounds of grain

60 barrels (36 gallons / 1 barrel) = 2160 gallons of beer

So, to make 2160 gallons of beer, use 5120 pounds malt, 1024 pounds wheat and 1024 pounds oats.

(7168 pounds grain / 2160 gallons of beer) = (x pounds grain / 5 gallons of beer)

7168 * 5 / 2160 = x pounds grain

16.6 pounds grain = 5 gallons of beer

16.5 lbs grain = 5 gallons of beer

14 parts grain to 100% of the mix means each part is 7.14% (100% / 14) of the total:

7.14% * 10 = 71.4%

7.14% * 2 = 14.28%

71.4% * 16.6 = 11.9 lbs malted barley

14.28% * 16.6 = 2.4 lbs malted barley

40 lbs hops / 2160 gallons beer = x lbs hops / 5 gallons beer

x = 40 lbs hops * 5 gallons beer / 2160 gallons beer

x = 200 lbs hops / 2160

x = 0.09259 lbs hops

x = 0.09 lbs hops * 16 ounces

x = 1.48 ounces hops

Convert that to usable numbers, and you end up with:

12 lbs malted barley

2.4 lbs malted wheat

2.4 lbs oats

1.5 ounces hops

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Copyright 2018 by William Wagers. <Wm.Brewer.OL at gmail.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in a publication, please place a notice in the publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.