Historical Beers George Washington's Small Beer

Hmmm...maybe a longer boil preciptates out more break proteins? Bran also has a lot of oil that might make the brew subject to going rancid. I've read that heat treatments can postpone/eliminate this. Maybe this is what is going on?

Really interesting. Nice job of approaching this systematically.

Just checking in on my observations. The 1 hour boil batch is still bubbling ever so slightly - so it has surpassed the "day week" timeframe of Washington's recipe twice over. It was estimated at about 6% abv, though, so that might explain the lengthier fermentation. So, I'm letting it do its thing. I don't want to bottle it while still fermenting, only to end up with weirdly carbonated small beer, or bottle bombs. The trub on the bottom is very fluffy looking.

The trub on the bottom of the 3 hour boil is not fluffy at all so far. At one week's time, it is the thickness of the trub of the 1 hour boil that has been fermenting for 2 weeks (just not fluffy). I'm rather surprised how much has fallen out of suspension in so little time! The color is now nearly identical to the 1 hour boil batch. The fermentation is slowing quite a bit, and at day 4 in the fermenter, I think it will actually wrap up here in the next few days. The bubbles are getting smaller and the krausen is receding.

Based strictly on the progression of fermentation, something different is certainly going on between these two batches. Whatever that "fluff" is, it seems to have been broken down by the 3 hour boil.

stonecutter2 said:

Based strictly on the progression of fermentation, something different is certainly going on between these two batches. Whatever that "fluff" is, it seems to have been broken down by the 3 hour boil.

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Can you post any pictures of the fermenters? I'm really curious. This sounds really interesting.

Thunder_Chicken said:

Can you post any pictures of the fermenters? I'm really curious. This sounds really interesting.

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Snapped some pics last night, so they're on my phone. I'll post them up tonight when i get home.

The 1 hour boil batch has finally stopped bubbling. So, I intend to bottle tonight. The 3 hour boil batch has slowed to very tiny bubbles, I think it'll be ready for bottling within the week timeframe GW stated.

All righty, got the 1 hour boil batch bottled (and for an experiment, I put a fizz drop in 2 bottles just to see how it is!)

Here's the 1 hour boil:


And the 3 hour boil:


See how different the trub is? The 1 hour looks very yellow and fluffy. The 3 hour boil looks like other ales I've brewed.

Tasting Notes:

Really had no idea what to expect with this one.

First sip impression - slightly fruity (interesting?), hint of spice, and a little starchy. The fruit taste is almost grape-like. Body is somewhat full. Not a dramatically bitter brew, this is relatively balanced fresh out of the fermenter. Reminds me very much of a hefeweizen but sweeter.

Aroma: wheat and yeast, a hint of hops.

OG = 1.047
FG = 1.003
ABV = 5.78%, not a "small beer" but it has a bit of a punch!

This turned out to be a pretty tasty beer, actually! But not a "small beer." I have a feeling the 3 hour boil might represent the style a little closer.

I am definitely happy with how this turned out. Looking forward to trying it as it develops. Can't wait to see how the carbonated bottles come out either!

Sounds really good. It's surprising how that starchy wheat bran brew wants to finish dry. I'm curious to see if your brew clears.

I noticed that hop bittering was not very noticeable when the beer was warm (~ room temperature) but really was noticeable when chilled.

Had a chilled bottle tonight, the bittering was more noticeable but still balanced by my 10 minute addition. I'm liking the sweet aspect of this brew so far. I think the Liberty hops work very well in this recipe.

The bottles are clearing slowly, too!

The bittering is definitely more noticeable when chilled. The bitterness in my first attempt with Magnum served at refrigerator temperatures almost knocked me down.

Back in the day the beer was probably drunk at a cool cellar temp, not necessarily ice cold. Even if it came out of the ice house it had to get hauled across the yard, etc.. so probably didn't make it to the cup ice cold. The slight bit of warmth brings the sweetness out.

I've been flat out at work and haven't been able to brew, but I am hoping to this weekend. I hope to try a gallon batch of this again in the next few weeks.

Bottled the 3 hour batch this morning. It finished at 1.003, yielding 4.07% ABV - perfect!

This brew is very well balanced. Very easy to drink, light wheat flavor with a good hint of hops that is well balanced between bitter and flavor/aroma! Less pronounced "fruity" dryness, and not nearly as starchy.

I would definitely prefer the 3 hour boil to the 1 hour, but 1 hour is "good enough" to taste this interesting piece of history from George Washington!

One nice side effect of the 3 hour boil is less of that fluffy trub in the fermenter and bottle.

After a few weeks in the bottle, the 3 hour boil is bitter. Not overly bitter, but bitter. The 1 hour boil version is smooth and easy drinking, with fruity hops flavor lightly up front. The longer boil probably broke down proteins and released more bittering in the hops. I bet upping the aroma/flavor hops would make an interesting brew.

However, the 1 hour boil now seems the better choice. Faster brewing, better hop utilization, roughly equal results.

For the 1 hour boil version, a racking to secondary would help all that trub. Both versions ended up with gelatin like sediment in the bottle, racking would eliminate some of that. Also, none of my bottles have cleared, only the first 1/2 inch or so.

In colonial times, a small beer was made from the mostly spent grains used to make other beers. To extract the remaining sugars, I imagine a three hour boil was necessary.

Mindsculptor said:

In colonial times, a small beer was made from the mostly spent grains used to make other beers. To extract the remaining sugars, I imagine a three hour boil was necessary.

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Yes, that was a form of small beer. But not all small beer was made from second runnings. A small beer was also a beer with low alcohol content. It was used as a means of drinking something cleaner than the water available at the time, which wasn't treated. "Other beers" back then were festival beers or strong ales, more expensive to make and brewed less often. I'm sure the small beers from those spent grains were good, but I think George Washington's recipe reflects a "household small beer" for the purpose of drinking something clean and to serve with food.

The purpose of the 3 hour boil is debatable. Might have been overkill, or the result of experiments that deemed 3 hours being necessary. Or to extract more sugars. In the end, from my experience, all it does is break down some of the trub in the fermenter and increase the bitterness of the brew.

George Washington's recipe states "Take a large sifter full of Bran" and doesn't mention spent grains, or any previous brew that was made. Bran was really cheap and easily attainable in colonial America, as was molasses.

This recipe really represents the spirit of colonial America - practicality, ingenuity, and self reliance. Oh, and not paying taxes on imported ingredients from England

That 3 hr boil does have me curious. There must something to it. George is pretty specific about it - not 1 hr, 2 hr, but 3 hr.

Right now I think we know just about as much as George did about WHY a 3 hr boil does what it does. I'm really curious about what sort of starch breakdown occurs. It's actually probably something that would also affect "conventional" barley-based beer brewing.

I also wonder how this ferment would appeal to a small Brettanomyces influence. Brett would probably take the gravity down to 1.000 or lower and would clear and thin the beer. Given time I'd imagine that a stored beer would likely get a Brett. second fermentation of the harder starches.

I am finding trouble finding the wheat bran and golden syrup. Can something else be used? Maybe just molasses?

jcomeau said:

I am finding trouble finding the wheat bran and golden syrup. Can something else be used? Maybe just molasses?

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You can ferment straight molasses, but it isn't to this recipe. The dark molasses found in most stores is very strongly flavored and won't produce a similar beer.

jcomeau said:

I am finding trouble finding the wheat bran and golden syrup. Can something else be used? Maybe just molasses?

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Wheat bran can be found in some grocery stores under the Red Mill name, usually in the baking section by flour and sugar. You could also look at any upscale/organic grocery markets (we have one called The Fresh Market that sells it in bulk for $0.99 for 1/2lb).

If you can't find Lyle's golden syrup, corn syrup would be a similar thing. Any grocery store will have corn syrup.

I also found Lyle's golden syrup at The Fresh Market for 2/$7.00 - so I bought 2. You can buy off of Amazon.com or something, too.

If you just use molasses, not including the wheat bran, I don't know what the result would be like. There are other colonial era recipes that only describe water, hops, and molasses, so it can be done no doubt. It just won't taste similar to how the George Washington recipe intends.

Definitely do not use the robust molasses...use original molasses. The lighter, the better, to avoid a funky taste.

Thunder_Chicken said:

That 3 hr boil does have me curious. There must something to it. George is pretty specific about it - not 1 hr, 2 hr, but 3 hr.

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I am not sure as to the real purpose of the 3hr boil but G. Wash. seems to stick to this time for all of his beers that have been published such as this one:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/george-washingtons-porter-243902/

A 3hr boil may be able to break down some of the proteins better but let's keep in mind that back in his time, they really didn't fully understand the life safety technique that is boiling water. They knew that beer was safer to drink than the city water but they didn't really know why. The 3hrs could be just a habit formed by ensuring the water was really safe to drink. It could be a brewing trick too but I would need to look into it further to know for sure.

WissaBrewGuy said:

I am not sure as to the real purpose of the 3hr boil but G. Wash. seems to stick to this time for all of his beers that have been published such as this one:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/george-washingtons-porter-243902/

A 3hr boil may be able to break down some of the proteins better but let's keep in mind that back in his time, they really didn't fully understand the life safety technique that is boiling water. They knew that beer was safer to drink than the city water but they didn't really know why. The 3hrs could be just a habit formed by ensuring the water was really safe to drink. It could be a brewing trick too but I would need to look into it further to know for sure.

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That link to his porter recipe is the same recipe being discussed here I guess they figured it was a porter because they used molasses in the modern sense of the term, rather than the first runnings of molasses more commonly used in Washington's time (which is closer to corn syrup or golden syrup these days).

So, I poured a glass of my 3 hour batch the other day. WOW. It was good. No longer overly bitter, it had mellowed into something pretty tasty! Really easy drinking. It had also cleared more, so it looked a bit less like pineapple juice and more like a hefeweizen.

My 1 hour batch still presents a very drinkable, pleasant beer that's distinctly "different" than something you'd drink today, showcasing the hop bitterness/flavor/aroma of the Liberty hops I used (which is kind of a citrusy grapefruit to me). A couple guys who tried it over the holidays declared it "different, but definitely good."

The characteristics of my 1 hour boil batch have not changed, and I was really surprised at how the 3 hour boil had matured.

Also, the bottles all have a sort of gelatinous settled material in them, which has now started to break down into particles. If some end up in the glass, they settle to the bottom very quickly between sips.

I think letting this small beer bulk age could yield something very good. That is, if you're doing a 3 hour boil. With the 1 hour boil, I think this beer is as good fresh as it is aged.

stonecutter2 said:

That link to his porter recipe is the same recipe being discussed here I guess they figured it was a porter because they used molasses in the modern sense of the term, rather than the first runnings of molasses more commonly used in Washington's time (which is closer to corn syrup or golden syrup these days).

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So it is! My bad. I'm glad your brew came out tasty! 3hrs it is!

I plan on doing another batch of this beer shortly, this time with either Cluster hops or East Kent Goldings. Heck I might try one batch of each.

I will be doing the 3 hour boil again, not the 1 hour boil. I can't explain how good that 3 hour batch was after a few months of bottle conditioning. It was a really easy drinking, enjoyable beer! The 1 hour batch never matured like the 3 hour batch, so there IS something to doing a long boil like that.

I do intend on letting this bulk age in secondary for a couple of months, though, which deviates from Gen. Washington's recipe to bottle shortly after fermentation. I want to let it stay in the fermenter longer because there was way too much trub in the bottom of my bottles for my liking. I also think something regarding the 3 hour boil + time allowed the beer to mature into something very tasty, and that will happen whether in individual bottles or in a secondary.

stonecutter2 said:

I will be doing the 3 hour boil again, not the 1 hour boil. I can't explain how good that 3 hour batch was after a few months of bottle conditioning. It was a really easy drinking, enjoyable beer! The 1 hour batch never matured like the 3 hour batch, so there IS something to doing a long boil like that.

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This is really useful information. I wonder if there is some thermal breakdown of starches going on in that long boil.

I really need to give this another go as my first recipe was way off. I'll update the original recipe post with your notes as you have put a lot more effort into developing this recipe.

Ok, now I'm curious. do either of you guy's think this beer would be better if it were carbed?

Kirkwooder said:

Ok, now I'm curious. do either of you guy's think this beer would be better if it were carbed?

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I still have 1 bottle from my 1 hour boil batch that has a NB Fizz Drop in it, actually. I'm going to crack that and see what it's like.

So here's the thing I thought about, though. If given enough time to have the trub settle out, then yeah I think the 3 hour boil version would be pretty good carbed up. It became a mellow, drinkable brew with great subtle flavors.

The problem with carbing it, that I see, is that the trub likes to form a sort of gelatinous blob in the bottom of the bottle, and if you carb this beer then that stuff's going to get all mixed up into the beer when you pop the top. That's what happened with my last bottle that had a Fizz Drop in it.

Washington says to "bottle it that day week it was brewed" and I assume he mistakenly wrote day when he meant week. I find no reference to a "day week" so it's not some old colonial term as best I can figure.

I honestly don't know if the recipe hints at carbonation, because Washington says to bottle it so early...my fermentation was never complete until well after a week in the fermenter (was actually more like 2 weeks). At 7 days in primary, mine was still bubbling - so it's quite possible that some light carbonation would result from bottling so early.

I just think the trub thing is weird. And with bubbles it might get gross.

My plan for my next batch is:

Do a protein rest - 20 minutes at 110F. Washington doesn't say to do it, and I have no idea if it will do anything with wheat bran, but I want to see if it helps with the trub blobs in the bottle.

3 hour boil

Leave in primary for 1-2 months (unless obvious that the blob of trub has now been resolved).

Carbonate 1/2 of the bottles, leave other 1/2 still. Compare the two after a couple of weeks.

I'm still hoping to get a "great!" version of this ready for the 4th of July this year.

I stumbled across this reference that has some interesting text:


The London and Country Brewer, by Anonymous (1736)

In CHAP. IX. The Country or private way of Brewing:

I will suppose a private Family to Brew five Bushels of Malt, whose Copper holds brim-full thirty six Gallons or a Barrel: On this water we put half a Peck of Bran or Malt when it is something hot, which will much forward it by keep in the Steams or Spirit of the water, and when it begins to Boil, if the water is foul, skim off the Bran or Malt and give it the Hogs

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These are the only two uses of the word "bran" in the entire document, and there is no clear distinction made between Bran and Malt, even in the section describing grain processing.

Also, if we take bran in the modern sense, nothing in Washington's recipe specifically refers to wheat bran. Other cereal crops produce bran, including corn. Washington grew both wheat and corn at Mt. Vernon. Washington also got into distilling whiskey, using rye, corn and small amounts of malted barley.

I am wondering a couple things now:

1. Did "bran" possibly indicate "malt"? Malted grains were expensive, but perhaps the idea of this beer was to stretch a relatively small amount of expensive malt using molasses? Also, maybe it was possible to kiln small amounts of sprouted grains locally, without need to purchase from a maltster?
   
2. If "bran" in Washington's recipe meant bran in the original sense, the bran of a cereal grain, was the grain necessarily wheat? Could it have been corn? Degerminated corn grits, bran, or meal (all the same, just varying the milling) is commonly used in brewing even today, and corn meal was a part of the grist of Washington's whiskey recipe. This might produce a much nicer, milder beer as boiling corn grits doesn't involve boiling a tannin-laden husk. Wheat bran was actually used as a source of tannins to tan leather.

I think corn grits might be an interesting experiment in place of wheat bran. Corn grit and molasses beer?

I can't imagine that malted barley would have been difficult to come by in 1776 Philly. By that time there were dozens of breweries in Philly, and surely there must have been malt houses as well. Even if the malt was not available comercially, Washington had a huge estate with his own brewhouse. I would imagine that his "staff" would most likely raise the needed barley, and malt it in house. After all, malt is a key ingredient in Rye wiskey. If he was distilling wiskey he must have had access to malted barley.

Furthermore, if he was refering to barley as "bran", the barley would have to have been crushed/milled to be able to go through the sifter.

Not any different than we do today, inculding the addition of inexpensive adjuncs, in the form of mollasses. lol Just like BMC!

Well, I have a freezer full of Willamette and Fuggles from the garden, a packet of notty, and an empty 1 gallon fermenter. I'll have to see if I can find the bran and golden suryp, and maybe give this a try tomarrow! I'll keep you posted!

Distilleries.horked up most of the barley in colonial days, which was a much, much, much bigger industry until the German immigration. There was a lot of molasses, corn and wheat used in beer then.

Ok, my boil is under way. I have started with 2.5 gallons fresh well water, 1-10oz. package of wheat bran, and 1/2 oz. of my home grown, whole leaf Willamette hops.

I first started with 1/4 oz. of the willamette's, but I could not get even the slightest bit of hop aroma from the boil. So, I added an additional 1/4 oz, and now have a precievable hop aroma when standing right over the boiling kettle. It is not very pronounced, but still there!

I plan on adding in another 1/4 - 1/2 oz. hopps at flame out.

I believe that I will bring the gravity of this wort up to around 1.035- 1.040. I plan on testing the gravity of the wort and then adding a light brown sugar suryp to achieve a S.G. in the 1.035 area. I am shooting for a beer with a 4.5% abv when finished.

I believe that this is as close to the "mollassas" George had as I can find localy, and I've used it several times to boost the frementables in some of my ciders with good results. I'll add a tablespoon of the mollasses that we have today just for some flavor/authentisity.

Any thoughts?

My wort came out at 1.010 S.G.. It tasted bitter, but not bad. 1/2 oz. of Willamette might be a little strong. :cross: I added my sugar and ended up with 1.036, so I'm expecting it to be around 4%, which should be acceptable for a "small beer". I strained the wort through a muslin hop bag into my mister beer LBK. It looks very cloudy as others have said.
I pitched about half a packet of Notty and put the LBK in the closet to frement.

I decided to use the LBK because it is more in line with the open casks that Geo would have been using at Mt. Vernon.

I've also been giving some thought to bottling this on day 8. That is if the gravity is close to where it should be so that I don't get bottle bombs. Is there any way to calculate that #? I wondered if that is what would have been done in the day, and if done that way, would it be somewhat carbed?

The ferment is usually good and done by day 8, no real residual sugar to prime and carbonate. And back in the day these would have been bottled and corked like wine. In-bottle fermentation was probably not attempted as the fermentation process was poorly understood and bottle strength was less consistent. Bottle bombs were a concern back then. The beer back then was probably as flat as tap water.

It only takes a few points of gravity to carbonate. As 1) the resolution of your hydrometer is probably +/- 1 point or more, and 2) you really don't know when the yeast will finish attenuating, it is extremely easy to make bottle bombs by trying this. Far safer to ferment to dryness and then put a controlled amount of sugar.

It's *really* easy to overdo hops. Hopefully with Willamette it will be OK. When you drink this, have it a cellar temp. If you serve it ice cold all you will taste will be bitterness. It needs a little warmth so the bran and molasses can come to play.

The smell really threw me at first. It smelled like cooking grits or oatmeal, and nothing like any other beer I have ever made. I added more bittering hop because I couldn't smell even the slightest hop aroma. I should have just left it alone, although I think I might have been left wanting a bit more bittering if I had. I'll let you know.

This has been a very fun brew to attempt. I'm sure it will be drinkable, and may even be enjoyable. And with just a couple bucks into making it, and ending up with just a gallon when done, I can see tweeking it to taste!

Thunder_Chicken said:

I stumbled across this reference that has some interesting text:


The London and Country Brewer, by Anonymous (1736)

In CHAP. IX. The Country or private way of Brewing:



These are the only two uses of the word "bran" in the entire document, and there is no clear distinction made between Bran and Malt, even in the section describing grain processing.

Also, if we take bran in the modern sense, nothing in Washington's recipe specifically refers to wheat bran. Other cereal crops produce bran, including corn. Washington grew both wheat and corn at Mt. Vernon. Washington also got into distilling whiskey, using rye, corn and small amounts of malted barley.

I am wondering a couple things now:

1. Did "bran" possibly indicate "malt"? Malted grains were expensive, but perhaps the idea of this beer was to stretch a relatively small amount of expensive malt using molasses? Also, maybe it was possible to kiln small amounts of sprouted grains locally, without need to purchase from a maltster?
   
2. If "bran" in Washington's recipe meant bran in the original sense, the bran of a cereal grain, was the grain necessarily wheat? Could it have been corn? Degerminated corn grits, bran, or meal (all the same, just varying the milling) is commonly used in brewing even today, and corn meal was a part of the grist of Washington's whiskey recipe. This might produce a much nicer, milder beer as boiling corn grits doesn't involve boiling a tannin-laden husk. Wheat bran was actually used as a source of tannins to tan leather.

I think corn grits might be an interesting experiment in place of wheat bran. Corn grit and molasses beer?

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I actually just so happened to have that document open in another tab. The preceding sentence says an assumption is made that the regular family does indeed have malt on hand, but at the same time, I feel as though there is a differentiation made with the specific choice of the word "OR" between bran and malt. Considering the author had JUST been talking about the availability of malt, it is safe to assume that the terminology was well accepted, and if the intention was to rectify regional dialects using "Bran" in reference to "Malt", it would have happened a whole lot earlier in the document, rather than in the very middle, when readers accustomed to "Bran" would have been thoroughly confused for chapters.

In short, I feel it's safe to assume Bran doesn't reference malt if we're looking to see if this was a common word choice Washington may have made. Also, the fact that this is one of the few examples where this is ambiguous (that I know of?), indicates that Washington would have likely specified *malt*, as other texts of the era do. But, then again, I'm a total noob and not a historian, so take it with a grain of salt.

brandonman said:

I actually just so happened to have that document open in another tab. The preceding sentence says an assumption is made that the regular family does indeed have malt on hand, but at the same time, I feel as though there is a differentiation made with the specific choice of the word "OR" between bran and malt. Considering the author had JUST been talking about the availability of malt, it is safe to assume that the terminology was well accepted, and if the intention was to rectify regional dialects using "Bran" in reference to "Malt", it would have happened a whole lot earlier in the document, rather than in the very middle, when readers accustomed to "Bran" would have been thoroughly confused for chapters.

In short, I feel it's safe to assume Bran doesn't reference malt if we're looking to see if this was a common word choice Washington may have made. Also, the fact that this is one of the few examples where this is ambiguous (that I know of?), indicates that Washington would have likely specified *malt*, as other texts of the era do. But, then again, I'm a total noob and not a historian, so take it with a grain of salt.

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Yeah, I am leaning the same way, that "bran" does not equal "malt". They didn't seem too choosy about there grist bill back in the day.

I am still wondering about corn bran vs. wheat bran. He had access to both.

Thunder_Chicken said:

Yeah, I am leaning the same way, that "bran" does not equal "malt". They didn't seem too choosy about there grist bill back in the day.

I am still wondering about corn bran vs. wheat bran. He had access to both.

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As a total newbie who started off playing with mead and is doing beer from kits, the only yeast I have on hand is Fleischman's and Lalvin V11116, otherwise I would try to get a jump on this and do a side by side this week

Probably also doesn't help that my only proper airlock is tied up with a 5 gallon batch I just started at the moment so I would be using the ol' balloon and pinprick trick.

Also, would you do anything different to scale down to a half gallon besides a halving of everything? I have been buying my milk in half gallon glass jugs lately specifically for mead and various fermentation experiments, so these would be most convenient.

The thing that impressed me most about brewing this beer with wheat bran, was the very minor amount of measurable sugars imparted to the wort by the bran. After the 3 hour boil my pre "molassas" wort only had a S.G. of 1.010. It leaves me wondering if any of the gravity supplied by the bran will ferment, or if it is mostly unfermentable sugars.

Thunder_Chicken said:

Yeah, I am leaning the same way, that "bran" does not equal "malt". They didn't seem too choosy about there grist bill back in the day.

I am still wondering about corn bran vs. wheat bran. He had access to both.

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I'm probably going to make an oat bran version, just for fun.

And yeah, corn bran would be interesting to try, too!

I also wondered what kind of bran he was really referring to. Because when I went to the store and found bulk grains, there were varieties of bran and I thought "Why wheat bran, maybe it was another bran?"

brandonman said:

As a total newbie who started off playing with mead and is doing beer from kits, the only yeast I have on hand is Fleischman's and Lalvin V11116, otherwise I would try to get a jump on this and do a side by side this week

Probably also doesn't help that my only proper airlock is tied up with a 5 gallon batch I just started at the moment so I would be using the ol' balloon and pinprick trick.

Also, would you do anything different to scale down to a half gallon besides a halving of everything? I have been buying my milk in half gallon glass jugs lately specifically for mead and various fermentation experiments, so these would be most convenient.

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Actually, Fleischman's is probably closer to whatever was used back then, maybe just some bread yeast they had made starters with. I wouldn't hesitate to try Fleischman's.

Also there's nothing wrong with the balloon and pinprick trick, from GW's recipe is sounds like he open ferments it at a point.

For 1/2 half gallon, yeah I'd just split the ingredients in half. 3.5g of hops instead of 1/4oz.

I made another batch yesterday.

This time, I did a protein rest of 15min at 115F. I put the wheat bran in 3 cups of water. Kind of a mini mash. Then while resting, I heated the rest of my water up. It hit about 120 by the time my rest was done, so I just dumped the bran and mash water into the kettle.

My OG was 1.042 this time. I suspect this was because I didn't manage the burner heat well enough, and was probably about 1/2 quart short of 1 gallon. No biggie, a little more ABV is just fine by me

With the protein rest, I'm mainly trying to cut down on the amount of fluffy trub that collects with this beer (the gel like stuff on the bottom of the bottle). This 1 gallon batch will see an extended secondary rest (actually just sitting in the primary), for about 1 month.

stonecutter2 said:

Actually, Fleischman's is probably closer to whatever was used back then, maybe just some bread yeast they had made starters with. I wouldn't hesitate to try Fleischman's.

Also there's nothing wrong with the balloon and pinprick trick, from GW's recipe is sounds like he open ferments it at a point.

For 1/2 half gallon, yeah I'd just split the ingredients in half. 3.5g of hops instead of 1/4oz.

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I might actually be able to make a LHBS run Thursday (I wasn't even thinking, I need to get hops!) Regardless, I think I may do my run (I guess this weekend) as a Fleischman's versus Ale Yeast side by side. Who knows, maybe the Fleischman's could do something weird that the breadier yeasts of the time did to alter the flavor balance a lot in the positive direction and make it more like what the General was drinking! :rockin: