Recipe Conversion, From "Archaic" to Modern

So I have this old book from England called Homebrewing Without Failures, by H. E. Bravery. It was originally published in the fifties or sixties, I think, and it used to be my grandfather's book. I want to brew a recipe out of it in tribute to him, but the recipes are way primitive by today's standards. For examples, he calls for several pounds of demerara sugar in every recipe, and he never specifies any hop variety, he just says "hops".

Anyways, the recipe I've chosen is for a "pale bitter", and it is a little different. I could use the help of the fine minds here in converting this recipe to modern ingredients. Here is the recipe exactly as it is in the book. Note that the recipe is actually for TWO gallons. Any help will certainly be greatly appreciated.




Pale Bitter


2.5 lb. Light DME
2 lb. Demerara or other brown sugar

4 oz. hops

2 pints strong freshly made tea

level teaspoonful citric acid
level teaspoonful salt

yeast
nutrient


Use four teaspoonfuls of tea and allow to stand for five minutes.* Boil hops and salt in about a quart of water for about fifteen minutes. Take out bag, squeeze when cool enough and pour hop-water into fermenting vessel. Add strained tea, malt, sugar, and citric acid and make up to two gallons with boiling water. Stir well to insure that malt and sugar are dissolved, and allow to cool to 65^-70^ F. Then add yeast and nutrient. Cover as directed, and leave to ferment in a warm place for seven or eight days. If using a hydrometer, take readings after six days until 1.005 is recorded, and then bottle. If a hydrometer is not in use, allow fermentation to go until the beer goes 'flat', then prime- add sugar to recommence fermentation as directed- then bottle. If draught beer of this sort is required, merely allow fermentation to go on until flat, and then bottle.





*I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to mean.

Demerara sugar is the same thing as raw cane sugar. It just isn't as refined as table sugar. A light brown sugar would do just as well.

So, they don't make tea on Mars? Sounds like you need to boil two pints of water, add 4 teaspoonsful of loose tea and steep for 5 minutes.

Hops - Use a low alpha hops like East Kent or Fuggles.

Yeast? Muntons or Coopers

Can't be any worse than the Hopwine I have fermenting in the back corner.

cool idea - i'd like to brew something historical.

poor richard's ale, or maybe a historical mead recipe

Ok, you forced me to do it....


...pull out the Gruit card...


I may start another thread on this historical brew.

:cross:

Well, what I'm looking for is how much malt to substitute for the sugar. I don't really want to use that much table sugar, or indeed any at all.

Also, what about the hopping schedule? I'm not going to follow the process spelled out in the recipe, I don't think he would've been getting full utilization from his hops that way.

And, I want to do a five gallon batch, not two. Which brings to mind the question of amount, certainly eight ounces of hops, five pounds DME and four of sugar would seem a bit high for a five gallon batch.

And with the tea, would I really want to use four pints?

I'd go with seven pounds of DME, a pound of brown sugar, three ounces of hops, half at 60 minutes and split the rest at 30 and 5. A longer boil will get more out of the hops.

The tea is a tough one. It is obviously a major flavor in this brew, but I would use two pints now and decide when you rack it about adding more. It will add an astringency that most people will not like.

david_42 said:

I'd go with seven pounds of DME, a pound of brown sugar, three ounces of hops, half at 60 minutes and split the rest at 30 and 5. A longer boil will get more out of the hops.

The tea is a tough one. It is obviously a major flavor in this brew, but I would use two pints now and decide when you rack it about adding more. It will add an astringency that most people will not like.

Click to expand...

Sounds good, thanks for the advice.


Hopwine, eh? Sounds interesting. I do love the hops... What is that anyways, a super-hopped barleywine?

No, it's a hopwine. Hops, ginger, raisins, sugar. The recipe is in one of my posts. I think Cheesefood ran across it first. Haven't tried it yet. The recipe said to let it ferment for nine months.

david_42 said:

I think Cheesefood ran across it first.

Click to expand...

Ahem david.....

In the days when that recipe was devised, homebrewers really knew very little about what made a good beer, and did not have access to such luxuries as fresh named hops The hops that you could get then were unnamed, and usually very stale. I suspect the tea was intended to add some color, and also bitterness which would be lacking using stale hops.

I would definitely leave out the citric acid and salt

The thing that puzzles me is the total lack of crystal malt. Perhaps it was not available then, but it is definitely required for a bitter.

I would suggest 5# DME, 1# crystal (about 50 L), and 1# "Sugar in the Raw" (which is about the same color and flavor as demerara).

For hops, I'd use 2 oz Fuggles at 60 min, 1 oz of Fuggles or EKG at 30 min, and 1 oz EKG at 5 min. (Actually, I'd use more hops than that, but you probably wouldn't like my hopping rate)

Hope this helps.

-a.

I have a suggestion as well, though it is perhaps born of laziness:

Embrace the gleeful ignorance that our pioneering HomeBrewing Forefathers labored under, and do honor to your ancestor by brewing the recipe as stated. It may taste awful, but then again, you will only have 2 gallons to worry about.

Then, yes, you can make 5 gals of a modern version. But at least have some of the old kind on hand. Drink it, and bond with your family.

Yeah I have to agree with P Funk...if you are making the recipe as a tribute...then why not just go with the original.

agreed - using modern equivalents is one thing, but changing the recipe so that it comes out "better" diminishes the idea of it as a tribute.

brew away, and let's see how it turns out!