So, homebrewing has come a long way over the last 50 years

So my dad used to homebrew back in the day, and now that I've started he's pulled out his old books, and even his notebook. All the books were published in the 70s, and it's no wonder all the horror stories people have often lead to no issues with their beer... It was pretty much par for the course back then.

All the books talk of using a plastic dustbin (or metal of that's all you have) for your primary... And yes, by dustbin, it's just a small garbage can with a normal lid on it. You'd rouse your yeast daily by stirring it, and you'd skim the krausen twice or three times daily, and take a gravity daily as well. I had to go through 4 books before finding out why they were skimming the krausen... Had to do with preventing it (and all the dead yeast in there) from falling back into the beer and causing it to be overly bitter.

Pitching at 80 or so was recommended, to get "a quick start", and you'd then let the temp drop by itself. Two books mentioned that breweries would pitch cold and let temps come up, but said it was too much of a hassle for the home brewer, and because of our scale, they wouldn't heat up anyway, but cool down over time.

Secondaries were obviously recommended, (proper ones with air locks even), but several books talked of using 5, 1-gallon glass containers as secondaries (though that might have been what was more readily available, and leads to more options of experimenting I guess). One book even gave you the option of racking your beer after 8 hours, or when your krausen was high for the first time, and putting it into anther fermentation vessel, then going to your secondary 5-6 days after that. The explanation was one sentence long, and involved getting it away from the dead yeast in the krausen I believe.

Oddly enough, despite taking daily gravity readings, the time to bottle is always listed in days, with recipes always listing a FG range.

All-grain is mentioned in the books, but several of them say it's too complicated to ever want to bother with. They all give recipes for extract as well, and in every one of them, sugar makes up 40-50% of the recipe, with dry malt extract being the rest in most, though some do recommend unhooked liquid ones.

I wonder if the focus on racking away from the krausen and dead yeast was more about incorrectly attributing the sources of off flavors, or if the yeast strains available to homebrewers at the time were inferior.

drainbamage said:

I wonder if the focus on racking away from the krausen and dead yeast was more about incorrectly attributing the sources of off flavors, or if the yeast strains available to homebrewers at the time were inferior.

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Actually, that did occur to me. There was little talk of actual yeast strains, just ale or lager yeast. There was no mention of dry or liquid options, so I don't know what they were using. They all talked of fermentation taking off very quickly though (krausen within 8 hours), not sure if it was from the higher temps or not, but im guessing they weren't under pitching with such fast starts?

One recommended source was also from commercial beers. One book talked about three brands where you could get your yeast from, as they had bottle conditioned their beer (including Guinness extra stout), and how to make a starter from it.

I've heard a few interviews with Charlie Papazian and others who said dry yeast was all that was available at the time. I've also read, but don't recall where, that the purity of dry yeast has dramatically improved over the years.

I think my favorite statement about homebrewing in the seventies was from the guy who said it was about three years before he realized hops aren't normally brown.

I'd imagine dry yeast was all that was available, unless you cultured some from a bottle as mentioned. Using a lot of table sugar would probably lead to the fermentations taking off so quickly.

Oh man. I'm going to home depot to get a big trash can. I'm gonna start doing 30-gallon batches!

You're holding a little piece of American history. I think it's cool that people were brewing way back then; you know with all the misinformation I wonder if people thought they were risking their life making beer? I was watching the TV program "How Beer saved the world" or something like that. They said in the 1920's you could order concentrated grape juice and on the box it said not to add yeast.

Shred said:

Oh man. I'm going to home depot to get a big trash can. I'm gonna start doing 30-gallon batches!

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You'll need a bathtub for a mash tun too!!!

alane1 said:

You'll need a bathtub for a mash tun too!!!

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Yes! And I'll sanitize it all with dawn dish soap.

Seems legit.

Shred said:

Yes! And I'll sanitize it all with dawn dish soap.

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This stuff works better

Kinda makes you wonder how silly some of our current practices are going to look in a few years. The rules are still constantly changing. We've got debates over almost every step in the process (racking to secondary, yeast nutrients, oxidation, sanitization...).

I just read "Homebrewing without Failures" by H.E. Bravery, I suspect it's one of the books the OP has. Here's his "Grain Malt" stout recipe:


For 4 gallons:

2# Black Patent
2# Crystal
1# Black Treacle (molasses)
3# white sugar
4 oz hops (no variety)
1 tsp salt
1 oz citric acid
yeast
nutrient


Mash for EIGHT HOURS at 145-150 degrees. (He recommends an aquarium heater to maintain temp)
Strain into pot, add 2 oz of hops and salt. Boil ten minutes then simmer for forty. Add remaining hops and boil ten minutes. Put the remaining ingredients into your dustbin and strain your mash into it. Top up to 4 gallons with hot water.Pitch yeast at 65-70 degrees and keep in warm place for 5-6 days. Bottle at 1.005 (this is allowing enough sugar for priming!)

It's horrible, but I'm a little tempted to make a gallon or even a half a gallon just for giggles.

It's no wonder people (especially older) have weird concepts about homebrewing, this stuff must have tasted rank!!!

Shred said:

Oh man. I'm going to home depot to get a big trash can. I'm gonna start doing 30-gallon batches!

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You laugh, but morebeer sells a 20-gallon "wine fermenter" that is just a food-grade white plastic trash can. When I and my brother-in-law were doing 15-gallon batches (2009-10), that was our fermenter. We kept it in a temp-controlled fridge, and it worked fine...

...except for the one batch that was attacked by fruit flies and got infected. That one wasn't so good. Damn fruit flies!

bwarbiany said:

You laugh, but morebeer sells a 20-gallon "wine fermenter" that is just a food-grade white plastic trash can. When I and my brother-in-law were doing 15-gallon batches (2009-10), that was our fermenter. We kept it in a temp-controlled fridge, and it worked fine...

...except for the one batch that was attacked by fruit flies and got infected. That one wasn't so good. Damn fruit flies!

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Temp-control? I was just going to leave it out on the driveway.

Sounds a lot like Ken Shales' "Advanced Home Brewing" from 1977. (For 60p). Got it with a bunch of old bottles and supplies at an estate auction, and like mentioned above is pretty cool from a historical perspective.

freebeertomorrow said:

I just read "Homebrewing without Failures" by H.E. Bravery, I suspect it's one of the books the OP has. Here's his "Grain Malt" stout recipe:

For 4 gallons:

2# Black Patent
2# Crystal
1# Black Treacle (molasses)
3# white sugar
4 oz hops (no variety)
1 tsp salt
1 oz citric acid
yeast
nutrient

Mash for EIGHT HOURS at 145-150 degrees. (He recommends an aquarium heater to maintain temp)
Strain into pot, add 2 oz of hops and salt. Boil ten minutes then simmer for forty. Add remaining hops and boil ten minutes. Put the remaining ingredients into your dustbin and strain your mash into it. Top up to 4 gallons with hot water.Pitch yeast at 65-70 degrees and keep in warm place for 5-6 days. Bottle at 1.005 (this is allowing enough sugar for priming!)

It's horrible, but I'm a little tempted to make a gallon or even a half a gallon just for giggles.

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Omfg. I think I just found a boatswain IPA clone.

stevo4361 said:

Sounds a lot like Ken Shales' "Advanced Home Brewing" from 1977. (For 60p). Got it with a bunch of old bottles and supplies at an estate auction, and like mentioned above is pretty cool from a historical perspective.

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That's one of them .

I just looked over my dads notes. He wrote down the price of all his ingredients and averaged it out per bottle. They all come in at between 4-6 cents a bottle, assuming 48 bottles... Though I am going to assume beer was cheaper back then as well, heh.

Out of curiosity, I looked it up. A 6-pack of Bud went for between $1.97-$2.50 in 1977.

I picked up a copy of Ken Shales book Brewing Better Beers at a used book sale a few months ago. It was the original 1967 edition, written just 4 years after homebrewing was legalized in Britain. The recipes do look rather horrid, and mostly include 50% table sugar. Ken talks about the brewing culture in his home town of Basildon (aka "Boozledon").

Tucked into the book was a little pamphlet written by "Brother Vinheart". It was published in Canada probably in the early 70s. There is a recipe for a full-bodied stout that was made with about 2.5 lbs of malt extract, black patent, and 4 lbs. of sugar. OG 1.040, FG 1.000. Full-bodied??? Prime with 1.5 cups of corn sugar.

I thought the priming sugar was an error, but all the other recipes called for 2 cups of priming sugar.

Looking at some of the older books on the subject, I have to give thanks for Charlie Papazian. The Joy of Homebrewing may be dated now, but it was miles ahead of what came before him.

I have a copy of "Home Brewed Beers and Stouts" by C.J.J.Berry - paperback from 1971. Printed in Great Britain that contains quite a few ads in the back for equipment and supplies. Yes, things have progressed a lot from back then.

The book does show designs for a mash tun and a lauter tun made from a plastic bucket set into a large plastic "dustbin," not too dissimilar to a bucket in a bucket. I'm not too certain about the recipes though. I did think that they were good back then when I made my first beer though.