Perhaps it was the colonial American's thrifty way of carbonating easily.
) 
I cracked my carbonated bottle of the "1 hour boil" batch. I used one Fizz Drop from Northern Brewer. It poured with about 1/2"-3/4" of a creamy, thick head. Head retention is excellent. It has settled to 1/4" and is staying there. It looks great. There's nice lacing on the glass, even.
There was some trub disturbance with the carbonation, nothing extreme, but the beer is still hazy enough where I can barely see it in the glass. Just little bits floating up and down on the bubbles.
It's not as "weird" as I would have thought to have this carbonated. It accentuates the hops flavor a bit more, makes the flavor a little more lively, then you get a wheat flavor on the very backend mixed with sweetness.
I think carbonating this is not an issue, as far as it making it weird. For honesty to the recipe, Washington mentions nothing of carbonating, only bottling it "the day Week it was brewed." Not AFTER a week, just bottle it that week. Since my last brews fermented like 10 days, I think light carbonation (or more?) could have resulted with an early bottling. I may conduct an experiment with this in the future
I now plan on carbonating 1/2 of my most recent batch. This really is more what someone expects when given a "beer," and it's quite good.
As an aside, this bottle again confirms that my 1 hour boil hasn't changed much in flavor characteristics. It showcases the Liberty hops quite well, and interestingly. It's a sweet fruity flavor mixed with wheat. I think pairing some APA hops might even turn this into something really unique and complex. Perhaps some Cluster and a modern hop to bring together old and new? Or EKG and some American hop for a clash of England and the US?
I have 2 more bottles of my "3 hour boil" batch left, and I'm interested to see how that develops. I may have to pop one and drop a Fizz Drop in it
The "day week" reference seems to speak to what we now say "week day" to convey. Meaning, I take it to mean that if he brewed on friday then next friday the beer should be ready to bottle. (only a guess
Any way, I don't think that it would have been out of the relm of possibilty for this beer to have been some what carbed when it was served in the late 1700's. I have found referances to carbing beer as early as the 1830's that sounded as though it was common knowelge/practice. Champange would have been bottled and corked with cages at this time, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to make the leap from one beverage under pressure to the other. Either way, I will try mine both ways once it is finished fermenting.
I think I would like to try this brew with some other grains as well. I'm not overly convinced that the "bran" refers to wheat, though I can find nothing that would suggest anything but wheat bran. I just can't get over the fact that the bran imparts so little to this wort.
Please exclude some of the superfluous information in the quote, but it needed to be presented in its full context to make any sense
I liked someones comment about a slow lead into a boil. This is how I read into the instructions. To boil that much would have taken a good amount of time. I decided to steep and boil to total 3 hours. It basically went 45-55 minutes of steep then boiling for last 2 hours. hardest for only last 60 minutes after first hop addition. Here are some clips from brew notes and descriptions on how I estimated out my version. I also think i figure out the potential OG of Wheat Bran, it's 1.012.
Batch Size: .8 Gallons
Target OG: 1.035
Target IBUs: 30.5
Fermentables:
.5oz of wheat bran (Brought up to boil slowly and boiled for 60 minutes
11oz by volume Lyles Golden Syrup (light molasses) Added only for last 5 minutes
Hops:
.16 oz cascade 60min
.25 oz cascade 5min
Yeast:
M44 yeast from .5L starter.
In the future I may add whirlfloc in an attempt to clear out this incredibly hazy and described as looking like a tan mud. Not this time though.
GW is ambiguous on brewing procedures but my assumption is the 3 hour boil included at least 90min of bring bran and his 30 gallons of water to boil producing a small mash.
Because of long times to boil 30 gallons in GW's time, I left the wort near 140-170 for first 50 minutes then turned up burner. Then, slow to a slow simmermmer until the 60 min left mark
Measured gravity after 50 min of "mash" with refractometer and got 1.004 with a water volume of 1.5 Gallons or 6 gravity points. Used beersmith to estimate bitterness with 1.3 gallon pre-boil volume, batch size of .8 gallons and estimated pre-boil gravity of 1.004.
Then I used brewsmith to estimate gravity and IBUs.
Beersmith estimate 15.4oz of Lyles adding a lot more to the gravity than stonecutters attempt. But did he did full gallon batch? And I did .8. I will weigh out less and then take gravity reading before adding anymore.
Going to shoot for 1.035 OG and 30 IBUS.
Depending aau of liberty, I think .25 at 60 especially with such a low boiling gravity may have been to much. I like a bitter hoppy beer but .16 @ only 60 minutes estimates 23.6 by itself and 31 IBUs in 4.1% beer is quite a bit. No way would they brew his bitter of a beer but it does say to taste so I'm going with 31 IBUs and .25oz aroma addition with a great American hop.
My guess is Washington didn't add most of the fermentable until the end to preserve hops. By boiling hops in low gravity wort, he saved money and hops by using less for same bitterness.
This gravity is estimated by adjusting wheat bran grain to a gravity of 1.012
Before I finished with 60 minute full boil I measure a gallon of wort at 1.006. All other variables the same adjusting preboil volume to 1 gives me 1.006 SG.
I had pictures of the beersmith calculations but not posting for some reason.
Will update with more notes later, its acutally boiling right now.
I think this will turn out really good. The bran gives very little sugars but probably some fermentables and body because the sugar water would be so unbearably thin.
Way longer than it takes me to drink it. lol
