To all gruit heads

[mwc9711]

After many a search on this site and elsewhere, I have found almost 0 information on gruit/unhopped/herbed/medievel ales from those who have brewed them. I've looked all over the web, and the only helpful site has been Gruitale.com, although they have very little in the way of trial and error accounts. I've also read Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers, but once again a lot of history, and little methodology. Ideally we can start to compile a sort of database for Gruit/any other non-hopped or ancient ale. So here's my two cents.

First gruit experement: Used a simple pale ale base, and bittered with .15oz wormwood, .15oz yarrow and .15 oz wild rosemary. This was a 1 gallon experiment batch, because I feared I would create something vile. I boiled the herbs for 10 min, and then "dry herbed" with the same amount of herbs as I used in the boil. Let ferment for two week. Bottled using honey as a primer, but got very little carbonation. Didn't really measure the honey, although I probably should have. Anyway, at first the batch tasted strange, but it soon blended together to give a tart, lightly sour and very refreshing beer.

Anyone who has experimented with ale sans hops of any kind, please share.

 

[Gavagai]

I've not brewed any, but here's a gruit from CBC http://cambridgebrewing.com/beer/description/weekapaug_gruita/

They also make a Dubbel with sweet gale.

And Basic Brewing Episode 10/07/10 is an interview with a brewer from New Albanian about a series of gruits he brewed.

 

[malkore]

There's a guy in my brew club who's made two gruits. He used juniper berries in both, and that was the dominant herbal flavor in the finished beer.

it was like drinking an evergreen bush...pretty odd...not my thing really.

 

[mwc9711]

Yeah, I made a sahti a while back, and the juniper had no bittering properties, it only added that evergreen flavor. The end result was a cloyingly sweet brew with little apeal to me. I wouldn't go as far as to say it was bad, but nothing I would choose to drink regularly. However, the gruit I made was very drinkable, and I chose it a few times over the amber ale I had bottled at the same time.

 

[bigzippo]

Recipe perhaps? All of my attempts have been terrible

 

[mwc9711]

This particular gruit was my second brew, so forgive the poor notes, but heres essentially what I recorded. I mashed 2 lbs pale malt and 1lbs of carapils. I boiled and added a "pinch" of wormwood at 30 min. Then I steeped 1tsp yarrow, 1tsp wild rosemary and 1/2tsp wormwood in a tea bag for the remaining 15 min. I also made a tea of the same proportions and put that in the bottom of my gallon jug, only enough to cover the bottom. The tea was quite strong. I used coopers ale yeast, for this batch. 5 days in I smelled, and wanting more herbal presence, I filled a small muslin bag (sanitized of course) with herbs and dry gruit-ed. It sat for another 8 days and I bottled and primed with brown sugar. The beer did not carbonate well, but I think that I added too little sugar.

Once again, I sincerely apologize for the imprecise measurments, but I was kind of going with the "feel it" method. It was very interesting, but I have never been a huge hop head, so it was an easy transition for me.

 

[bigzippo]

Wow a pound of carapils in a one gallon batch? That is a lot of carapils.

 

[corwin3083]

I brewed the following recipe with Pacman at 55-60*F. It was very, very popular; I now have a 5 gallon batch fermenting.

1gal recipe.
60min boil.

1# light DME (add before boil)
.25# generic honey (add at flameout)
1oz dried rosemary (add with DME before boil)
.5oz dried rosemary (5min)
Pacman

The scaled-up recipe that's fermenting now is as follows.

5gal recipe.
60min boil.

5# light DME (add before boil)
1.25# buckwheat honey (add at flameout)
2.5oz dried rosemary (add with DME, before boil)
1.25oz dried rosemary (5min)
Pacman

I also have another 1gal batch that I put on last night using rosemary and yarrow. Same proportions as the first 1gal recipe, using buckwheat honey instead of generic, and add .13oz yarrow at 5min. I had read on the HBT forums that yarrow is pretty strong when used in beer, and the small amount was definitely noticeable when I smelled the wort. We'll see how it turns out.

 

[mwc9711]

I just cracked open the second bottle of my sahti, and I think I judged too early. It's now pushing three months old, and the last time I tried it was at about three weeks in the bottle. While it isn't something I would drink regularly, it has gone from drinking liquified pine to a beer with a noticeable rye character and a rather pleasant foresty background. It has spice notes similar to a winter warmer, even though it was flavored exclusively with juniper berries. All in all it is well balanced, and I may even brew it again.

 

[KevinM]

The Sahti was the entirely flavored by juniper berries, right? Do you happen to have that recipe as well somewhere as well as whether you used fresh or dried?

I'm considering doing some gruits eventually since I'm not a big hop fan.

Have you noticed any differences in the whole preservation thing at this 3 month point, especially since you seem to have not used the bittering herbs listed in gruitale all in one batch. I still think that modern sanitation and refridgeration should reduce that factor a bit, even though hops anti-bacterial properties are being used in some ethanol production plants.

 

[mwc9711]

Yeas, the sahti was flavored entirely with dried juniper berries that I crushed before adding to the primary. For the recipe I used 1.5lbs amber LME, 1lb rye malt, .5lb crystal 100 and 1 cup of light brown sugar, along with 2oz of dried crushed juniper berries. I used nottingham ale yeast. Oh yeah, and it was a 1 gallon batch.

It doesn't seem like preservation is a problem, since juniper berries have some preservative qualities. Also the other gruits I've made have had enough herbs, and I've made them strong enought that I haven't run into any prolems with preservation. It just requires a little research to see which herbs have preservative properties. You certainly aren't limited to the ones usually listed.

This recipe is an approximation, since I brewed two beers that day. I kept fantastic notes on my pumpkin ale process, but failed to keep good notes on the sahti. However, should be very close to the actual recpie. Once again, it turned out interesting and drinkable, but I wouldn't say it was a great beer.

 

[boo boo]

I was lucky to get to sample a bottle of http://www.beaus.ca/beer/wild_oats/bog_father last week. It was OK, almost like a pumpkin ale....
You could always e-mail Steve and ask for advise. He chats on our e-mail list from time to time, even though as expected, he's busy.

 

[SvenHayden]

This particular gruit was my second brew, so forgive the poor notes, but heres essentially what I recorded. I mashed 2 lbs pale malt and 1lbs of carapils. I boiled and added a "pinch" of wormwood at 30 min. Then I steeped 1tsp yarrow, 1tsp wild rosemary and 1/2tsp wormwood in a tea bag for the remaining 15 min. I also made a tea of the same proportions and put that in the bottom of my gallon jug, only enough to cover the bottom. The tea was quite strong. I used coopers ale yeast, for this batch. 5 days in I smelled, and wanting more herbal presence, I filled a small muslin bag (sanitized of course) with herbs and dry gruit-ed. It sat for another 8 days and I bottled and primed with brown sugar. The beer did not carbonate well, but I think that I added too little sugar.

Once again, I sincerely apologize for the imprecise measurments, but I was kind of going with the "feel it" method. It was very interesting, but I have never been a huge hop head, so it was an easy transition for me.

So mwc9711 how did you sanitize your herbs that you dry-gruited? I brewed a gruit ale recently and feel it would have been great but i believe it soured due to wild yeast that piggy-backed on some herbs i dry-gruited. I did not sanitize them or anything. I just threw them in.

Truth be told, it wasnt a bad beer soured, it just could have been way better & wasnt what i was going for. If ya want, i can put up the recipe. Mine ended up tasting lime tangy bbq.

But i really want to try again without souring. Im almost certain it soured cause ofy dry-herbing. So how did you sanitize your secondary herbs?

 

[TheCollector]

I would guess you would soak them in vodka for 4-5 days prior to adding them AND the vodka to the beer