Gruit type Ale (how much rosemary?)

Going to give this a shot this weekend.

6# Light LME
2# Honey (after the boil)

Steeped Grains
8 oz CaraVienne
4 oz Cara Foam
4 oz English Special Roast
4 oz Special B

Bittering/Flavor/Aroma
1 oz Rosemary (30 min)
1/2 oz Yarrow (30 min)
1/2 oz Wormwood (30 min)
1 oz Rosemary (secondary)
1/2 oz Yarrow (secondary)

30 minute boil
Safbrew s-33 yeast
5 gallons

This is my first non-hopped and don't know what to expect out of the herbs as far as bittering goes. I expect the ABV to be around 6-6.5%. I've had pretty good success with Fermentis yeasts as far as attenuation goes. I wish I had quick access to wild rosemary (aka bog myrtle) or myrica gale (aka sweet gale) to make this gruit ale instead of a gruit type ale.

I feel like there is a bit to much rosemary in this recipe. Does anybody have experience with this? The herbs are dried.

 

After reading some other threads with rosemary I went with 1.5 oz at 15 minutes and will put 0.5 oz in secondary. The rest of the additions were the same.

OG is 1.061, so this should end up around 6% ABV.

I didn't taste the wort, but the smell was kind of a mix between beer and tea.

 

Check Wildweeds for the wild rosemary and sweet gale.

I made a gruit recently. The actual recipe is a couple posts below.

I am gonna try that again pretty much the same but eliminating the yarrow.

I think a yarrow addition could be good but in a much smaller amount. My current thought would be a smaller amount as dry herb only.

Don't fool yourself, if you are using herbs and not hops then you are making a gruit. The malt bill, using more modern dark roasted malts might be more suspect, but I wouldn't give that a second thought.

I did both a 60 min boil and a 24HR dry hop before bottling. I did get a good bittering from the 60 minute boil but it was not as clean as you get with hops at 60 min.

 

Thanks for the advice.

I racked it to secondary this evening. It was quite pale even despite the dark roasted malts. The flavor and aroma were quite light with the flowery yarrow providing a significant lemon aroma and flavor. The rosemary had an aromatic presence but not a significant contribution to flavor.

The fermenting process was quite vigorous for the first couple of days, however my fermenter was much cleaner after the process when compared to hopped brews.

Thanks for the tip on wildweeds. I have seen it before but am much to impatient as far as starting a brew. I can be as patient as needed once a brew is on it's course, but an empty fermenter must be filled with expedience.

I agree that yarrow should be used sparingly. I'm saving what I have for the next brew, maybe some kind of "real" ginger ale.

 

Love the recipe.. looks good and hope it turns out well!

I've been using yarrow, wormwood & sweetgale in mine, on an old-ale recipe. I've not yet tried rosemary, but from what I've read, it sounds like you are on target.

Love the yeast choice too!

Remember to let it age a bit, as the herbs WILL mellow over a few months. My last gruit is now 8 months in the bottle, and really hitting its stride!

Let us know how it turns out!
---LexusChris