80 year old recipe help

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Even using bread yeast I don't think it would turn out all that bad. Plenty of people in here using flieschmanns yeast for JOAM with good results. I don't see why it wouldn't be quite feasible to wind up with a nice brew from it. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out.


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[geoffey]

Check out how clear both of these have dropped out.

It might be tough to see but the one made with bread yeast is extremely clear, perhaps my clearest beer ever made. Look at the bottom of that jig below the label to get a good idea of how clear this is. It's like apple juice. And neither of these have been cold crashed.

Will be testing these today and perhaps bottling if they seem ready. Will report back on tasting notes and gravity reading.


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[geoffey]

FG of the "authentic" version came in at 1.002! It has a very skunky/Heiniken aroma. Taste of the hydrometer sample was mostly unpleasant. Sharp fruity and bready notes, green/vegetal taste from the hops I think. Will see how this mellows out while carbing.

Will bottle the other version tonight.


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[The_Professor]

It's pretty cool to see someone's recipe from that time period.

As was already mentioned, the malt was probably Blue Ribbon Malt. The recipe is simply brewing with a hop boil, sugar adjunct, UME, and yeast. Of course, boiling for 2 hours only adds 5% more bitterness to the 95% bitterness after one hour. The actual style is "BEER", and I'll guess it made it just fine. Guess why those light fizzy lagers tasted so good after prohibition?

 

[Beernik]

FG of the "authentic" version came in at 1.002! It has a very skunky/Heiniken aroma. Taste of the hydrometer sample was mostly unpleasant. Sharp fruity and bready notes, green/vegetal taste from the hops I think. Will see how this mellows out while carbing.

Will bottle the other version tonight.

I'm guessing the vegetal comes from boiling the hops in water for two hours instead of water with extract.

 

[JKaranka]

I quite like bakers yeast, I grew up with drinks made with it. It's a tad rustic, bready, yeasty, and you often get banana style funk. It ferments viciously too!

 

[geoffey]

The "revised version" came in at 1.009 and surprisingly tasted a little sour/cidery. I may need to re-do this experiment and use some temperature control. I think what happened here is my fermentation temps got away from me. Will be doing taste tests in a couple weeks.


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[geoffey]

Well I'm sorry to report that both batches just came out undrinkable.



Just overall nasty tasting. A little sour, a little rancid almost. I'm blaming this partly on the hop tea and partly on lack of temp control. Temps probably got into upper 70s during fermentation.

I'll need to still prepare a batch for my sister-in-law, so I need to make some changes. Am thinking of nixing the "hop tea" completely, using us05 or perhaps something a little more rustic, and keeping a portion of the fermentables as cane sugar.




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[dkevinb]

Bummer. I was afraid this would be the outcome, though. You were basically brewing "prison beer". Good luck with the updated version. You can always say it was "based on an 80-year old recipe".

 

[Roundhouse]

If you modify the recipe a bit I'm sure you can get something that is in the spirit of the recipe but is palatable. I'd start with doing a full volume boil and even then limit it to 60-90 minutes total. Add the hops to the boil as you normally would. I'd also substitute the cane sugar for corn sugar or corn syrup. Use a neutral ale yeast. I think that would be just fine. Remember during prohibition they were trying to get alcohol. Flavor would be just been a bonus.