A brewing challenge .... limited ingredients

[Owly055]

There was a recent thread on the declining popularity of crystal malts that got me thinking.

Crystal malts sweetness, flavor, and body..........

It's the end of times.......... Civilization has collapsed and chaos is rampant. You're holed up in a bunker with abundant food and water you've stored in expectation of just such an event......... You've burned through your homebrew, and the cases and cases of Coors Lite someone stashed, and you've used all the base malts you laid in.

What you have left is an assortment of crystal malts, Carapils, sugar, brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, etc and hops growing just outside the bunker planted to conceal it. You have a few grains, but none are sproutable or malted, some instant oatmeal, minute rice, and some multigrain cereal, and a small amount of amylase........ and of course some dry yeast.

What do you brew? Hunker in your bunker, and dream up ways to brew with what limited resources you have!!

Do you mash your multi grain cereal with some crystal malt, and a bit of amylase?

Do you use only crystal, carapils, and sugar

Do you conserve your crystal, using some molasses or brown sugar


Here's a one gallon brew designed to get maximum mileage from my crystal malts. The grains are steeped.

4 ounces of CR20
4 ounces of Carapils
1 ounce CR 120
1 pound brown sugar

OG 1.059
ABV 5.84
SRM 14.65


Here's another one gallon brew designed to use the multigrain cereal. This one is mashed using amylase...... ( I just ran out of sugar )

2 pounds multigrain cereal
1/4 pound CR 120

OG 1.057
ABV 5.59%
SRM 16.96


I'm going to actually brew some of these just to see what I can do with limited resources. What becomes increasingly clear is that crystal malts and amylase........ and of course hops, are critically important ingredients when you have limited ingredients to choose from. Crystal malts have somewhat fallen from favor..... due to a wide availability of other ingredients. I've brewed with 100% Munich, 100% two row, and 100% Pilsner, but more often I use a mix of grains, often just two row Harrington and Munich. We have seen what happens where only rice is available.......... Saki.


What is your one gallon brew with almost nothing to work with?


H.W.

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

I'd try to find some fruit or flowers and make wine. Maybe I'd hop some, maybe I'd put some malt with some, maybe I'd drink some fizzy or maybe some would be still...

 

[Jonkl]

My bunker is going to be on a working grain farm.

 

[rmyurick]

Sounds interesting, but I'd be surprised if you get anything that's drinkable from that. Yeast need nutrients from the malt to make good beer--with that much % of fermentables from sugar, I would expect it to finish rather sweet. Plus it will be cidery. People used to brew with a can of malt extract and a couple pounds of sugar, and it was crap.

 

[kh54s10]

If I was down to that, and civilization has collapsed, I would grind the grain to flour and make bread.

I would want to stay sober and protect my hoard from the chaos.

 

[douglasbarbin]

I'd try to find some fruit or flowers and make wine. Maybe I'd hop some, maybe I'd put some malt with some, maybe I'd drink some fizzy or maybe some would be still...

I'd do something like this, or look for honey, or anything really other than a bunch of crystal malts. There's a reason why they are used in low amounts...

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

If I was down to that, and civilization has collapsed, I would grind the grain to flour and make bread.

I would want to stay sober and protect my hoard from the chaos.

This is actually the best answer. No time to be drunk when ****'s going south all around you

 

[Owly055]

If I was down to that, and civilization has collapsed, I would grind the grain to flour and make bread.

I would want to stay sober and protect my hoard from the chaos.

A good answer.......... I wonder what the nutritional value of bread is compared to beer? Obviously you can use the spent grains in your breakfast cereal or bread, and still get the pleasure of a beer. And additionally there is the consideration that you might be able to trade beer for something of more value than the ingredients......... We've probably all traded alcohol for various things, sometimes just goodwill and cooperation, and it's long been a tool for getting sex.

People die from stress related causes all the time, and you are in an extreme stress environment.......... One doesn't have to "get drunk" to gain some stress relief from beer. Getting S__t faced isn't necessary or beneficial. A bit of pleasure and stress relief is both.

H.W.

 

[Jonkl]

Also, safe water. Like every other time in history.

I figure this scenario is more about picking up the pieces and rebuilding some semblance of civilization, rather than being in the middle of the mess. And what's more civilized than making beer?

 

[Owly055]

Sounds interesting, but I'd be surprised if you get anything that's drinkable from that. Yeast need nutrients from the malt to make good beer--with that much % of fermentables from sugar, I would expect it to finish rather sweet. Plus it will be cidery. People used to brew with a can of malt extract and a couple pounds of sugar, and it was crap.

I am one of those who used to brew with a can of extract ........... we added sugar to up the gravity. It was all that was really available in the 60's when home brewing beer was illegal... It really was illegal. We didn't have crystal malts, we didn't have base malts, hops were almost unobtanium except as a flavor already in malt syrup. We lacked ingredients and all of the tools we use to craft a beer today. The beer I brewed in the 60's was crap.... It was drinkable but had little to offer. We didn't have two row, or Marris Otter, or Victory, Vienna, Munich, Pilsner, etc. We didn't have a plethora of yeasts to choose from. Home brewing was against the law!! In 1969, I was 14, and I was brewing on the sly. I lost interest because I couldn't create anything wonderful....... I just didn't have the ingredients.

But that was then, and this is now......... We have an embarrassment of riches as home brewers. We not only have a vast array of ingredients, but we have the software tools to brew with them...... It's actually difficult to make a "dumper".

As I write, I'm boiling my first one gallon "bunker brew"....... 4 ounces of carapils, and 4 ounces of crystal, and a pound of sugar. It may end up cloying because of the unfermentables in the crystal and carapils, but I didn't want it to be thin and dry, and the sugar leaves behind nothing but alcohol, where base malts leave behind body and unfermentables. I mashed the carapils and crystal briefly with a tiny amount of amylase. Basically I just steeped them in the strike water as I slowly raised the temp to 160. The wort is quite dark, and sweet to the taste........but most of that sweetness is from the sugar, and will go away. I don't expect it to be particularly sweet....but I've been wrong before. I expect it to be a decent drinkable beer. Half an ounce of hops added at 10 minutes (zythos) will give it a decent level of hopping (IBU 35).

I actually use quite a bit of invert sugar in my beers these days....... It allows me to keep the beers lighter bodied, and yet have a good level of alcohol. Most of my beers are in the 6% range. At a given OG, a beer will be much drier and lighter where sugar is used as a percentage of the fermentables. It's a tool to get a result.


H.W.

 

[Owly055]

Also, safe water. Like every other time in history.

I figure this scenario is more about picking up the pieces and rebuilding some semblance of civilization, rather than being in the middle of the mess. And what's more civilized than making beer?

In Mexico, you drink ONLY beer because of the water........ If you are boiling the water anyway...... why not make it into beer??

H.W.

 

[Owly055]

When it comes to brewing, I don't just talk about it........ I do it. My first bunker brew is chilling right now. I missed the projected OG by 3 points......but I expected that with my brief mash. My boil was short...30 min. The fermenter is a one gallon plastic mayo jar. I'll pitch a top crop of US-05 yeast.

Later in the week, I will be going to the city to buy some supplies to stock my bunker...... While there, I'll buy a few pounds of multigrain cereal.... the stuff that's just a mix of ground grains. That will be the foundation for #2...... I'd like to toast the grains.


H.W.

 

[rmyurick]

I think without the nutrients from malt, it's probably not going to ferment out to dryness. I could be wrong, but I'm interested to hear the results.

 

[Owly055]

Results will be weeks off..... I'll post them. I am happy so far with the flavor of my all crystal brew. It's on track to be a decent beer. Brewed yesterday, it is percolating away nicely.

Tomorrow, I will be "hitting" Bozeman, and raiding the LHBS, Costco, The Co-Op, the pawn shops, and numerous other "targets". I plan to pick up some multigrain cereal.... Just a bunch of cracked grains, for "bunker brew II"

As you probably have gathered, I'm very much an iconoclast.......I love challenging the common wisdom, and brewing gives me a wonderful field of endeavor in which to push the limits and challenge convention. Art Buchwald used to describe himself as a "Youthful Iconoclast in training for Curmudgenhood"....... I don't expect ever to live long enough to be described by the latter term.


H.W.

 

[LandoLincoln]

If I was down to that, and civilization has collapsed, I would grind the grain to flour and make bread.

I would want to stay sober and protect my hoard from the chaos.

Heretic!

 

[Owly055]

Heretic!

Bravo!! Somebody had to say it! ....................... In 1912 the textile workers in Lawrence Massachusetts struck for better wages and hours..... the motto was "bread and roses"......... The point being that mere subsistence is NOT enough. When civilization comes tumbling down around our ears, the survival goal should not be mere subsistence, a few pleasures and cultural things are what make mankind different from animals. We sit and scheme ways to make life better and easier. I would hope that people are looking at what grains are available, and thinking..... "I can brew with them, and still eat the spent grains...... All I'm using is the carbohydrates, and I'll recover them when I drink the beer. What can we make from the spent grain and trub? "Waste not want not", goes the old saying
.............



H.W.

 

[Legume]

Your doomsday senerio preaty acurately describes my normal brewing.

As a celiac and gluten free homebrewer, my ingredient choices are very limited (although much less so than in the past).

A typical beer for me is built on unmalted millet and buckwheat, with some crystal malted rice added for color and body.

This is mashed with amylase, in a gruling 3 to 4 hour mash schedual.

It can be done!
I am able to make somthing very "beer like" and enjoyable with "birdseed" and amylase.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511380

 

[Owly055]

Your doomsday senerio preaty acurately describes my normal brewing.

As a celiac and gluten free homebrewer, my ingredient choices are very limited (although much less so than in the past).

A typical beer for me is built on unmalted millet and buckwheat, with some crystal malted rice added for color and body.

This is mashed with amylase, in a gruling 3 to 4 hour mash schedual.

It can be done!
I am able to make somthing very "beer like" and enjoyable with "birdseed" and amylase.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511380

Great........ Thanks for the link, and ideas. I'm of course not looking at GF products, usually multi grain cereals have a lot of grains that contain gluten. I rather like buckwheat and use it in cooking frequently (whole). I can't imagine it contributing much flavor to beer though, and nothing could be much more neutral than millet. I have a generic amylase powder sold by a wine supplier. It has no breakdown on what the profile is. Seems to work well....... I frequently use it in small amounts, and it seems to work well. My intent was to cook the cereal to release the starch, cool down and toss in a generous dose of my amylase powder and mash for a few hours........... Similar to what you describe, but without the specialty amylase. The idea is to work with what I might have......... After the apocalypse, the LHBS will probably not exist. ;-)

Have you used fungal amylase...Fungal amylase is said to be effective during fermentation as well as during the mash. My concern is weather it would dry a beer out too much by converting the otherwise unfermentable sugars.

AG300


Quick Overview
Usage per 10bbl: varies A liquid fungal glucoamylase. Notably for light beers, reduces all starches to glucose. Can be used in mash or fermentation vessel.

http://shop.homebrew4less.com/convertase-ag-300-1-2-liter.html

I've tried to figure out a workable procedure using Chinese Yeast Balls to brew beer, but I come up against a roadblock......... Yeast balls result in conversion AND fermentation. At some point you need to do a boil in order to get your hop flavorings....... or add hop tea. Yeast balls give some souring as well as fermentation.... at least they did when I tried them. I assume there is some lacto there. They also do their magic on the surface of grains........which the mold needs in order to grow...... Moisture and air. Obviously you would need to add water at some point, and just as obviously, if you boil the mash, you will drive off the alcohol. It's a product that leaves you "boxed in".

H.W.

 

[Legume]

I have used amylase products that are derived from fungi (but highly purified)...but I have not ever brewed with aspergillus (Koji or yeast balls). I have some Koji spores in the fridge that I should get around to playing with.

Could you add some hops to your cereal mash when you are cooking your grains... then cool them and inoculate with your mixed culture of aspergillus and yeast (yeast balls)?
It seems like this could give you some bitterness.
You could even "dry hop" for some aroma late in fermentation as the ferment is becoming less solid grain and more of a liquid.