Belgian Beers: Surely you jest!

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ToilAndTrouble

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Hi! Looong-time lurker here, first time poster. I even decided to support HBT because I find this forum extremely useful for all things brew.

So, I'm on my 6ish brew (I started with all-grain brewing) and I currently have a Belgian Strong Blonde in the primary. I say 6ish because I've lost count. The number just felt intuitive to me. Since I caught the brew bug a couple of years ago, I find myself contemplating my brew at all stages especially when I have something in primary. This leads to tons of research just to satisfy the urge to over-produce when I have no space for more beer. I'm sure this is a drive you all know well. ;)

Anyway, I stumbled across the following thread, and my eyes popped out of my head when I read the subsequent quote:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/what-makes-belgian-beers-taste-belgian-210865/
The real reason is the Belgian spit. Seriously. I visited a Belgium brewery and they all spat in the fermenter as they passed by. 2 or 3 times I saw this and so I asked. "What is it that makes your beer so Belgian?" I said "is it the spit?" And you know what their response was...?

You guessed it. I now do the same thing when I want my beer to taste like a Belgian beer. Fortunately that is a rare occurrence. But it works man, it works!

Instead of reviving a dead thread, I decided to post my reaction here, simply:

WHAT?!? :eek:

As with all things internet, I've learned to take things with a grain of salt but spit? Could someone confirm or deny this? I would imagine that leads to contamination as the mouth can harbor bacteria that can lead to infection.... surely you jest! Funny that something like this would push me into joining AND commenting.
 
I live in Belgium and i worked and did an internship in a brewery. I can guarantee you it's a total joke. We got health services too.
 
There's no way I could remember how many beers I've brewed, but I keep a 3 ring binder for my brewing notes. Each page has the recipe, mash temps, problems encountered, water volumes used and things like that. Sometimes a "mistake" can produce a different and maybe better beer and I can go back months later and reproduce beers I like.
Maybe the spit story is true, maybe the night watchman uses the fermenter as a urinal, but I doubt it, and I'm not making a saliva beer anytime soon.
 
Belgian farm house barn yard beer with spit. Why not? It's amylase. Besides, spit might add more complexity to the sour, spoiled beer, than bacteria rising from steaming cow dung, wafting over and settling into the open, feed trough fermenter, imparts. It was during the time when Belgium was colonizing parts of Africa, that the spit technique was born into Belgian brewing process. The natives in the colonized areas brewed a type of drink from some kind of starchy root, that everyone would spit into. That's how it started. I'm not sure if the gooey, lung buttery, type of spit will produce the appropriate style of beer, longed for by the spoiled beer enthusiast. No doubt, the Belgian brewmaster using the technique, knows what type of spit to use.
 
I would recommend a blood test before you start making your Belgian Special for the protection of the beer drinkers who go in for the exotic flavors.
 
Belgian farm house barn yard beer with spit. Why not? It's amylase. Besides, spit might add more complexity to the sour, spoiled beer, than bacteria rising from steaming cow dung, wafting over and settling into the open, feed trough fermenter, imparts. It was during the time when Belgium was colonizing parts of Africa, that the spit technique was born into Belgian brewing process. The natives in the colonized areas brewed a type of drink from some kind of starchy root, that everyone would spit into. That's how it started. I'm not sure if the gooey, lung buttery, type of spit will produce the appropriate style of beer, longed for by the spoiled beer enthusiast. No doubt, the Belgian brewmaster using the technique, knows what type of spit to use.

I have seen those documentaries where that drink is made by African tribes chewing a root and spitting. It made my stomach turn then and still does. If saliva is a source of amylase, then I can begin to see some logic in it, but only in medival or pre-industrialized society where amylase has not been isolated and made available.

As far as beer spoilage, we live in a time where anyone can culture and slant the saliva in their mouth. Isolating a bug for a lambic or farmhouse can be done under controlled conditions. But saliva without isolation seems a bit risky not only to the brew itself but to the consumer. What about viruses? We simply don't know what would be denatured by the brewing process and the production of alcohol.

I'm not judging by any means just giving my perspective. I just find it shocking that this was/is even a practice when every source I've ever read hammers home the need for sanitation during brewing.
 
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You guys know how real sake is made, right?

I know that a species of Aspergillus that is not considered harmful to humans is involved. It's also used in soy sauce.

At the risk of this thread going off topic, if I missed something please let me know.
 
I know that a species of Aspergillus that is not considered harmful to humans is involved. It's also used in soy sauce.

At the risk of this thread going off topic, if I missed something please let me know.

Real sake (kuchikami-zake) involves thoroughly chewing the rice and spitting it back into the tun. No koji. The whole village population was involved in this process. Every village produced their own unique sake this way.

Yeah, you missed something. You haven't met Steve.
 
Even though it is the 21st century, I'm not sure if the local tribal witch-doctor has a lab set up to produce amylase. If spitting amylase hawkers into starch turns your delicate stomach, read about how cock ale was produced. It will put you right over the edge.
Necessity is the Mother of Invention, or was it Frank Zappa?
 
I'm familiar with the "brew spoon" and how each household had their own. The non-hygenic beginnings of brewing and third world solutions are not what bother me. If you have better options available to you, then why not use them? If we know better, what exactly is the benefit to use this technique with our current level of technology?

Disclaimer: I know there is a lot of brew history I didn't cover all the way back to the Egyptians, but this isn't a thread about history as much as the use of saliva in brewing in modern society.
 
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