Black Fungus Ale

[freebeertomorrow]

So, many months ago now I was vastly amused to read the original GAP, (Grocery and Produce) challenge thread. Although it had petered out by the time I read it, it got my creative juices flowing and inspired me to brew a beer entirely from ingredients available at H-Mart, our local Asian supermarket. And thus was born Black Fungus Ale.

Batch size: 1gal

2# malt flour
4oz roasted corn
4oz roasted ten grain powder
¼ oz ginger root
1tsp five spice powder
1oz black fungus
1pkg men ruqu (yeast)
1 oz corn sugar, bottling

OG 1.046 (estimated, forgot to take a reading, suspect actual was lower)
FG 0.996

The ingredients were mostly labeled in Chinese, with English on stick-on labels, very little info. The corn was intended for tea, which I tried, tasted a lot like burnt popcorn. I crushed the corn in my Corona mill, the malt flour already resembled crushed barley. The black fungus had a mild, pleasant licorice flavor. (and I don't like licorice) The ten grain flour was barley 35%, brown rice 24%, rice, soybean,glutinous rice, African millet, millet, brown rice (again!), red bean, black rice.
It is ground very fine and gave me all sorts of sediment later. The most troubling ingredient was the men ruqu, looking like twelve small hemispherical pellets. Its label yielded little information, just that it was yeast. The little bit of the Vietnamese that Babblefish could translate seemed to indicated that it was for fermenting some kind of beverage. What the hell, I used it. Total ingredient cost was about $15, pretty pricey, though I have lots of the corn, ten grain powder and black fungus left over.

Photos here

I BIABed on the stove with 10 quarts of water at 156 degrees for one hour. I mashed out at 170 degrees and squeezed the bag thoroughly. Boiled for one hour adding spices and fungus. (That sounds so wrong) Ended up with about 3 quarts, leaving lots of milky looking trub and black fungus behind. Chilled in the sink and pitched. Had a thin krausen within 12 hours. Fermented for about two weeks, very cloudy. Cold crashed (actually forgot it) in beer fridge for about a month. Bottled with 1 oz corn sugar.

Tossed a bottle in the fridge about a month later and tasted. Very light body, mildly alcoholic and very carbonated. Pretty refreshing actually. Still a bit cloudy, and the spices really only come through as aroma. Minus the hops, pretty much tasted like a fizzy yellow beer.

Think I might do it again, using more fermentables, skip the ten grain powder and at least doubling the the flavor elements. Would also like to clarify, either find a gypsum/Irish moss substitute or gelatin in a secondary. Also would like to prime with something from H-mart.

 

[bwomp313]

awesome. I love the GAP challenge. I've been meaning to do one myself for some time now. Did you find the body to be too thin with it finishing with such a low gravity?

 

[freebeertomorrow]

Body is extremely thin. Looking for ways to improve that next time. Kinda just needs more of everything, if you know what I mean. Still, it's recognizably beer, which I think is a victory.

 

[maltoftheearth]

That is a victory! Can you get oats? What about mashing wheat flour at a higher temperature and try to get some non fermentables in there? Or, use less yeast and hope it doesn't attenuate fully OR ferment at a lager temperature to slow fermentation and leave some sugar/body to the beer.

 

[freebeertomorrow]

H-mart has all kinds of interesting grains and cereals, so wheat and oats are a possibility. Not sure if less yeast would help, would probably just slow things down. I might also carmelize some of the wort separately to create unfermentables, then add it back to the main wort. All good ideas.