Historical Beers George Washington's Small Beer

[brandonman]

I bottled today and was able to prevent any particles by cold crashing. I had a taste and it wasn't overhopped... but it tasted like watered down cider. Will this improve with time? This was day 9, carbed a half gallon of it with a little under .32oz table sugar based on calculations I did

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[Zoidberg]

Yea its gonna be pretty cidery, its from fermenting simple sugars (cane sugar) its why they say carbing with table sugar causes cidery flavors....and this is a beer with almost all its fermentablea being cane sugar.

 

[brandonman]

I wonder if upping the bran content might introduce more flavor and body?

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[Zoidberg]

Yea, I could easily see doubling the wheat bran. Although filtering this bad boy is already a hassle. Maybe just pour it through some cheesecloth at the end of boil and then add Lyles syrup and boil an additional couple minutes

 

[brandonman]

Somehow, I was able to get the stuff I missed transferring from my kettle to the fermentation vessels to setle out between the 9 days fermenting and about 18ish hours of that spent cold crashing in the fridge. I didn't even have to filter out pieces of bran. I *did* have some near clogs while siphoning from the kettle to the fermenters (didn't pour because of opening sizes, etc), but I got it worked out just fine. Next batch (I'll hold off until my buddy and I get a chance to try these ones after some weeks of aging) will have double bran.

 

[brandonman]

So after letting half of the batch carbonate (I did a very light carbonation on it) and sit for a couple weeks, it's actually not all that bad. My seemingly extreme hops addition somehow ended up really subdued. This has an interesting fruity profile that's reminiscent of ciders, but not exactly. I think that with a bit more balancing, some more bran to give more body, and more molasses (I ended up undershooting because I somehow managed to let my stock of sugar get low at my apartment on brew day, and just went with it when making the molasses), it could actually be a really good unique beer.

Overall, with some more work, I could actually see this being a really good beer. I'm going to play with it more and hopefully have a REALLY good batch ready for 4th of July.

 

[Robotcrab]

Well I've made three batches now, first I pretty much followed to a T and it turned out pretty decent, still bottle ageing after cold crashing and carbing, the other two I tried to be fancy and they are absolute disasters, they will both be going down the drain today, in my opinion half a pound of pale malt and some finnings would make this a great beer, and would keep a fairly authentic taste, adding more bran results in glue and less bran just makes crappy appless cider.it was a bit fun though.

 

[brandonman]

Well I've made three batches now, first I pretty much followed to a T and it turned out pretty decent, still bottle ageing after cold crashing and carbing, the other two I tried to be fancy and they are absolute disasters, they will both be going down the drain today, in my opinion half a pound of pale malt and some finnings would make this a great beer, and would keep a fairly authentic taste, adding more bran results in glue and less bran just makes crappy appless cider.it was a bit fun though.

Mind summing up your experiments here that went poorly? And what makes you say more bran would go badly? What exactly do you mean by glue? Increasing bran was going to be my plan for the next batch

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[Robotcrab]

By glue I'm mean unfermentable snot, it added a texture that just isn't "Beer". And yes i made two doulbe batches, 1 with same amount of bran, but twice the water and molasses, spilt in half, treated one half as a Wit the other as per recipe but doubled the hops (this one was ok still ageing) the third batch I made as per recipe but added a pound of toreified wheat and treated as a wheat beer. I'm not saying I have by any means tested the recipe to its limits, all I'm saying is that I've had sOme fun, have other things I want to try and think that the original is fine but a bit of malt wouldn't hurt.

 

[brandonman]

By glue I'm mean unfermentable snot, it added a texture that just isn't "Beer". And yes i made two doulbe batches, 1 with same amount of bran, but twice the water and molasses, spilt in half, treated one half as a Wit the other as per recipe but doubled the hops (this one was ok still ageing) the third batch I made as per recipe but added a pound of toreified wheat and treated as a wheat beer. I'm not saying I have by any means tested the recipe to its limits, all I'm saying is that I've had sOme fun, have other things I want to try and think that the original is fine but a bit of malt wouldn't hurt.

Hm, glad to your experiences included here. I might try for something like a 1.5x wheat bran amount in a half batch sooner or later. I can see potential to make this good, just gotta figure out what to do to it. And yea, malt would probably be good, but I'm curious what can be done with original stuff

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[Robotcrab]

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[Robotcrab]

Sitting drinking an uncarbed bottle from batch one thinking that actually it is very good, bubbles would help but thinking maybe I would try this again, although it hasn't cleared I think cold crashing with some gelatin helped the mouth feel a bit which I'd do again, and maybe a touch of proper molasses, I used northern brewer hops for this which I think is perfect, the string hoppy bitterness helps hide the lack of malt, and having been brought up on golden syrup I can definitely taste it and is very pleasant, just gave my wife's 82 year old grand mother a taste and she loved it!


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[stonecutter2]

So after letting half of the batch carbonate (I did a very light carbonation on it) and sit for a couple weeks, it's actually not all that bad. My seemingly extreme hops addition somehow ended up really subdued. This has an interesting fruity profile that's reminiscent of ciders, but not exactly. I think that with a bit more balancing, some more bran to give more body, and more molasses (I ended up undershooting because I somehow managed to let my stock of sugar get low at my apartment on brew day, and just went with it when making the molasses), it could actually be a really good unique beer.

Overall, with some more work, I could actually see this being a really good beer. I'm going to play with it more and hopefully have a REALLY good batch ready for 4th of July.

Yeah, the "cidery" aspect mellows over time. I have a 6'er of my last batch waiting for the 4th. This beer cellars very well (at least, the batches I have made have lasted well over several months).

 

[stonecutter2]

Sitting drinking an uncarbed bottle from batch one thinking that actually it is very good, bubbles would help but thinking maybe I would try this again, although it hasn't cleared I think cold crashing with some gelatin helped the mouth feel a bit which I'd do again, and maybe a touch of proper molasses, I used northern brewer hops for this which I think is perfect, the string hoppy bitterness helps hide the lack of malt, and having been brought up on golden syrup I can definitely taste it and is very pleasant, just gave my wife's 82 year old grand mother a taste and she loved it!


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It's unique, but it is a pretty tasty brew. I've only used Liberty hops but I'm going to start playing with other kinds.

 

[stonecutter2]

Going to start a new round of making this brew, with some modern varieties as well as anything I can figure out is historically close to colonial times. It's been too long since I had some GW small beer!

Cheers to any Townsends folks who are looking for 18th century recipes, which made me remember about my work on this recipe years ago!