Ghosts of Brewing Past...

[bengineer]

Hello everyone,

I've recently gotten a hold of a bunch of old family recipes dated back to the end of Prohibition (some dated even before!) for a small brewery in the Louisville area.
I've taken to try to recreate these as closely as possible and I've been able to figure out the ingredients pretty well, however each recipe ends with something about an "elixir pan" and I can't find any reference to anything about what an elixir pan might be or what it's used for in all my searches.
I feel it might be related to aroma, because it calls for a small amount of hops at the end of each brew; for example, the Light Beer recipe (which also has the most descriptive use of 'elixir pan') calls for 65 pounds of hops, and ends with:
"5 pounds of American hops to elixir pan at cooler shredded"
That statement in itself if full of ambiguity, but I'm taking that the relative small amount of hops, and the fact that it's the last sentence of the recipe, plus it refers to 'cooler' (what I'm guessing is chilling the wort) that it's somehow related to aroma.

If anyone out there has heard of an 'elixir pan' in brewing, or has any other ideas, I'd love to hear them!

 

[steveoatley]

Could be what Belgian brewers were using

Cool Ship - google the image

They would pour the hot wort into this very big, copper pans
to chill down overnight, and gain a lot wild yeast

Maybe it is a reference to hoping in the cool ship?

my 2 cents
S

 

[Bilsch]

I'm going to guess its a hop back or similar type of screen basket, either inline or near the intake headed to the chiller/cooler.
Elixir was oftentimes just herbs, spices etc infused into a liquid. I'd think holding and or screening out the plant matter from said liquid was a very similar process to adding late hops in beer and so similar equipment would be employed. But it's just a wag.

 

[tbred]

Awesome historic find! My guess it would be a hop back as well. If you don't mind sharing one of the recipes in its full format, it might help determine the true purpose. I for one love the idea of brewing historic beers, but lack a recipe base to use.

 

[newnick]

Might be a local term for a Hop back.

Hopback

A hopback is a traditional additional chamber that acts as a sieve or filter by using whole hops to clear debris (or "trub") from the unfermented (or "green") wort,[79] as the whirlpool does, and also to increase hop aroma in the finished beer.[80][81] It is a sealed chamber between the brewing kettle and counter-flow wort chiller. Hops are added to the chamber, the hot wort from the kettle is run through it, and then immediately cooled in the wort chiller before entering the fermentation chamber. Because it is a sealed chamber it facilitates maximum retention of volatile hop aroma compounds that would normally be driven off when the hops contact the hot wort.[82] While a hopback has the same filtering effect as a whirlpool, it operates differently: a whirlpool uses centrifugal forces, a hopback uses a layer of whole hops to act as a filter bed. Furthermore, while a whirlpool is useful only for the removal of pelleted hops (as flowers do not tend to separate as easily), in general hopbacks are used only for the removal of whole flower hops (as the particles left by pellets tend to make it through the hopback).[83] The hopback has mainly been substituted in modern breweries by the whirlpool.[84]

 

[beernutz]

OP you might find this write up interesting. It was written by someone doing the same thing you are with old brew house recipes though they don't definitively answer the elixir pan question either.
http://lagersclub.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Southern-Indiana-Ice-Beverage-Company.pdf

 

[newnick]

Those old recipes are cool.

 

[newnick]

I'm thinking an elixir pan is a component of a hop back.

 

[Bilsch]

If hops were compressed in bulk bales back in the day as they are now.. The part about being shredded before going in the elixir pan also makes sense. They would not need to break them up for adding to the kettle like they would need do for hops put in a hopback. That could explain that notation.