Gruit Water Chemistry

[premington]

Hi folks!

I'm gonna be doing an all-grain brew on a guit recipe with yarrow, sweet gale, one other to-be-defined floral addition, and probably wormwood for bitterness. My question has to do with water. I know how I'd deal with my water in context to an ale, for example (calcium chloride and gypsum additions), but is there a general guideline towards water treatment for guits that contains herbs in place of hops? Am I looking for equal sulfate/chloride levels, or a different sort of ratio? Does anyone have any other recommendations for other water adjustments when brewing a gruit?

Developing a gruit recipe is a little like shooting in the dark; there's much less documented on recipe formulation and nothing I can find related to water chemistry.

Thanks for the help!

-Paul

 

[mabrungard]

Interesting question. I doubt there is an accurate answer. But, I can offer this. Gruit was used as a bittering agent to offset the malt sweetness. I suggest that having a decent amount of sulfate in the water would help dry the drink and help with the perception of bittering.

I don't think I'd go more than about 100 ppm sulfate, but I can assure you that the brew will be better with some sulfate.

 

[premington]

Thanks Martin. I'd like to have at least a starting point, and I suppose this is about as good as any. I may just go with an equal amount--75 ppm each of sulfate and chloride.

Last night, I was watching Palmer working with a number of others at a brewery. The guys were mashing in a recipe they've worked and perfected over time. John was helping with dough in and offering his knowledge. I believe they were adding a variety of spices. His recommendation was 1) don't boil the spices and 2) he talked about equal sulfate/chloride levels. It was difficult to hear since the camera was towards the back of this room and it was very echoey, but I did hear him talk about a 75/75 ppm ratio.

Since my recipe is entering the Land of the Unknown, I might start there. It also keeps the levels below 100 ppm, which is what you suggested. I don't want to introduce a mineral taste to the brew.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please fire away!

 

[Miraculix]

I am experimenting quite a lot with gruit beers myself and I can give you one advice, boil all your herbs or use another method to sterilise them.

I have tried single herb gruits, to get to know the tastes of the herbs one by one and only sweet gale and fresh ground ivy did not turn sour. So only sweet gale and ground ivy can actually prohibit the growth of unwanted bacteria the same way hops are working.

I tried Heather, yarrow, mugwort, Gagel, ground ivy and wild rosemary. Did not check the wild rosemary one yet.

I did "dry hop" with half of the herb amount after boiling the other half with the Wort and I guess this was the point the infection happened.

The sweat gale beer turned out very nice Btw. An easy going beer just nice to drink.

Edit: I just remembered, I did not "dry hop" with ground ivy, so technically, only sweet gale did prove to be antiseptic.

 

[premington]

I am experimenting quite a lot with gruit beers myself and I can give you one advice, boil all your herbs or use another method to sterilise them.

I have tried single herb gruits, to get to know the tastes of the herbs one by one and only sweet gale and fresh ground ivy did not turn sour. So only sweet gale and ground ivy can actually prohibit the growth of unwanted bacteria the same way hops are working.

I tried Heather, yarrow, mugwort, Gagel, ground ivy and wild rosemary. Did not check the wild rosemary one yet.

I did "dry hop" with half of the herb amount after boiling the other half with the Wort and I guess this was the point the infection happened.

The sweat gale beer turned out very nice Btw. An easy going beer just nice to drink.

Edit: I just remembered, I did not "dry hop" with ground ivy, so technically, only sweet gale did prove to be antiseptic.

This is very helpful to read. Thank you for replying. I'm glad there's another person here who has done what I'm doing.

The sanitation subject is something I've given a lot of thought over. I've even consulted an herbalist regarding the additions and how to treat them for the mash/boil/fermentation. There are a few approaches I'm toying with.

First, I want to avoid boiling. Many of these herb flavors are very delicate, and boiling blows off much of their character. The herbalist suggested steeping all the additions in 1 gallon of water in sunlight... making a "sun tea" with some or all of the additions. The brewery John Palmer was working with steeped a massive amount of juniper berries at 170 F to pasteurize them before adding the "tea" to the wort. I might heat water to 170 F, steep the herbs in a closed glass container, and then put it in the sun to give it a good hit of UV.

I'll probably take a 1/3rd approach: 1/3rd in the mash, 1/3rd in the wort after knockout, and 1/3rd in the fermenter. This way, I can sample along the way and make adjustments based on taste.

As for determining the additions, I acquired about twelve different herbs: sweet gale, juniper berries, rose buds, marsh rosemary, lemongrass, mugwort, heather tips, wormwood, chamomile, yarrow, culinary lavender, and nettles. I performed tea trials using 1 tsp. in 1 cup of water for each herb. Based on what I liked, I then experimented with blending the teas and also adding a dash of sugar to see what effect it had on the flavor. This was helpful on deciding how attenuated I'd like the yeast to be (residual sugar). I'm settling on a yeast that accentuates the malt character, which I think will play well with the herbs.

I think I've narrowed it down to yarrow and sweet gale with juniper berries. The bittering addition would be provided by wormwood, which is wickedly bitter. This replaces any hop additions, so selecting ~three herbs for flavor/aroma and one herb for bitterness seems logical.

I'm happy to share my results either here or privately with anyone who's interested. This seems to be a style of fermentation that's somewhat ignored by most brewers.

BTW: I visited our local beer store, which is located in an old supermarket. They're massive and have hundreds or maybe close to 1,000 beers. They have no gruits. The owner called her distributors for me and was unable to locate any. It seems to be a craft/micro brewery kinda' thing these days. I was hoping to find a gruit to try, but I guess that's not gonna happen.

So I'll make my own. :rockin:

 

[quijiba]

This is very helpful to read. Thank you for replying. I'm glad there's another person here who has done what I'm doing.

The sanitation subject is something I've given a lot of thought over. I've even consulted an herbalist regarding the additions and how to treat them for the mash/boil/fermentation. There are a few approaches I'm toying with.

First, I want to avoid boiling. Many of these herb flavors are very delicate, and boiling blows off much of their character. The herbalist suggested steeping all the additions in 1 gallon of water in sunlight... making a "sun tea" with some or all of the additions. The brewery John Palmer was working with steeped a massive amount of juniper berries at 170 F to pasteurize them before adding the "tea" to the wort. I might heat water to 170 F, steep the herbs in a closed glass container, and then put it in the sun to give it a good hit of UV.

I'll probably take a 1/3rd approach: 1/3rd in the mash, 1/3rd in the wort after knockout, and 1/3rd in the fermenter. This way, I can sample along the way and make adjustments based on taste.

As for determining the additions, I acquired about twelve different herbs: sweet gale, juniper berries, rose buds, marsh rosemary, lemongrass, mugwort, heather tips, wormwood, chamomile, yarrow, culinary lavender, and nettles. I performed tea trials using 1 tsp. in 1 cup of water for each herb. Based on what I liked, I then experimented with blending the teas and also adding a dash of sugar to see what effect it had on the flavor. This was helpful on deciding how attenuated I'd like the yeast to be (residual sugar). I'm settling on a yeast that accentuates the malt character, which I think will play well with the herbs.

I think I've narrowed it down to yarrow and sweet gale with juniper berries. The bittering addition would be provided by wormwood, which is wickedly bitter. This replaces any hop additions, so selecting ~three herbs for flavor/aroma and one herb for bitterness seems logical.

I'm happy to share my results either here or privately with anyone who's interested. This seems to be a style of fermentation that's somewhat ignored by most brewers.

BTW: I visited our local beer store, which is located in an old supermarket. They're massive and have hundreds or maybe close to 1,000 beers. They have no gruits. The owner called her distributors for me and was unable to locate any. It seems to be a craft/micro brewery kinda' thing these days. I was hoping to find a gruit to try, but I guess that's not gonna happen.

So I'll make my own. :rockin:

Definitely interested in your results.

We're lucky here in Ontario that Beaus makes Gruits (and makes them very well might I add). other than them there really aren't many breweries making them. They are genuinely challenging to nail and probably don't sell well but man are they good when made right!

 

[Miraculix]

This is very helpful to read. Thank you for replying. I'm glad there's another person here who has done what I'm doing.

The sanitation subject is something I've given a lot of thought over. I've even consulted an herbalist regarding the additions and how to treat them for the mash/boil/fermentation. There are a few approaches I'm toying with.

First, I want to avoid boiling. Many of these herb flavors are very delicate, and boiling blows off much of their character. The herbalist suggested steeping all the additions in 1 gallon of water in sunlight... making a "sun tea" with some or all of the additions. The brewery John Palmer was working with steeped a massive amount of juniper berries at 170 F to pasteurize them before adding the "tea" to the wort. I might heat water to 170 F, steep the herbs in a closed glass container, and then put it in the sun to give it a good hit of UV.

I'll probably take a 1/3rd approach: 1/3rd in the mash, 1/3rd in the wort after knockout, and 1/3rd in the fermenter. This way, I can sample along the way and make adjustments based on taste.

As for determining the additions, I acquired about twelve different herbs: sweet gale, juniper berries, rose buds, marsh rosemary, lemongrass, mugwort, heather tips, wormwood, chamomile, yarrow, culinary lavender, and nettles. I performed tea trials using 1 tsp. in 1 cup of water for each herb. Based on what I liked, I then experimented with blending the teas and also adding a dash of sugar to see what effect it had on the flavor. This was helpful on deciding how attenuated I'd like the yeast to be (residual sugar). I'm settling on a yeast that accentuates the malt character, which I think will play well with the herbs.

I think I've narrowed it down to yarrow and sweet gale with juniper berries. The bittering addition would be provided by wormwood, which is wickedly bitter. This replaces any hop additions, so selecting ~three herbs for flavor/aroma and one herb for bitterness seems logical.

I'm happy to share my results either here or privately with anyone who's interested. This seems to be a style of fermentation that's somewhat ignored by most brewers.

BTW: I visited our local beer store, which is located in an old supermarket. They're massive and have hundreds or maybe close to 1,000 beers. They have no gruits. The owner called her distributors for me and was unable to locate any. It seems to be a craft/micro brewery kinda' thing these days. I was hoping to find a gruit to try, but I guess that's not gonna happen.

So I'll make my own. :rockin:

Glad to see that other people are interested in that topic. I am very glad to share the stuff I find out about the subject, I already wanted to start a gruit thread in this forum, but was unsure if people would attend or not. I will create one tonight. As this one is more specificly aimed at water chemistry, I think it would be better to go with an extra thread to avoid spamming and confusion.

But one more thing regarding your plans, please dont. You are going to ruin your batch with your uv tea idea. Lactic acid bacteria and all their little friends are very tough little bastards, you won't be able to eliminate them this way. I found two posibilitys that will definetely work.

1st Boil it. Yes, you are right, some flavours are a bit delicate but you will not be able to enjoy those delicate flavours in a ruined brew.

2nd steap it in vodka or pure alcohol. You can make an alcoholic extract, this should even get the very delicate flavours out of the herbs... but then again, they might get blown out by rapid fermentation, so better add them to the secondary or after the main fermentation has slown down.

Regarding herbs, I see we are having similar plans. I also want to try wormwood as the bittering agent. Groundd Ivy, sweat gale and mugwort and yarrow all have also a slight bittering effect, but not strong enough to my taste. Would be good to know if the Wormwood provides the same preserving abilitys as hops do. If so, it would help immensly regarding preventing spoilage.

Edit: There it is!
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=8018921#post8018921

 

[premington]

Glad to see that other people are interested in that topic. I am very glad to share the stuff I find out about the subject, I already wanted to start a gruit thread in this forum, but was unsure if people would attend or not. I will create one tonight. As this one is more specificly aimed at water chemistry, I think it would be better to go with an extra thread to avoid spamming and confusion.

But one more thing regarding your plans, please dont. You are going to ruin your batch with your uv tea idea. Lactic acid bacteria and all their little friends are very tough little bastards, you won't be able to eliminate them this way. I found two posibilitys that will definetely work.

1st Boil it. Yes, you are right, some flavours are a bit delicate but you will not be able to enjoy those delicate flavours in a ruined brew.

2nd steap it in vodka or pure alcohol. You can make an alcoholic extract, this should even get the very delicate flavours out of the herbs... but then again, they might get blown out by rapid fermentation, so better add them to the secondary or after the main fermentation has slown down.

Regarding herbs, I see we are having similar plans. I also want to try wormwood as the bittering agent. Groundd Ivy, sweat gale and mugwort and yarrow all have also a slight bittering effect, but not strong enough to my taste. Would be good to know if the Wormwood provides the same preserving abilitys as hops do. If so, it would help immensly regarding preventing spoilage.

A forum devoted to gruits would be great, if this site was willing to create one. Probably wouldn't be a high-traffic area, but for those of us who are interested in brewing with herbs, it would be a one-stop-shop for the topic.

Thanks also for sharing your thoughts on the brew. Everything is open to negotiation, since all my plans aren't final yet.

The "sun tea" idea really resonated with me because my mother, when I was a kid in the early '70s, used to make a ton of sun teas using tea and various herbs and stuff. I forgot all about it. But it always worked and was always delicious. How it works in a beer, I have no idea. But steeping to pasteurize, as the brewery did with John Palmer and the juniper berries, I would think would be fine. My idea was to do a combination... pasteurize first and hit it with UV after. I'd steep everything (sans wormwood) at 170 F for about 30 minutes, transfer to a glass container, and then hit it with the sun's UV for a day. Maybe the UV idea is overkill?

I've read some people putting additions in the secondary dry, like dry hopping, but I don't think I have the guts to spin that roulette wheel. While it may come out fine, I just can't get myself to do it.

So I'll get the grains on Thursday. Friday I'll be visiting a local farm to hand pick the yarrow. I have the other herbs dried, ready to go. Just have to settle on quantities.

I was thinking of adding 1 oz. of sweet gale in the mash, another ounce at flameout, and depending on taste, perhaps another ounce in the fermenter. Anything added post boil would be as a tea.

The yarrow will be freshly picked, so I might reduce this to 1/2 oz. The herbalist told me fresh is always more potent than dried, and if I'm adding yarrow fresh, cut the projected amount in half. So the addition would be the same as the sweet gale, but just half the amount.

The wormwood is massively powerful, so that will be one addition of a very small quantity in the boil. Any suggestions on an amount? Maybe 2 grams at 60 minutes? I'll have 6 gallons in the fermenter.

The juniper berries I was thinking of 1 oz., crushed, added as a tea at knockout or in the fermenter.

 

[Miraculix]

As I said before, each brew with additions in the secondary (dry hopping) did turn sour in my tests, except the sweet gale. So I also would advice against spinning that roulette wheel.

I think the difference between sun tea and Wort is the presence of sugar. This gives all the MOs a nice boost and even if just a few would be left they would turn into a big (sour) crowd in no time.

However, a sanitised tea or boiled brew should be fine.

I did read somewhere something about wormwood dosages... Cannot find it anymore, will check again and keep you updated.

 

[premington]

As I said before, each brew with additions in the secondary (dry hopping) did turn sour in my tests, except the sweet gale. So I also would advice against spinning that roulette wheel.

I think the difference between sun tea and Wort is the presence of sugar. This gives all the MOs a nice boost and even if just a few would be left they would turn into a big (sour) crowd in no time.

However, a sanitised tea or boiled brew should be fine.

I did read somewhere something about wormwood dosages... Cannot find it anymore, will check again and keep you updated.

Yeah... It's difficult finding quantity recommendations for wormwood. At least a recipe I know someone's made and the quantity worked. That info is out there... just takes some digging. I've seen it too... That's why I'm thinking of 1 or 2 grams. I seem to remember seeing that someplace. I do need to figure that out before Saturday, so if you bump into anything, post it here. It'll help me and others who read this thread. What I discover I'll post here also.

If the recipe comes out well, I'll post it on this site under Recipes/Ingredients. It's unique enough compared to other recipes here that it would be a nice option for others to explore herbal beers.

Definitely don't want MO nasties infecting my beer, so sanitation is critical. You couldn't be more correct emphasizing this.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

Since the water chemistry is there to the benefit of the grist during the mash, I would initially assume that the same general rules would apply as for a more traditional brew recipe.

 

[premington]

Since the water chemistry is there to the benefit of the grist during the mash, I would initially assume that the same general rules would apply as for a more traditional brew recipe.

Hi there!

My concern was how to deal with the sulfate/chloride ratio given there are no hops. If this concept is just reduced to herb bitterness vs. malt, then perhaps it still applies no different than if it were hop bitterness vs. malt.

For the gruit, I'm gonna shoot for an equal ratio to start and see how it turns out. I suspect it'll probably be fine. Perhaps 75 ppm/75 ppm for both sulfate and chloride.

This'll be an interesting brew! Very curious to see how it turns out.

 

[Miraculix]

I wouldn't bother to much about the water as there are way bigger unknowns in this brew. Amount of herbs, mix of herbs, time of boiling, just to name a few. Keeping it in a range that feels good for a hoppy brew, like silver is money suggested seems a good idea to me.

However, I never did spend any time thinking about the water, so I might not be the best guy to try to give advices on this topic

 

[Miraculix]

Cannot refer to the original source, but found my notes on this topic. The guy said he used half an oz per 6 gallon batch and it turned out quite bitter so he recommends half of it, which leaves you with roughly 1.2g of wormwood per gallon. Hope this helps.

 

[premington]

Cannot refer to the original source, but found my notes on this topic. The guy said he used half an oz per 6 gallon batch and it turned out quite bitter so he recommends half of it, which leaves you with roughly 1.2g of wormwood per gallon. Hope this helps.

Yes it does, very much. I recall reading another post someplace where the individual said to use between 1-2 grams, so you pretty much confirmed it. I think I'll start with 1 gram, taste, and adjust if necessary.

Appreciate you looking that up, Miraculix!

 

[Miraculix]

That's all right!

I will also start with 1g per gallon, maybe I will make a small 2l test batch the next days, only with wormwood. Maybe a quick Stout or some other rather dark and malty beer, in which hops usually only provide the bitterness and not much flavour.

 

[premington]

That's all right!

I will also start with 1g per gallon, maybe I will make a small 2l test batch the next days, only with wormwood. Maybe a quick Stout or some other rather dark and malty beer, in which hops usually only provide the bitterness and not much flavour.

If you could do that, that would fantastic! I lack the time to do it this week. But it would certainly add confidence towards adding wormwood to a full batch. Wormwood can destroy a batch if improperly measured. I've never used it, except for test teas.

Funny... When I was creating all these tea trials, I did 1 tsp into 1 cup of water. That worked fine for everything. With wormwood, the color and scent seemed okay, but when I took a sip, I ran to the sink and spit it out. OMG! It was soooo bitter! I swished my mouth out with sweet soda, and for a few hours, I was still tasting it on my tongue. That stuff is powerful!

And I've read it contains thujone... a psychoactive. This brings up another subject. Has anyone noticed anything from any of these herbs? Does it change the quality of the ale buzz? I'm wondering if the concentrations are too low to notice a difference.

 

[Miraculix]

I have read quite a lot about the psychoactive part of it. It does change change the general buzz but wormwood alone does not do much. I will write the stuff down tonight in the gruit beer thread, am writing from my phone atm... It is to long for this, my thumb would collapse

 

[Miraculix]

Wrote something about this topic here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=629637