Hopless/traditional recipes

[mwc9711]

So I've been getting into medeival brewing and traditional, pre-hops recipes. I have a gruit bottle conditioning and a sahti in primary. I'm excited to try the gruit, which I bittered with yarrow, wild rosemary and wormwood in place of sweet gale. I was wondering what recipes anyone has tried, and with what success. From initial tastes, the gruit I made should be decent, but i may have underdone the herbs because it is very malty.

 

[Oldsock]

I rec3ently did my first hop-less brew. It had spruce, elderberries, and a loaf of pumpernickle bread. Turned out well, fermented with bread yeast so it is a bit tart. We also added some smoked malt since that is how all malt would have been dried. In general I enjoy commercial gruits with quite a bit of age on them so the spices calm down. Hope it turns out well, good luck.

 

[mwc9711]

I used a cedar branch in my sahti because I couldnt find any fresh junper branches, and it also has about an ounce of juniper berries for a one gallon batch. Did the pumpernickle come through in the final product? I want my sahti to have a nice rye flavor to it

 

[Oldsock]

Hard to say, but certainly not prominently with all of the other things going on. I don't find rye to be that assertive unless it is used as 40%+ of the grain bill.

 

[starrfish]

I've got a hopless old ale down in a secondary with a brett culture added.

I used heather, yarrow, sweet gale, juniper berries & mugwort, these where Henry the VIII traditional bittering agents.

It was an interesting taste, at racking before the brett. I do hope it blends out a bit more, the brett culture should get me to almost 12% it was close to 10 before the brett.

 

[mwc9711]

how much of those herbs did you add?

 

[starrfish]

A lot!
Mugwort seems to be some pretty bitter stuff.

Here is the full Recipe.

Old English Ale
10 lbs. pale malt (2 row) (substitute 8lbs light dry extract for partial mash)
4 lbs. Marris Otter
1 lb. crystal malt (60)
2 oz. black malt
12 oz. molasses

Bitter with
2 oz mugwort, 2oz yarrow, 2oz heather, 1grm sweet gale, and 50-75 juniper berries.

 

[mwc9711]

I just opened a bottle of my gruit, and I am very pleased with the result. I was worried with the taste when I was bottling, but it has ended up with a nice balance. Here is the recipe if you want to give any feedback.

1 1/2 lbs two row malt
1 1/2 lbs crystal 10l
1 gallon of water

.1oz yarrow
.1oz wild rosemary
.1 oz wormwood
all at boil

same amounts of the herbs dry "herbed" after transfer to secondary, and left until I bottled.

 

[aaronkaz]

I recently bottled my best gruit yet! I made a post about it here..
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/gruit-thats-amazingly-good-204033/