Primitive/Improvised Methods Beer

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November

November

...relax...
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So, despite having a shiney new brewing system I decided to try to make a batch of beer using only improvised and primitive methods. I've read a couple of posts of people doing similar things and it sounds like fun. So my ground rules are going to be no thermometers, no scales, no hydrometers, no electricity and no gas. Should be fun, or a disaster.

For added fun, I am going to have my wife take measurements and write them down without me seeing. So at the end I will be able to see if my guesses were right.

Started tonight with 5.5 QTS of raw barely. If I remember right, a quart of barely is like a pound and a half so that should give me 8 pounds or so (wife weighed them but didn't give me a clue on how close it was). I soaked it for several hours and now its resting. I'm going to keep cycling between soaking and resting until I see chits.

I'm going to dry most of it and then make some into crystal malt. Still sorting out how to do all this with just a wood fire but I have some ideas.

I'm also still debating on what to do about yeast. I think my three choices are to try to harvest wild yeast, use bread yeast, or use a neutral dry yeast. Suggestions and ideas are welcome.
 
Drained the barely last night and started another soak.

I am putting together my recipe, unless I change it because of the malting, but I think I am going to go with:

4 Gallon batch size
4qts (by volume, I am guessing it is like 6 pounds) of malted pale barley
2qts (maybe 3 pounds) of brown malted barley
1qt (1.5 pounds) of some color of crystal malt'

Im malting extra in case I need it. If I dont, I will just give it to the chickens. I also decided to go a bit bigger in gravity than my initial plan just in case I dont get full or even modification from the grain.

My most immediate things to figure out are:
-How to get the malt to 120-140 to dry it
-How to brown the brown malt without turning it into a complete smoke bomb (may be unavoidable)

Normally I would dry in the sun, but it is a bit too cold for that. I have fermented sausage in my smoker before by just putting a single candle in the bottom and if I remember right that gets the smoking chamber up to the 120's if you just leave it so I may go with that.

Next problems are:
-How I am going to hit mash temps without a thermometer
-How to lauter without using a false bottom (I've decided to avoid even using regular equipment if it is possible, so just a big pot and some buckets).
-How to boil over a mesquite fire without turning this thing into an undrinkable smoke bomb
-What to use for yeast (this is what is troubling me most)

Ideas?
 
For the lauter you could do like I saw they do chicha or however you spell it, the corn beer in Peru or wherever. They use a bunch of dried grass/reeds/hay. So long as they are semi clean and dry, get a good thick mat of them, and, uh... Like pour the whole mash over the mat and have it drain through that into another vessel. Evergreen boughs would work if you don't mind a piney beer.

This might be cheating but, I imagine that the original Beer brewers probably used sight, sound, and feeling to determine if the water was at the right temps to make their fermented beverages. They had the "luxury" of time to learn that by making thousands of batches and they just "knew" it was the right temp from dipping their thumb in, looking at the way the steam rises, looking at the bubbles and the sound the water is making. You might consider this cheating so it's only a suggestion, take your kettle and heat it to temps like 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, and 170. Touch, listen, look (the touch part be careful not to burn yourself). This is the sort of mentality cooks have, you put in enough of 1 ingredient, and you cook it till its done, no times, temps, or amount.

If you are dead set on using mesquite wood, you may get smoke no matter what you do. You could try to alleviate that a little by making the fire as hot and dry as possible. Building what's called a Colorado Fire Pit, I believe the native Americans used this to build a fire with lots of heat for cooking, and very low smoke so as to not reveal their position (also kept the light low). Basically you dig two holes in the ground, then dig a tunnel between the holes. One side you have the wood and fire, the other side you leave open. Open side will draw in lots of fresh air stoking the fire. Around the fire side you could put some bricks or something to rest the kettle a tiny bit above the open pit. You should get a crazy hot fire going with minimal smoke. The high, dry heat, the updraft from the kettle, and doing it on a slightly windy day should greatly reduce the amount of smoke being picked up in the beer (though I doubt ancient Brewers worried that much about this detriment until more recently).
 
The yeast question just boils down to 1 or 2 questions.

1) Do you want the results repeatable if you were to remake this? If yes, the I would go the neutral dry yeast. If repeatability is not your goal then question 2.

2) Do you mind cheating a tiny bit and making a controlled starter and doing a cool ship/yeast capture with commercial malt extract? You could do this and build up a decent starter with wild capture of local yeast/bacteria fauna. Were you gonna keg this or serve it like a cask ale out of a wood cask with brewers pitch slathered on the sides? The wild option is cool but bottling long term might become troublesome. No matter what you do this will be very very cool and would love to see pictures and results. I'm sure even if you way overshoot you mash temps you'll still make beer.
 
You will need to spin up a coal with the hand drill to stay primitive. I would use yucca for the spindle and board. Should have a coal in less than 15 seconds. Transfer to nest and blow into flame.
 
Probably the first "beer" made from malted grains was based on the Einkorn wheat.... which is believed to have been the first grain cultivated by humans, and still exists in the Turkish highlands growing wild

Depending on how far back in history you want to go.... this early beer was probably fermented with wild yeasts, and with the grain left in.... no boil.

The earliest brewers of modern malted grain beers likely did a full volume mash, or at least a very wet mash. The technique I developed for the stove top "inline" mash would be the simplest means of mashing without losing control of the temperature. You dough in with relatively low temp water and raise the temp very slowly.... half a degree per minute seems to work well for me. This gives time for a number of processes that proceed starch conversion, and prepare for it. The 20 minutes or so that the grain dwells in the conversion range is ample for conversion is my experience.

I would presume that something similar to this was done, and that the wort was probably then drained slowly into a container with organic material in the bottom serving as a filter or false bottom, with the first runnings recycled until it ran fairly clear.

Wild yeasts are abundant on fruits and berries.... and were long used for fermenting wines..... and probably are today. But not all yeasts are suitable for fermenting malt. In any case early beers were probably all sour beers.... To be authentic it's going to be sour. As a one time project, it isn't really practical to take a chance on wild yeasts.... How many times do you want to go through this...... I would probably draw the line there, and use a brett......... a Lambic blend is probably most authentic, but who wants to wait 2 years to taste it?

There can be little doubt that earlier brewers produced some pretty crappy beer, and that those who produced a good product simply reused their fermentation containers, or harvested krausen or sediment and used it for starter with one batch following on another steadily.

Your compromise will be in yeast... there really is no way around that. Of hundreds of brewers, perhaps one or two ended up with a consistently decent product. Without getting hundreds of people to brew using wild yeasts and selecting the decent products to propagate, it's impossible to recreate prehistoric beer .............

H.W.
 
Good news, I've got chits starting on the barley.

Lots of good points and some things I hadn't thought of.

I like the idea of lautering through straw, and I think I am going to go with that. I dont have any regular straw lying around so I am just going to harvest some dried buffalo grass from the surrounding desert.

I hadn't thought of using primitive methods for fire starting, but since I have come this far, I might as well!

I like the fire pit idea, but digging out here is rough so I am not sure if I am going to feel like digging a pit. Im using mesquite just because it is the most plentiful wood I have, some smoke may just be unavoidable.

Staggered infusions of boiling water with rests in between is probably the best bet to hit mash temp for at least a bit of time.

Lots of good points on the yeast. I am going to have to bottle it so that is a bit of a concern. I may make up some starter wort and put a couple containers in different places to see if I get anything even somewhat palatable otherwise I may have to fall back to neutral commercial yeast just so I can get something to try.

So I'm going to whip up some starter wort and see what I can capture.
 
Awesome I love primitive skills. I have been heavily involved in flint knapping, primitive bows and arrows, braintan buckskin, river cane flutes, tipi living, friction fire. I learned a lot but one thing stands out. Just because it is primitive does not mean that it can not very effective. Keep us posted on the beer.
 
I made enough wort for 4 mason jars. I put cheesecloth over each one and cooled.

One went in my garden next to some rosemary.
One is in my kitchen. Coincidentally it is right where I usually put my sourdough starter when I make bread.
I split off some chunks from a old wine barrel and threw those in one that I put on my bar.
I put bread yeast in one as kind of a fall back and have it sitting on the counter

Let's see what pops up...

img_20150118_172749-64744.jpg
 
whatever is next to your mason jar on the right kinda looks like a dead chipmunk. im interested to see what kind of yeast you may pick up in the different locations, and how long it will take to get the yeast
 
Ha! It's just a dead leaf. I did make sure that the one outside is on the opposite side of the house from the chicken coop.

Barley is coming along. I did a test run at boiling today. To avoid the smoke from the fire while boiling, I tried heating up some rocks and putting them into a pot of water.

I don't know anything about rocks, so two exploded, cracked really, and two worked fine. It worked pretty well so I may go this route. I have my kids out hunting for more rocks that look like the two that worked.

I remember reading about this in a brewing magazine a while back but didn't recall until my 6 year old suggested using hot rocks. Apparently he read it in a book about Native Americans.

Tomorrow I am going to build a bow and spindle for firestarting.
 
Update.

Barley is about 75% sprouted.

Last night I built an oil lamp. I have it in my smoker right now with a cup of water. In an hour I will go stick my thumb in it to see if I am at the right temp for drying barley. When I made my starter wort I tried to "calibrate" my senses to different temps. We will see if that worked.

The hot rock method is going well. I scavanged 10 firebricks from the property. Today I am going to try one instead of a rock. If that works it wil be a lot safer to add and remover them than the funny shaped rocks.

Yeast starters are doing well. The bread yeast control is done, I capped the mason jar on that one. It smells boozy and faintly fruity but tastes very neutral. Very much like a normal ale yeast starter.

The starter in the kitchens has signs of life. It smells vaguely like pineapple and mango. I haven't tasted it yet.

The starter with the wood barrel chunks is chugging away. Lots of bubbles. It smells like oak and wine. I had this barrel dry in my garage for 3 years and cut it into planters about 3 months ago. It has been sitting outside since.

The garden starter doesn't look like anything is happening. It smells like sweet unfermented wort.

I'm going to chuck a hot brick in some water and go get more firewood.
 
So the grain is ready to dry.

I put my homemade oil lamp in the bottom.

img_20150121_154824-64762.jpg


And put the grain above.

img_20150121_154916-64761.jpg


It will probably take a few hours to get to temp and I will let it go for all of today and most of tomorrow.

Here is my hobo stove to make my crystal malt. At first I made a stove out of bricks but the wind picked up so I'm using this. Got it going with dry grass and its burning chunks of mesquite.

img_20150121_161923-64760.jpg
 
Finished the crystal malt. I ran into a time crunch so I didn't go supper dark but it should still be pretty good. It tastes good. It is back in with the rest of the grain drying.

Of course it has to cool down tonight. Its been warm for four days, but now that I'm drying grain it got cold. So, I added a second oil lamp from the night.

...not so sure about the yeast...

The kitchen sample may have a tiny pellicle forming.

I brought the garden sample in to try and stabalize the temperature. It has a pretty decent pellicle forming.

I think the wood barrel inoculated one is a dumper. It has mold growing on the wood and has some gnarly stringy goo growing from the wood down into the beer.

Might end up going with a commercial yeast, or maybe just doing a small part with the wild stuff.

Any suggestions?
 
Stein beer I believe is what they called beer that was boiled with stones and is definately a primitive brewing method. Good on Ya for taking the dive for this experiment. As for the yeast I am a stranger to such processes and wish you luck!
 
Cool project.

To avoid smoke, I'd recommend the kind of wood-burning stove used in rural areas around the developing world. My wife's family in rural China does most of their cooking on this kind of stove: it's built out of bricks, clay, or mud, hollow on the inside where you burn your wood. There's a hole at the base on the side for airflow and feeding and a hole up top that corresponds to the size of your cooking vessel. It's quite efficient - you don't need a ton of wood - and you don't get much if any smoke flavor.

That might be too much of a project for one batch of primitive beer, but it's a setup that's been used for thousands of years all over the world and it works pretty well.

As for the yeast idea - as others have said, primitive beer was probably mostly innoculated with things like grape skins that had a lot of wild yeast growing, but the primitive beer that didn't taste terrible was probably fermented on a fairly consistent yeast strain by essentially repitching on the trub. Authentic first-batch primitive beer would probably require innoculating with wild yeast from the environment around you, but a commercial yeast strain could be more true to what an experienced brewer might have made.
 
Mother nature screwed me.

It has been warm during all my tests with the oil lamps and it worked great. Now I actually try it with grain and we get a cold snap with high winds. I can't get the lamps to get higher than 80 with the ambient temperature and high winds. Its not going to get warm till early next week and I don't want to let the grain sit wet for that long. So, I turned on the gas. Sucks to come this far and have to resort to it but I don't have much of a choice. I guess it just sets me up for a second attempt, but I will finish this one out and hope that that is my only compromise.

So now the grain is finally starting to dry. Hopefully by mid day tomorrow it will be done.

On the plus side, I think the yeast culture in the garden sample might be decent. Still too early but I am holding out hope.

Im already starting notes for my next attempt. I might wait will summer so I can dry in the sun. I also may build a makeshift stove to do all the prep work on.
 
Grain is dried. Once the weather improves I will kiln the base grain. The crystal malt tastes like special B.

Continuing to get firewood for the big brewday.
 
Kilned the grain today. I started a bunch of mesquite burning in my hobo stove and moved the white hot coals under the grain. By just using a couple of chunks at a time I was able to keep the thing at what I think was 200 for four hours. The grain tastes like Munich malt. Yield was a bit low I think.

So I am planning on a brew day next Saturday if the weather holds. My plan is as follows,

Build a large fire and start heating the bricks
Boil water over fire
Infuse a couple of quarts of boiling water at a time with 30 minutes in between until I get enough water collected.
Luater through straw
Drop in bricks two at a time to bring to a boil
Cycle bricks until boil is complete
No chill overnight
Pitch in the morning, going with commercial yeast... The yeast project didn't work everything just went moldy.

Hopefully I have enough firewood.
 
Since boiling is a constant, you should be able to ballpark strike water.

2 parts boiling water plus 1 part 68* water = 3 parts 164* water.

A little more or less of either should let you mash in at a good temp.
 
Magnus314 said:
Since boiling is a constant, you should be able to ballpark strike water.

2 parts boiling water plus 1 part 68* water = 3 parts 164* water.

A little more or less of either should let you mash in at a good temp.
Click to expand...

Both of my thermometers revealed themselves to be totally worthless on my last (last-minute) brewday. I did basically this, just calculated out a little bit more exactly for my situation. The temps must have ended up a little low because I got higher attenuation than I was bargaining for, but this is a great technique to have in your bag-o-tricks.
 
Magnus314 said:
Since boiling is a constant, you should be able to ballpark strike water.

2 parts boiling water plus 1 part 68* water = 3 parts 164* water.

A little more or less of either should let you mash in at a good temp.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I will Go this route for Saturday. My eater boils at 205 due to elevation, so 2:1 will probably get me right to mash temp. Thanks!
 
Apparently, this project is the equivalent of a rain dance. Poured last night and early this morning so firewood is soaked. Delayed another week or two.
 
Got a fire going and I am boiling the water for the mash. I set the bricks on the pre heat but I will move them into the fire once I get the mash started. I decided to use an old wrecked grill I found rather than the fire pit. Should keep the wind out a bit easier.

20150216_113749-64942.jpg
 
Mash in! Temperature felt low, guessing here, so I left it on the fire for another couple minutes. Now it's resting.

20150216_115345-64943.jpg


The fire is roaring so I just set the bricks on top. They Have like two hours to heat up.

20150216_115659-64944.jpg


Now I built a lauter tun.

20150216_120727-64947.jpg


And lined it with my filter medium, buffalo grass.

20150216_120953-64946.jpg
 
Lautering. It came out suprisingly clear. The grass worked like a charm.

20150216_125209-64948.jpg


Then came the boil. I heated 8 bricks on the grill. I added 2 and it brought it to almost boiling.

20150216_130202-64949.jpg


I added a third and it boiled.

20150216_130634-64950.jpg


From there on I just took out the oldest one and added a fresh one. The old one went on the grill to reheat. I was able to keep a ferocious boil this way. I even had a boilover! Yes, I even managed to take a picture of the boilover.

20150216_130932-64951.jpg


I'm not cooling it, so I put it in a water can and I will let it sit till tomorrow then I will pitch. Going to go with a packet of muntons since the wild yeast part of this project failed.

20150216_132717-64952.jpg


I will ferment in the same container. No airlock, I will just open the vent.
 
You're basically putting together an Apocalypse brewing primer for us, which should have it's own subforum anyway since I'm convinced every home brewer has a little doomseday prepper inside.

I might have missed this, but are you using hops at all?
 
Yes. Forgot to mention hops. I used a palm full of whatever unlabeled hop I found at the bottom of my chest freezer.

20150216_125920-64953.jpg


Probably tettnanger, goldings, Willamette, or maybe cluster. No idea on amount or IBUs, but that is fitting g with everything else on this project. Going to consult the notes my wife took with measurements to see how close I was.
 

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