The GaP (Grocery and Produce) Beer Experiment

[Bob]

Gotcha. I'll shut up now.

Still contemplating something with molasses. There are dozens of Colonial-era recipes with molasses and spices.

Hmm....

 

[Revvy]

Gotcha. I'll shut up now.

Still contemplating something with molasses. There are dozens of Colonial-era recipes with molasses and spices.

Hmm....

Oh yeah, if you can find it, dig up the Dec/ Jan issue of Zymurgy (all about porters) there's a great article/recipe about the Colonial Williamsburg Porter...It uses a burnt sugar/molases mixture....

 

[Freezeblade]

So here I am 30 mins into the 40 min mash for the recipe I posted earlier, and I'm rather concerned about the converting ability of beano, as I can smell no sweetness in the mash, looks to me like this batch of gruel might be a dumper. I'll leave it on for another while to see if it converts, but it's looking like attempt #1 is a failure

 

[EvilTOJ]

I wasn't thinking about doing this experiment, but I just so happen to have picked up a book on medieval beer wine mead and cider recipes. I can browse through that and see what kind of items I can get from a zompocalypse grocery store

 

[jaydventer]

Here in SA we've got King Korn (malted sorghum and yeast).
it's availible in the shops and the instructions go like this:

Bjala bja setso: African beer
1kg King Korn Mtombo (ready-crushed sorghum malt with yeast)
500g maize meal (flour)
13 litres water
Mix 500g of King Korn Mtombo with 500g of maize meal. Add 2 litres of boiling water and stir until well dissolved. Cover with a lid when cool. Allow to stand overnight to sour.
Boil 2 litres of water in a pot and add the sour mixture, stirring continuously until boiling. Cook the mixture for about an hour then allow to cool.
Add 8 litres of cold water and another 500g of King Korn Mtombo to the mixture and stir in the bucket or calabash.
Leave for 1-3 days to ferment.
Strain the mixture by pressing the liquid through a sieve, then leave for 20-30 minutes.
Enjoy the beer!

i wonder if in the "Allow to stand overnight to sour." step there are any enzymes present that convert the maize into fermentable sugars?

might as well try this, doubt it's gonna taste good!

 

[Revvy]

i wonder if in the "Allow to stand overnight to sour." step there are any enzymes present that convert the maize into fermentable sugars?

might as well try this, doubt it's gonna taste good!

That was my first impression reading the instructions...a long mash...I would do it in a cooler or something to keep out any nasties...

Also, an I reading it correctly, it has yeast already added to it???

 

[Revvy]

So here I am 30 mins into the 40 min mash for the recipe I posted earlier, and I'm rather concerned about the converting ability of beano, as I can smell no sweetness in the mash, looks to me like this batch of gruel might be a dumper. I'll leave it on for another while to see if it converts, but it's looking like attempt #1 is a failure

DId you try an iodine test??

 

[Freezeblade]

DId you try an iodine test??

I didn't have any iodine on hand, so no, I didn't. I did however add some honey in the end and took a gravity reading (1.05ish) the wort was very gruel-like, but after some research I decided to just go with it, then after the first bit of fermentation goes, throw in another bean-o capsule if the gravity hasn't moved much, which should give the enzymes PLENTY of time to de-branch the carbs, I saw a few people who added the bean-o into the secondary or after primary fermentation started.

I woke up this morning and saw that yes the fermentation had started, but the amount of what appeared to be trib that separated out is astounding, nearly taking up half the carboy, I'm hoping that the enzymes and time will work on this stuff a bit, whatever it is.

Picture of the starchy-trib mess:

I figured this must be because the main "grains" used were pre-ground into flour then reconstituted as cereal (grape nuts) so the particals were smaller, or something to that effect, what do you guys think?

 

[McKBrew]

Go carefully with the Beano, it will not stop eating sugars. This article has some decent information.

 

[Revvy]

So freeze...you're saying that the entire bottom half is all trub??? OMG...ANd it hasn't even flocculated yet??? WOW... I' really can't wait til ferms over...You might want to consider cold crashing it afterwards...it might help clear it up...

I'll say it again...WOW! Kudos to you for doing it...I still haven't figured mine out yet.

 

[Freezeblade]

So freeze...you're saying that the entire bottom half is all trub??? OMG...ANd it hasn't even flocculated yet??? WOW... I' really can't wait til ferms over...You might want to consider cold crashing it afterwards...it might help clear it up...

From yesterday the amount of trub at the bottom is now 1/3 as much as it was (it is now only 3 inches of the bottom, instead of 9 inches). I can think of a few things that might make it do this, either it just compacted, which would be strange to compact that much, or the bean-o enzyme survived the boil and is eating away at the carb flour slowly, either way it's crazy. I'll throw an updated picture up when the primary fermentation is over, I'm thinking that a bit of secondary might help clear it up, along with a cold-crash.

 

[Revvy]

Well, mine was a dumper....A wasted half day, wasted money, I had to scrub scorched gunk off the bottom of my kettle twice (A trick I learned is that a fine wet/dry sanding sponge, is great to get the last burned bits off the bottom, without scratching the metal)...My right hand is slightly scalded from plunging it into my mashtun to reattach the braid...My house has this burned sugar/barley/rice/malted milk smell to it...

Boy that was fun!!!

I don't know if I'll try again...we'll see...I may post pictures of the disaster up until I dumped the stuff....

I was planning to see it through, but after it scorched before it would even get up to a boil, I gave up....

 

[RootvonRoot]

whatever you do dont use wormwood for bittering, I tried that once and it tastes like cough syrup. In some asian stores you can get the mold that converts rice starch into sugar for rice wine, is this cheating?

i like wormwood as a bittering agent, personally
just started my second batch of wormwood ale

don't expect it to be like hops - wormwood's bitterness hits you on the back of the pallet with ferocious astringency - but I dig it

 

[Freezeblade]

Well, mine was a dumper....A wasted half day, wasted money, I had to scrub scorched gunk off the bottom of my kettle twice (A trick I learned is that a fine wet/dry sanding sponge, is great to get the last burned bits off the bottom, without scratching the metal)...My right hand is slightly scalded from plunging it into my mashtun to reattach the braid...My house has this burned sugar/barley/rice/malted milk smell to it...

Boy that was fun!!!

I don't know if I'll try again...we'll see...I may post pictures of the disaster up until I dumped the stuff....

I was planning to see it through, but after it scorched before it would even get up to a boil, I gave up....

Yeah, the only reason mine didn't burn was because I did the brew in a bag method, and my bag was a little small, so it never touched the bottom of my brew kettle, although it had me worried quite a few times. Mine's still bubbling strong, so I must have done something right.

 

[jaydventer]

Also, am I reading it correctly, it has yeast already added to it???

yep. so essentially its a bit of a waste of product, instead of just including a packet of yeast, they just mix it with the malted sorghum. that means, you probably kill the first half of the yeast when you mix it with the boiling water in step 1)...although, when i came back from work the next day, it was already bubbling..like some witch 's grool, hehe.

tonight i strain and put into 5lt plastic bottles.


when i bought it the black lady at the till looked at me funny and asked me: "who's gonna help you with that?" as if she thinks because i'm a whitey i can't brew zulu beer?... well just followed the instructions, so hopefully i can!

 

[Revvy]

Alright, here's a few photos and the story of my attempt...My first ever brewing failure...hopefully the only one.

The ingredients.

2 1.1 pound boxes Cracklin Oat Bran Cereal
1 pound Box of Malted Milk Candies (ground in the food processer- Yeah I know it's not malted barley, I just wondered what would happen with all the chocolate and sugar.)

1 pound of Pearl Barly
1 pound of Wild Rice/Brown Rice Blend (Barley and Rice mixture went into a cereal mash before being added to the tun with the cereal and the candies)
Mollases was to be added to the boils.
Beano for conversion

For bittering, I was going to use Angostino Bitters...
Pacman Yeast from bottle conditioned Rogue Beer.

(in the background, you will see that I blew the dust of the "old brown jug) Mr Beer keg, to do a 2 gallon batch...Think I'd attempt five gallons of what could be the most vilest brew known to man? NAH!

I attempted to do an overnight mash at 155 degrees...My Idodine test Sunday morning showed no, or very little conversion (I was concerned that I didn't actually hit 155 (I had issues with calculating the strike water temp, becasue I had hot mush from the rice/oat, and room temp cereal, so my numbers were all wonky)

I decided to try to re-mash...I started to drain my MLT and got my first stuck sparge. So I just dumped the goop from the tun into a pot (HSA be Damned) and brought it up to 160 and put it back into my tun for 2 more hours...(This resulted in my first scorching of my kettle...and an hour cleanup of it.)

I mis labeled the pic, but here is my attempt to remash...

I had rigged up a "brew in Bag" with my paint strainer bag inside my MLT, which kept falling into the cooler...I used a couple of spring clamps to finally hold it in place, but couldn't put the lid on the cooler, so I covered it with tinfoil and an insulated blanket, and left it alone while I scraped my kettle clean...(A fine grit wet dry sanding sponge I learned is an invalualbe addition to one's cleanup aresenal...you can get the last bits of scorching off the pot without scratching the metal.)

After 2 hours I sparged with another gallon and a half of 170 water and started to drain my MLT....And had another stuck sparge despite using the brew in bag method...I pulled out the bag of "grain" and used my mash paddle to swirl the liquor which seemed to help the MLT begin to drain, but I knocked my braid off and had to repeatedly soak my hand in cold water and plunged it into my 160+ degree cooler to reattach it (can anyone say multiple degree burns?).

This is what I finally pulled out of my tun....Ain't it tasty looking?
And what a nice somewhat burned smell to it from scorch #1...but I figured a little scorch would add a smoky nutty taste to it...

More to come...

 

[Revvy]

Part 2

Here's the spent "grain" mush before going down the disposal...Appetizing ain't it?

Like I said, I was determined to see this thing out to yeast pitch...I figured Something good could come of it, right?...plus I had to justify my time, and the pain of my hand, right?

But I was wrong...Really Wrong...

Before it even got much above 190 degrees I started to detect another layer of "Roastiness" developing in the kettle....Nah, I'll call it what it was...The damn thing was scortching once again!!!

So that was that...If I couldn't safely boil it, then there was no point in proceeding...I guess I could have attempted to just pasteurize it and add the mollases and the bitters...but I figured the burned taste would render it un drinkable...

So into the sink with the grain it went...

Here's the second scortch in my kettle...

This one was harder to clean becasue it was nearly a quarter inch thick...I did 2 soaks with oxyclean, and a couple of heavy scrapings...and finally another round with the sanding sponge (I'd marry it if it had bewbies) but my brewpot came clean again...I even boiled a couple of gallons of water to make sure I got any burned "taste" out of it...

And for the last 2 days I've been soaking my cooler in baking soda/water to try to remove the sickly sweet burned smell out of it...

Like I said...even though it was painful, and frustrating...It was fun (sort of).

 

[IrregularPulse]

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer. I'm probably going to cheat and use a packet of dry nottingham I have laying in the fridge. Sorry about not follwing rules, Just consider it my own experiment based one the ideas of the OP. Or call me a cheater, I don't care.

 

[Revvy]

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer.

You got the premise of it pretty good...

I don't really know the amount of beeno to use...I just know that on chat, Eviltoj told me he used 10 beeno's for his "grainbill" and didn't get good conversion...I used 15 and didn't either....

 

[Freezeblade]

I really want to try this. One thing I'm unlcear on. I don't get behind the science of brewing really. So the conversion of enxymes to starch, thats what you guys are using the Beano for correct since the cereals you're using don't act the way the malted grains do in a mash? and how much beano per pound of cereal ("grain") is needed? I wanna try this!! i mean all we really need is flavored sugar water and yeast to technically make a beer. I'm probably going to cheat and use a packet of dry nottingham I have laying in the fridge. Sorry about not follwing rules, Just consider it my own experiment based one the ideas of the OP. Or call me a cheater, I don't care.

First of all, the obligatory statement: cheater!

All in good jest. but to answer your question, I used 2 capsules of beano in my gallon batch, which I "mashed" for about an hour with all the grains, then boiled for 30 mins. The stuff's acting weird in the fermenter, it had about half of the carboy filled with trub (see earlier post) then it fell to about 1/6 of the carboy, now it's back up at 1/4, with bubbles coming through the junk on the bottom. I must have done something right, because fermentation is still going, although that could be from the honey I added. After it seems to have stopped I'll do a SG test on it, and if it's really high I'll throw in another beano cap right into the carboy, I read that that works somewhere.

In other news, am I the only one who's got this far?

 

[EvilTOJ]

1 lb 8 oz box of grape nuts
14 oz of minute rice

10 beano tablets
1 package corn husks, cut up with scissors

1/2 oz spruce tips
1/8 tsp whole, cracked coriander seeds
1/4 tsp orange peel zest

baking yeast

I set in with about a gallon of water and mixed the cereal into the mash thoroughly. I used a grain bag, and I think that helped me not burn it to the bottom of the bot like Revvy did. I ground up my beano tablets and mixed them in as well. If I try this again, I'll be putting the beano into the water first, then adding the cereal. I let it sit for two hours at that temp, and it did taste quite sugary, but still hadn't done a complete conversion. The wiseguys in chat said I needed to do a cereal mash on it, so I set it to boil for about 10 minutes, then killed the heat. I ground up five more beano tablets to add into the mash once it'd cooled to 122. I heated it slowly back up to 150. I left it there for three hours.

I finally said F it it's done, and tried draining as much liquid out of the grains as possible. It still took a very long time. Next time I would ad more corn husks for better sparging. I got two gallons of water out of it, and I boiled it down to one gallon. I then added the spices at flameout. Cooled it off, and added some proofed Fliechmann's yeast.

OG..... 1.028 ($^*&^@#@!! And I still have some starches in the wort. It smells pretty damn good though.

Next time I will let it mash overnight and see how well that works. I will also add more corn husks for a drain bed and

 

[DeathBrewer]

there's gotta be a way to get conversion without using beano. i won't touch that stuff after all the horror stories i've heard and read.

 

[Revvy]

there's gotta be a way to get conversion without using beano. i won't touch that stuff after all the horror stories i've heard and read.

Can't we just pretend that they keep little half pound bags of 2-row stashed next to the king biscuit flower and the pearl barley?

Even a small amount would probably do more towards helping conversion then beano...

 

[DeathBrewer]

why not malt your own wheat? you can find unmalted wheat in the grocery, right?

 

[Freezeblade]

why not malt your own wheat? you can find unmalted wheat in the grocery, right?

There's no unmalted wheat in my grocery store, pretty much the only whole grain you can get is corn, and malting the corn is going to be my next project.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Well, amylase enzymes are present in saliva....

I'm looking into health food supplements to see what would likely be available at a grocery store. Probably something having to do with aiding digestion. Or baby formula?

lol nice name for this experiment, freezeblade. I'm calling mine "underage hooch beer". I have another gallon jug, I will not be deterred!

 

[EvilTOJ]

Hmmm.... What about bananas? According to this, anywhere from 39ºf to 143ºf with a calcium addition will promote good alpha and beta amylase enzyme activity in ripe bananas. It doesn't mention whether just the meat of the fruit is used, or the entire thing skins and all is used. I'll bet it's the entire fruit. Any fruit high in carbohydrates also has amylase enzymes in it.

Dammit where are the chemists on the board? Surely there's a chemist or biofood study-ifier in the house!

 

[effigyoffaith]

From the wikipedia article on amylase, "Modern bread making techniques have included amylase enzymes into bread improver thereby making the bread making process faster and more practical for commercial use."

I don't know if my grocery store carries something like this, but next time I'm in there I'll check.

 

[clemson55]

Do any of you guys have a trader joes or whole foods around you? I havent found a whole foods here yet but I know where trader joes is and they have all kinds of specialty items. Or would that be cheating?

 

[EvilTOJ]

I have both Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. Whole Foods may be cheating, but I'm not so sure about Trader Joe's....

EDIT: Trader Joe's is in 9 states and sells all kinds of grocery items, but isn't strictly a health-food store. It's more like a high end merchandise grocer. I vote that it counts.