Why is it confusing me? Mostly because of the illegal practices. Today's recipe is full of illegal ingredients. Hartshorn shavings, salt, liquorice root. So very dodgy practices are proposed, if the book dates from post-1816 (the year a ban on ingredients other than malt, hops, yeast and water was introduced). Especially as the quantities are far too large to be for a private brewer. Private brewers' didn't usually mash more than a single quarter of malt.
Then there's the note, obviously added later, that says "no black" above the malt entry. Remember, black malt was invented in 1817. When was this book written?
London Ale Brewing 22 Quarters
Malts
22 quarters of Pale Ware [in a different hand "no Black" written above]
Hops
176 pounds of new pale Kent
Turn over four liquors devide into two worts.
First wort boil half an hour.
Second wort boil four hours.
Use in the first wort in the copper 6 pounds of hartshorne shavings and one pound salt.
First liquor over @ 187 degrees with 32 barrels of liquor over.
Second liquor over @ 190 degrees with 22 barrels of liquor over.
Third liquor over @ 150 degrees with 22 barrels of liquor over.
Lett the worts down into the square at 60 degrees with 4 scoopes of yeast well rousd.
Scim the head clean of and cleanse at 76 degrees. Use in the square well mixed up
1 pound salt 4 pound flour
1 pound of ground ginger &
1 pound of ground liquorice root.
Ron, here is Booth's (1834) extended discussion of unlawful ingredients formerly ("lately") used in brewing.
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.com/books?id=9xgZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA25&dq=Booth+Art+of+Brewing+Of+Illegal+Ingredients#v=onepage&q=&f=false
His phraseology seems to suggest that despite the change in the law, some brewers, and not just private ones, were still using some of these substances.
In his classification, one can see that different substances had different purposes. Hartshorn (probably an alkali) was intended to prevent acetification, for example.
The additives most of interest today, which he seems to approve of himself, are the ones that merely add an "extraneous" flavour. He mentions coriander, still used by some Belgian and other brewers, orange powder, orange peels, sweet flag and caraway in this group.
An early 1800's ale or porter recreation might profitably use some of these. I have tasted a strong English-style ale from British Columbia aged on a bed of Seville orange peels and it was excellent indeed. The intelligent use of additives is, in effect, what this writer was arguing for, and finally the law changed back to allow safe additions, is my understanding.
So often we read in the old books of the diversity of local ales. I believe in part this was due to the use of flavourings such as these.
Gary
Hartshorn = deerhorn , used as a clearing agent , I have seen this used many times before from this period.
ReplyDeleteBooth states, at the end of the discussion about acid-preventing substances, that they were often added together with those intended to promote clarification. Used together, these were sometimes called under the one vocable, finings. His discussion of hartshorn seems to focus on acid prevention as such but it is interesting that he himself seems to doubt its utility for this purpose.
ReplyDeleteHe goes on to state that there is a connection between the need to prevent both acidity and foulness (cloudy beer). Makes sense since an unfiltered beer is liable to uncontrollable re-fermentations.. This probably explains the advice you often read in 1800's books to cleanse very well beer going to India.
The downside to filtering beer before pasteurization came in (at least, if the yeast was not allowed to remain in the vessel) is damp paper oxidation. Here is a thing: what funny term in the old books talks about that? I never saw one. Did they accept it as an inevitable? To me it is a fault that literally renders the product undrinkable yet probably this is a learned behaviour. In the old days I gather they took what they could get.
Note too the discussion of the different peppers including "capsicum", or guinea pepper. When the first modern chile beers appeared in the southwest U.S. 20 years ago I recall astonished reactions even from some fairly experienced craft beer people. In truth, it was an old practice (not that it mattered, but still it is worth pointing out).
Gary
Every recipe I see from this little book moves it closer to the eighteenth century than the nineteenth. This recipe at least is early in origin, but tradition dies hard in brewing. If it wasn't for the porter grist I'd knock forty years off the supposed age of the book.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly the "no Black" is a bit of a poser, but even after 1817, black malt did not catch on for a long time, not until way after Wheeler's fraudulent patent expired. Even so, I have only ever seen it specified in porter and the use of black malt in conjunction with just pale malt to imitate porter was still being derided as fraudulent by some writers as late as 1871.
It would be wrong to assume that because "Pale Ware" is specified, that a pale ale was being brewed, it most certainly wasn't. "Pale" is a relative term and London could not brew a pale ale in the modern sense to save their life. Pale Ware was probably not a lot lighter than amber Ware. Indeed, when pale ale came into vogue, Ware malt went out of vogue because Ware couldn't make pale malt, and a malting industry grew as fast in Lincolnshire as it was declining in Hertfordshire.
But why would anyone specify no Black in an "ale" where it was unlikely to be used? Maybe Black was not a malt, but a Ware maltster
that produced crappy malt and therefore was not to be used.
The book seems to be too clean to have been in use as a working reference manual, so the annotation is even more mysterious. Perhaps it was added by Patto the first, doing some research at a much later date and he noted an obvious-observation by defacing the book. Were Biro's invented in 1816?
There are no particularly "dodgy" practices involved in this recipe as far as my sensibilities go; they are fairly traditional, standard practices of the time, and most of them make sense even in view of modern science.
The original wording of the 1816 act was far too rigid and outlawed just about everything, including fining, so it was relaxed to permit traditional practices.
Hartshorn, oyster shells, and egg shells were traditional practices, and did improve clarity. Dunno what's in hartshorn, bone I suppose, but oyster shell is rich in calcium carbonate and that will neutralise acidity. All of them supply calcium which is essential for clarification processes. It was standard practice at the time for brewers to boil their water before using it and in some areas, London being an example, this would have left them with a calcium deficiency. This would have messed up hot and cold break and natural clearing mechanisms. It seems that the author was aware of this, because he added his hartshorn to the copper. Modern science has shown that the electrostatic charges on hartshorn and oyster shells are right for fining and they are making a comeback in brewing. Both have been used in wine for centuries and still are.
The ancient practice of "dressing" yeast with flour and salt served no useful purpose, but they didn't know that at the time. The flour could be regarded as a malt substitute, and Excise would have frowned upon it, but it is traditional and Excise had the power to issue an "indulgence" to approved brewers to permit such practices.
Plenty of salt chucked everywhere of course, but Barclay Perkins were still chucking tons of salt everywhere in 1936 for no good reason; tradition dies hard.
Coriander, linseed, liquorice, and several others are all traditional and still cropped up occasionally in recipes of mid-1800s brewing books, but there was so much plagiarism in 19th century books that it is difficult to know where such recipes stemmed from.
Liquorice root goes well in beer, I've actually tried it.
It should be possible to "carbon-date" the book by the porter grist, because porter grists evolved in stages to wean us off of brown malt. Unfortunately, equal parts brown amber and pale is a fairly popular porter grist that survived with "quality" brewers almost into the 20th century. It is, in my view, a fairly late grist, which contrasts with the London Ale grist.
"Note too the discussion of the different peppers including "capsicum", or guinea pepper." It appears Mr Booth did a Columbus and confused chili(capsicum) with West African pepper and grains of paradise(guinea pepper.) Both of the guinea peppers are used in brewing today in, of course, Belgium.
ReplyDeleteGraham,
ReplyDeletedating this book. It has temperatures so must be later than 1760.
The 1816 didn't outlaw finings, as I recall.
I've seen black malt used - in very small quantities - in a early 19th century Reid X ALe recipe.
Clean? The notebook was filthy and stained. But I still don't think for a minute it was used as a recipe book.
By dodgy I mean anything that was against the law. As all the extra ingredients would have been between 1816 and 1880.
I would have agreed with you before this week that dressing with flour was pointless. Until I read Dr. Horace T. Brown. It's all about the enzymes. And how they stimulate yeast activity. Fascinating stuff. There is a scientific basis for the effect.
"equal parts brown amber and pale is a fairly popular porter grist that survived with "quality" brewers almost into the 20th century."
Do you have any examples to back this up? I've not seen a grist like that later than about 1830. Take a look here:
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/beerale.htm
This unusual and idiosyncratic book, published in 1824 and issued in editions thereafter (this current is from from 1834), contains a mini-book on brewing, it starts at p.333:
ReplyDeletehttp://books.google.ca/books?id=tBAAAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA349&dq=ware+malt#v=onepage&q=porter&f=false
Many statements are made which shed light on the current discussion.
First, he states that he is informed for many years porter has been made only with pale malt and the new patent roasted black malt.
Second, in a different part of the beer chapter, he states more than once in relation to the term black malt that it means treacle. When he wants to indicate that black malt means treacle, he puts the terms treacle in brackets after black malt. This suggests that the "black" in the recipe under discussion may have been treacle.
The author confirms that porter was originally called entire butt beer. He also shows some skepticism how it got its name when invented about "1830", one can see he knows the accepted story from Feltham but still shows some doubt. Also, he suggests that porter and brown stout were once the same thing (in strength clearly) although in his time clearly they were not so.
He has a fondness for "keeping small beer" and gives a recipe for it. He says it is an old London drink. I'd love to know its ABV, I believe Ron you would know from the detail of his recipe. This old beer type, mentioned in Combrune, may be the ancestor to IPA in my view.
Finally, he states of the "pale ale brewery", clearly speaking of London, that the pale ales ranged from almost colourless to high amber. The same appears in effect from Combrune if you read him carefully. So Michael Jackson was right and wrong. Pale ale might be amber and the term was relative by comparison with porter as Michael argued, but pale ale could be light as rain too, which would have surprised Michael I think. RIP.
Gary
I would not have put it as early as 1760 because of the free use of pale malt, even Ware pale, which I reckon was probably around 20EBC, if not higher, and made the same way as amber and brown, just a bit lighter, with smokiness discouraged in the pale and amber and encouraged in the brown. In fact I don't think there was much difference between brown and amber apart from the degree of smokiness.
ReplyDeletePale "ale" malt, as we know it today, could not be made on a commercial scale in 1760. It required radical changes to the traditional kiln design, and kilning technique.
I would have expected the porter grist to have been either all brown or a mixture of brown and amber at 1760.
In retrospect there is more evidence to point the date at your original estimate at post-1816 than 18th century.
In favour of an early date is that the names of the beers are archaic, considering the whole range of beers mentioned in your first post, and the practices are ancient for the time.
In favour of a late date are that the recipes are modern and of high quality. There are no malt or hop substitutes (excluding the yeast dressing), no sugar-based colourants, and nothing pernicious in them. This does hint at adherence to the 1816 act, which is more about preventing brewers cooking the books to reduce the malt and hop tax burden than anything else. Burnt-sugar colourants were legalised in 1811, but removed again as a consequence of the 1816 act, probably because it was being abused. The Spanish juice was probably added for colour, not flavour, and the liquorice root for flavour. The three recipes posted so far have absolutely nothing wrong with them as regards quality, purity, or fiddling the excise.
A big omission which biases it towards an early date is the complete lack of any gravity detail. This is no piddling little brewery; at least 40 quarters and it looks like we are talking of a fifty-barrel copper. That would be regarded as a large country-brewery in the 20th century and positively huge in 1830. A brewery that size with no quality control measures would be unthinkable, to me at least. The saccharometer was enshrined in Excise law (coincidentally) in 1816, as the legal method of catching the book-cookers, but they could measure gravity by weighing a sample in a gravity bottle long before the hydrometer was invented.
Incidentally, I cannot find any references to brown, pale, amber malt proportions Ellis's London and Country Brewer. I find it hard to imagine it as being 1:1:1 in his day.
Anyway, I'll discuss that charlatan William Ellis another time if the opportunity arises. There are details in London and Country Brewer that show that the pale malt that Ellis seems to have been so enthusiastic about, was not pale ale malt as we know it. Nor was it pale malt as he knew it either if it was made the way he described. Quite impossible.
He does, at one point, appear to be talking porter, or the origins thereof, in all but name, and probably pre-Harwood.
Graham it appears that Hartshorn is bone or the ammonia component of bone also called baker's ammonia
ReplyDeleteAmmonium (bi)carbonate, E503, still used in certain traditional baked goods as a leavening agent.
ReplyDelete