Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/health/beerrec.zip/HIST1.REC

Text File | 1993-07-10 | 9KB | 195 lines

     Here's more good beer history (including recipes from George
Washington, Ben Franklin, and something called Green Cornstalk Beer)
from the Internet Homebrew Digest.


Date: Thu, 24 Oct 91 07:22:42 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Thomas Manteufel 5-4257)
Subject: More old recipts


Hello again, fellow history lovers.

As promised, here are some more old homebrewing recipes.  I received quite a
few requests for them.  More readers than we realize are interested in
living history.  Some things to remember:  Spelling rules were followed
rather haphazardly, as were punctuation.  I have entered these recipes as
closely to the sources I got them from as I could.  Bear is Beer, Pompion
is Pumpkin.  Most of the recipes use unknown or uncertain units, and are
probably more of historical rather than practical interest.  Some of the
terms I don't understand, such as "seen to break" in the Green Corn Stalk
recipe.  Anyone have any ideas? Could it have something to do with the
capillary tubes the wine makers use to measure alcohol?  Small or Strong
refers to a beer's strength.  Small beer was not seeped in the grains for
as long, and was meant to be drunk as soon as it fermented.  Think of it as
(gag) light beer.  Strong beer required aging before it could be drunk.
It had a higher alcoholic content.  Most of these recipes are from the book
"Brewed in America" by Stanley Baron.  The Persimmon Beer is from the
"Old Timey Receipts from Appomattox:  The Heart of Virginia" by the National
Park Women (of Appomattox).  Enjoy:


Receipt to make Bear

Major Thomas Fenner, early 1700's

One ounce of Sentry Suckery or Sulindine one handful Red Sage or
Large 1/4 Pound Shells of Iron Brused fine take 10 quarts of Water
Steep it away to Seven and a quart of Molases Wheat Brand Baked
Hard. one quart of Malt one handful Sweeat Balm Take it as Soone
as it is worked.

Translated into modern English, the recipe is most likely:

Recipe to make Beer

One ounce of the dried leaves of the senna tree, chicory, or celandine.
One handful of red sage or crushed 1/4 pound shells of iron [which may
     be the hop-like fruit from an ironwood, Ostrya Virginica, also known as
     the hophornbeam.  The ironwood is known as hophornbeam because the fruit
     it produces look so much like hop bracts, unlike the fruit of the
     American Hornbeam, which don't.]
10 quarts of water, boiled down to seven.
A quart of molasses.
A cake of hard baked wheat bran.
A quart of malt.
One handful of barm.  [brewers yeast cake from a previous batch]
Drink it as soon as it is fermented.


Col. George Washington's Small Beer (1737)

To Make Small Beer

Take a large Siffer [Sifter] full of Bran Hops to your Taste. - Boil
these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gall[ons] into a cooler put in 3 Gall[ons]
Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses
into the cooler & St[r]ain the Beer on it while boiling Hot.  let this
stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of
Yea[s]t if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blank[et] &
let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask - leave
the bung open till it is almost don[e] Working - Bottle it that
day Week it was Brewed.


Pumpkin Ale

An anonymous recipe for pumpkin ale appeared in the papers of the American
Philosophical Society in February, 1771.  The author notes that he obtained
this recipe from someone who claimed this tasted like malt ale, with only a
slight "twang".  After two years in the bottle, this twang had mellowed to
an acceptable level.

Receipt for Pompion Ale

Let the Pompion be beaten in a Trough and pressed as Apples.  The
expressed Juice is to be boiled in a Copper a considerable Time and
carefully skimmed that there may be no Remains of the fibrous Part
of the Pulp.  After that Intention is answered let the Liquor be hopped
cooled fermented &c. as Malt Beer.


Directions for Brewing Malt Liquors

>From the letters of Joseph Clarke, general treasurer of the Rhode Island
colony, sometime around 1775.

You are first to have ready the following Implements, a mash Vat, to
put your malt in; a Vessel under this to receive the Wort in; a Copper
to boil in; a Rudder to stir your malt with, and Vessels to cool
your Liquor in;
First then fill your Copper with water, take then 6 Bushels of Malt
and put into your mash Vat, leaving about a Peck to sprinkle over the
Liquor when in, Let your water simper, and be in the next degree
of boiling but not boil; lay it on upon the Malt well ground, and
when you have laid on such a quantity as you can draw off a Barrel
of Wort, stir the malt well together with your Rudder; and then
sprinkle the remaining Peck of Malt over all covering it up with Cloths
to keep the heat in; for three hours; only when it have stood an hour
and half draw off a pail full or two; and lay it on again to clear your
tap hole.
This done the next Business is to boil a Copper of Water, to scald
your other Vessels with; always taking care to have a Copper of Liquor
hot to lay on, upon the malt when you draw off the first Wort, and
this will be for small Beer.
The three hours now expired; let go (as the Term is) which is let the
first wort run off, putting into the Vessel which receives it a pound of
Hops; when all drawn off lay on the hot Liquor for your small Beer,
clean out your Copper and put the wort, Hops and all into the Copper
and boil it for two hours; strain it then off thro: a Sieve into your
Vessels to cool it; and put your small Beer into Copper and the same
hops that come out of the first Beer and boil it an hour.
When both are almost cool add Yeast to them; to set it to work,
breaking the head in every time it rises; till it works itself clear and
tun in; Bung it up with Clay and keep it in your Cellar, in three
months you may bottle the strong Beer, the other in a weeks time
will be fit to drink.


Green Corn Stalk Beer

Published in the Virginia Gazette on Feb. 14, 1775.  A family recipe by
Landon Carter.

The stalks, green as they were, as soon as pulled up, were carried to
a convenient trough, then chopped and pounded so much, that, by
boiling, all the juice could be extracted out of them;  which juice every
planter almost knows is of saccharine a quality almost as any thing
can be, and that any thing of a luxuriant corn stalk is very full of it,
 ... After this pounding, the stalks and all were put into a large
copper, there lowered down it its sweetness with water, to an equality
with common observations in malt wort, and then boiled, till the
liquor in a glass is seen to break, as the breweres term it;  after that it
is strained, and boiled again with hops.  The beer I drank had been
made above twenty days, and bottled off about four days.


General Amherst's Spruce Beer

>From the journal of General Jeffrey Amherst, governor-general of British North
America

Take 7 Pounds of good spruce & boil it well till the bark peels off,
then take the spruce out & put three Gallons of Molasses to the
Liquor & and boil it again, scum it well as it boils, then take it out the
kettle & put it into a cooler, boil the remained of the water sufficient
for a Barrel of thirty Gallons, if the kettle is not large enough to boil
it together, when milkwarm in the Cooler put a pint of Yest into it and
mix well.  Then put it into a Barrel and let it work for two or three days,
keep filling it up as it works out.  When done working, bung it up with
a Tent Peg in the Barrel to give it vent every now and then.  It may be
used in up to two or three days after.  If wanted to be bottled it should stand
a fortnight in the Cask.  It will keep a great while.


Benjamin Franklin's Spruce Beer

Translated from the french while he was stationed in France.

A Way of making Beer with essence of Spruce

For a Cask containing 80 bottles, take one pot of Essence and 13
Pounds of Molases. - or the same amount of unrefined Loaf Sugar;
mix them well together in 20 pints of hot Water:  Stir together until
they make a Foam, then pour it into the Cask you will then fill with
Water:  add a Pint of good Yeast, stir it well together and let it stand 2
or 3 Days to ferment, after which close the Cask, and after a few days
it will be ready to be put into Bottles, that must be tightly corked.
Leave them 10 or 12 Days in a cool Cellar, after which the Beer will
be good to drink.


Persimmon Beer

An old family recipe that used ingedients available in Virginia in the 1860s.
It's not actually beer because there is no hop nor malt in it, but corn.  Of
course, the North American brewers get away with calling their product beer,
and it's got a lot of corn in it, so ...

Wash 1 gallon ripe persimmons.  Mash well and add 1/2 cup cornmeal.  Add
5 gallons water and 2 cups sugar.  Let set until fruit rises to top (3 to
4 days).  Stain, bottle and seal.  (Clear, light colored, fizzy.  Fill
bottles 2/3 ......... Explosive!)

Thomas Manteufel                     IOFB