Historical Interest
Recipe Menu
My Daddy's Beer Recipe
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Source: Stephen Hansen (hansen@gloworm.Stanford.edu)
Digest: Issue #462, 7/18/90
Ingredients:
-
- 1 can Blue Ribbon malt
- 1 pack Fleishmann's yeast
- 1 cup rice
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 5 pounds powdered cane sugar
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Procedure:
In a large (3 gallon) porcelain pan, add 3 quarts water and bring to
boil. Add sugar, stirring. Bring back up to boil and add 1 can of malt.
Return to boil again and let simmer for 15 minutes. Fill large glass 1/2
full of luke warm water (not over 130 degrees) and add rice, yeast, and
salt.
Clean crock and fill 1/3 full of warm water. Pour in wort. Add cold
water to within 3 inches of top. Add yeast solution and cover. After 6-
10 hours remove foam with wire strainer. Let sit until hydrometer says
"bottle." Fill bottles, adding 1/2 teaspoon sugar to each. Cap and let
stand 21 days.
Comments:
Back when I first started making beer (about 20 years ago now)I
actually made several batches using this recipe. The results varied from
barely drinkable to snail bait. I especially like his comparison in the
last line of the original---"This should make 5 cases of pint bottles of
beer equal to or superior to Millers High Life."
259
Roses for Arthur
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Source: Ye Olde Batte (mhalley%mun.BITNET)
Digest: 11/31/88
Ingredients:
-
- rose petals
- water
- sugar
- dry yeast
-
Procedure:
Fill a glass container with rose petals. Cover with water and let set,
covered by a clean cloth, for 3 days. Strain water through a cloth and
measure. Add to it, one quarter of its volume of white sugar. Set in a
glass jar or crock, add a pinch of dry yeast and stir well. When it is
sparkling (3 days to a week), put into beer or champagne bottles and
cap. Age 1-6 months.
Comments:
This recipe comes from a booklet called The Delicious Rose by Geraldine
Duncann. It was called Rose Melemell, although it has no honey. This is
an effervescent brew with a hint of summer roses.
260
Prohibition Pilsner
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Source: Robb Holmes (RHOLMES@uga.cc.uga.edu)
Digest: Issue #805, 1/20/92
Ingredients:
-
- 1 can hop-flavored malt syrup
- 3/4 pound granulated sugar
- 1 cake compressed yeast (or Vierka dry lager yeast)
-
Procedure:
Dissolve syrup and sugar in boiling hot water---pour into cold water to
make five gallons---allow to further cool for two hours, then add one
cake yeast. Cover crock or other fermenting vessel with clean cloth.
Keep in a cool, dark place. Watch carefully and when bubbles of gas
cease coming to surface fermentation has been completed and liquor
should be quite clear (approximately four days).
Now siphon off clear liquid to another clean crock, leaving the thick
sediment behind. To the liquor in the second crock add 1/4 pound granu-
lated sugar and stir until dissolved. Fill into bottle by siphoning or
pouring. Cap and immediately store in a cool dark place. The beverage
will be ready for use when clear---requires one to two weeks.
Comments:
One crock can be eliminated if the liquid is siphoned directly into the
bottles from the fermented crock. In this case, place 1/2 teaspoon sugar
in each pint or one teaspoon in each quart bottle. Best consistent re-
sults can be obtained if a five gallon bottle is used instead of a crock
for the fermenting vessel, using a water seal. All vessels and tubing
should be entirely clear and sanitary before use. A 2-3% warm lye solu-
tion is an excellent one for the purpose. Rinse with water after the use
of lye solution. Use of Hydrometer is not necessary if the above direc-
tions are followed. The specific gravity at the time of bottling will
however, be 1.012 - 1.016.
This is the third and final installment of traditional "Prohibition
Pilsner" recipes received anonymously, presumably from the makers of
Blue Ribbon malt syrup, in the mid-1970's. Previous installments of
Historical Homebrew appeared in Homebrew Digest # 795 and # 800. This is
posted here purely for historical interest, and not as a recommended
recipe, although the techniques called for here seem to be much closer
to currently recommended procedures for beginning brewers, than in the
earlier historical postings. The format of the original is retained as
much as possible.
261
Blue Ribbon 1
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Source: Robb Holmes (rholmes@uga.cc.uga.edu)
Digest: Issue #795, 1/6/92
Ingredients:
-
- 1-3/4 pounds sugar
- 1 can Blue Ribbon hop-flavored malt syrup
- yeast
-
Procedure:
Dissolve sugar and malt syrup in 6 quarts of hot water. Stir until dis-
solved. Pour 14 quarts of cold water into a crock that has been scoured
with Arm & Hammer baking soda and rinsed with clear water. Add hot solu-
tion of malt, sugar, and water. The temperature should be about 65F.
Dissolve a cake of compressed or dehydrated yeast in a small quantity of
luke warm water (about 8 ounces of 75F water) and add to crock. Stir
thoroughly. Cover crock with clean cloth and allow to ferment 4 or 5
days. Skim off foam after first and second days.
Siphon beer into 12 ounce bottles. Before siphoning, place a scant 1/2
teaspoon of sugar into each bottle. Cap and allow to remain at 60-70F
for 7-10 days. Cool and consume.
Things to remember: Cleanliness of utensils, including bottles, siphon
hose, crowns and crock is essential for good results. Wash everything in
soda solution or detergentbefore and after each batch. A 7 or 9 gallon
crock can be used to prevent messy foam-over.
Many consumer failures can be averted by using a starter consisting of:
1 package of yeast, 2 ounces of sugar, 1 pint of 72F water. Let starter
stand for 3-4 hours before mixing into crock with malt solution.
Comments:
Around 1975 or '76, the first time I got interested in brewing, I bought
a can of the mysterious Blue Ribbon malt syrup. The label invited me to
write to Premier malt products for a recipe book, and I did. A few weeks
later it arrived: a well-produced, four-color print job with recipes for
using malt syrup in cakes, cookies, biscuits and the like, but not a
word about making beer. A few weeks later a plain brown envelope with no
return address appeared in the mail. Inside were two mimeographed sheets
of beer recipes---including this recipe.
262
Blue Ribbon 2
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Source: Robb Holmes (rholmes@uga.cc.uga.edu)
Digest: Issue #795, 1/6/92
Ingredients:
-
- 1 can hop flavored malt syrup
- 3 or 4 pounds sugar
- 1 cake yeast or Vierka lager yeast
-
Procedure:
Dissolve malt syrup and sugar in 2 quarts of hot water. Pour into crock
and add 18-20 quarts of cold water. Mix yeast in lukewarm water (70F).
With wooden spoon, gently stir into malt and sugar mix. Cover with clean
cloth and ferment at room temperature (68-70F). Skim off foam for first
3 days. Fermentation is complete when no more bubbles appear (about 4 or
5 days). If tester or hydrometer is used, be sure red line is at sur-
face. Gelatin may be used to settle yeast. Dissolve two small envelopes
of Knox gelatin in hot water. Pour gelatin over top of brew in crock
about a day before you plan to bottle.
Wash bottles and put scant 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in each, fill within an
inch and a half and cap. Tip bottles upside down once and store upright
in warm place (70-75F).
Things to watch: 1) If beer is cloudy or gritty, you disturbed the sedi-
ment by shaking or pouring too fast, 2) If beer tastes flat, you either
bottled too late or did not allow it to age long enough, 3) If beer
foams up or tastes airy, you bottled too soon.
Comments:
This recipe also came from the mimeographed sheet of beer recipes pro-
vided by Premier Malt Products in the 1970's.
263
Major Thomas Fenner's Receipt to Make Bear
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
Ingredients:
-
- 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 Ingredients:
-
- 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.]
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- 10 quarts of water, boiled down to seven.
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- A quart of molasses.
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- A cake of hard baked wheat bran.
-
- A quart of malt.
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- One handful of barm. [brewers yeast cake from a previous batch]
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- Drink it as soon as it's fermented.
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Col. George Washington's Small Beer
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-
- Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
- Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
-
- 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.
-
Comments:
I made this after two Civil War beers (bay leaf/ginger and the spruce
beer). I had molasses and the barm from the second Civil War beer, so I
brewed this. I used 2 ounces of hops. (It really doesn't make much dif-
ference what kind. The water is pretty bitter after boiling for an
hour.) I let it ferment a week before bottling. It is undrinkable by
modern standards. The only flavor is the bitterness of the molasses,
followed by the hop bitterness. The flavors never melded; there is just
the distinct double bitterness. One pound of molasses is about one pint
in volume.
Most of these historical beer recipes can be found in Brewed in America,
by Stanley Baron.
265
Pumpkin Ale
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
Receipt for Pompion Ale:
Let the Pompion be beaten in a Trough and pressed as Apples. The expres-
sed 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 fer-
mented &c. as Malt Beer.
Comments:
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.
266
Malt Liquors
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
Directions for Brewing Malt Liquors:
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 re-
ceives 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.
Comments:
From the letters of Joseph Clarke, general treasurer of the Rhode Island
colony, sometime around 1775.
267
Green Corn Stalk Beer
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
Procedure:
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.
Comments:
Published in the Virginia Gazette on Feb. 14, 1775. A family recipe by
Landon Carter.
268
General Amherst's Spruce Beer
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
Procedure:
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.
Comments:
From the journal of General Jeffrey Amherst, governor-general of British
North America.
269
Benjamin Franklin's Spruce Beer
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Source: Thomas Manteufel (tomm@pet.med.ge.com)
Digest: Issue #748, 10/25/91
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.
Comments:
Translated from the french while he was stationed in France.
270
Metheglin of My Lady Windebanke
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Source: Jacob Galley (gal2@midway.uchicago.edu)
Digest: Issue #761, 11/15/91
A Receipt for Metheglin of My Lady Windebanke:
Take four Gallons of water; add to it, these Herbs and Spices following.
Pellitory of the Wall, Sage, Thyme, of each a quarter of a handful, as
much Clove gilly-flowers, with half as much Borage and Bugloss flowers,
a little Hyssop, Five or six Eringo-roots, three or four Parsley-roots:
one Fennel-root, the pith taken out, a few Red-nettle-roots, and a
little Harts-tongue. Boil these Roots and Herbs half an hour; Then take
out the Roots and Herbs, and put in the Spices grosly beaten in a
Canvass-bag, viz. Cloves, Mace, of each half an Ounce, and as much
Cinnamon, of Nutmeg an Ounce, with two Ounces of Ginger, and a Gallon of
Honey: boil all these together half an hour longer, but do not skim it
at all: let it boil in, and set it a cooling after you have taken it off
the fire. When it is cold, put six spoonfuls of barm to it, and let it
work twelve hours at least; then Tun it, and put a little Limon-peel
into it: and then you may bottle it, if you please.
Comments:
This is from The Closet of Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt. Opened (London: H.
Brome, 1669) (Reproduced without permission, naturally.)
271
Sir TJ's Mead
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Source: Ken Hinson (math5d@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu)
Ingredients:
-
- 3 pounds honey per gallon of water
- 1/2 ounce ginger root, sliced, per gallon
- 2 medium oranges (meat & peel with all pith removed)
- 3 whole cloves
-
Procedure:
Combine the above ingredients with 1/2 gallon of water per total gallons
desired, boiling and skimming until no more scum appears. Pour into
primary fermenter, add: 1 stick cinnamon and top off to five gallons
with cool water. Upon the wort reaching 75 degrees F, pitch Red Star
Chanpagne yeast and cap with a ferment- ation lock. Upon a visible ces-
sation of fermentation (around 3 weeks) rack into a secondary fermenter
with fermentation lock and allow to age. Rack every month after until
drunk. May be drunk after 3 weeks. (he suggests also adding 2 tbsps of
lemon juice and a cup of strong black tea.)
Comments:
I've never tried this recipe, so I can't vouch for how good it is, but
the basic elements are there. Recipe is based on The Closet of the
Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digby Kt. Opened: Whereby is Discovered
Several ways for making of Metheglin, Sider, Cherry-Wine, &c..
272
Weak Honey Drink
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Source: Ken Hinson (math5d@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu)
Procedure:
Put in a six-quart pot one pint of honey and nine pints of water (spring
water is suggested but not necessary). Stir well, dissolving the honey.
Boil for about 30 minutes, skimming off the foam as it rises to the
surface. About 1 minute before you remove the liquid from the heat,
throw in a teaspoon of rinsed, sliced, or broken ginger (powdered will
not do the right thing) and about the same amount of the rind of an
orange (eat the rest of the orange). Set the mead aside for a few hours
till it be lukewarm (5 hours is more than enough) and then add yeast to
the mead, stirring well. Mead yeast is the real yeast to use, but any
wine yeast will do. Do not use brewer's yeast or ale yeast. Let the mead
stand a day or two (you can wait as much as a week if you want); then
bottle it in clean bottles. In a few days it is drinkable, I like to
wait a week.
Comments:
This recipe was taken from the SCA's Known World Handbook in an article
written by Michael Tighe (Sir Michael of York).
(My notes on above recipe: play with the flavorings! If you don't like
giner, try using nutmeg instead. This produces a very low alcohol drink,
yet well-carbonated and sweet to the taste, though not cloying.) A few
other things: Metheglin is fun to make: what I did was used honey/water
ratios suggested for a generic mead, then went to the local health-food
store and browsed in the spice section ("This smells good - grab a
handful") Nothing scientific about this---a little of this and that.
DON'T boil these herbs and spices in your wort! Instead, make a "tea"
and add that to the wort as you pitch your yeast.
For any spices or herbs you use, never use the powdered stuff out of the
jar if you can avoid it. Powdered cloves just don't have the same taste
as whole cloves (by the way, for nutmegs: if you don't have a nutmeg
grinder, use a hammer!)
Finally: to boil or not to boil. A friend made an unboiled mead and when
he bottled it wound up with a wax deposit on the bottom 1/2 inch in his
bottles. No harm, but esthetically icky.
273
Prohibition Chicago Style
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Source: Bruce T. Hill (dannet!bruce@uunet.UU.NET)
Digest: Issue #788, 12/23/91
Ingredients:
-
- 1 3-pound can hop-flavored malt syrup
- 3 pounds corn sugar
- 1 package settler
- 1 cake Fleischmann's yeast
-
Procedure:
Bring one gallon water to boiling point using a pan large enough to hold
water, malt syrup and corn sugar. Add malt syrup and stir until mixed.
Stir in corn sugar slowly until dissolved. Settler should be mixed in
with sugar at this time for best results.history:prohibition
Place crock on box or chair (not on floor), pour in three gallons of
luke warm water, then add hot ingredients. Now add sufficient luke warm
water to make 5 and 1/2 gallons of liquid in the 6 gallon crock.
Dissolve yeast in cup of luke warm water and 1 teaspoon sugar. Allow
mixture to stand until yeast starts working, usually within 1/2 hour.
Add the working yeast to mixture in crock and stir until mixed
throughly.
Chill before serving. When pouring, slant bottle and glass and pour
slowly to prevent clouding.
If it is cloudy or tastes gritty, you have disturbed the sediment by
shaking it up or by pouring too fast.
If it tastes "flat" you either bottled it too late, or did not allow it
to age long enough.
If it tends to foam up or tastes "airy", you bottled it too soon. The
mixture had not completed.
Use of tester. Tester is accurate when it is kept at uniform 65 or 70.
The tester will settle the first day between 3 and 6. This is the
approximate alcohol content. When the tester settles to 1/2% or the red
line "B" it is ready to bottle. If the test settles to "W" it means it
is too flat. Taste to determine if it has turned sour. If not, then add
one teaspoon of sugar to the quart of 1/2 teaspoon to the pint before
capping, to resotre life to it. In the event it has soured, it is
spoiled.
274
Comments:
My sister-in-law's mother gave this following recipe to me. It dates
back to the 1930's. They grew up in a predominantly Polish part of
Chicago where it was traditional to make home-made beer for festive
occasions (like Christmas!). The recipe is pretty rough by our modern
homebrewing standards, but it shows that the homebrewing spirit was
alive and well several decades ago.