Ginger Beer / Ale Recipe: Traditional Yule Recipe - Flashbrewing

Medieval woodcut of brewhouse

We didn't have quite enough handmade goodies this year for Yule, so I felt it was necessary to whip something up.  I had a bunch of fresh, organic ginger from EGS that I couldn't use all up before it dried out, which inspired me to toss together a quick batch of ginger beer for the season.  I'm familiar with the theory, but I never gave a it a try before.

Ginger slices, lemon juice, and sugar in a jug,
with enough water to fill it up mostly to the top.

In the time my journeywoman took to finish one of her tasks, I had completed the entire initial setup. I cleaned and sanitized the one gallon jug for my experiment, cut up about 1/4 cup of ginger in slices that can fit easily into the jug's mouth, and I added the lemon juice, sugar and water. I know it's common to boil the water and sugar to help reduce wild yeast, but all I had available was bread yeast anyway, so it didn't really matter if I got a few weirdo flavours in, too. By leaving out the step of boiling and cooling the syrup, it completely reduces the prep time and makes this a snap!



Bung in the top. If you don't have one,
cloth with a rubber band around it will do.
It's largely to help it bubble without
getting foreign material in the mixture.

Four days later, I filtered out the ginger and left the grouts on the bottom.  There were surprisingly fewer than usual with beer, but the result is still really cloudy.  It stands to reason, because bread yeast doesn't flocculate as much as beer or ale yeast, so there are fewer byproducts that fall out, and more then stay in suspension.



A funnel with cheesecloth in the spout
recovers the most liquid, but takes longer.

Or you can use the cheesecloth filter over a sieve, which is much quicker, if a bit messier...

I used a pop bottle since it can handle pressure. I only did one, and left the rest in the jug, just in case this part didn't work out as well as I hoped. I wanted it quickly, so the bottle can be the secondary fermenter almost immediately.  I should have waited, though.  It was carbonated almost the next day, and I had to keep releasing the pressure to keep it from exploding. (Fortunately, the pop bottles have alot of give.)

By the time Solstice and my guests arrived, we were able to drink fresh ginger beer 8 days after it was first brewed.  It has slightly too many sugary notes and not quite enough ginger zing, but that has of course improved with age.  It is now 11 days since I first threw the batch together, and all the sugar notes are gone, with a fine zip of ginger.  There is a slight yeast note, but only in the nose, which my husband, Tuckamoredew, prefers in a beer anyway. The colour continues to be lovely, and very homemade, but it hasn't clarified any further.

All in all, it was a glorious experiment, rated highly successful by all who imbibed.  It was largely gone by Solstice, but I saved enough of it to continue to ferment and carbonize in the bottle.  For my next batch, I won't actually bottle until a day or two before serving.  In the first week or so, that seems more than long enough for a good fizzle. I served it without chilling.  Maybe I'll try it next time ice cold and frosty!

Here's the recipe I used:

1/4 cup fresh organic ginger, sliced
1 tablespoon organic lemon concentrate (juice of one lemon will do)
2 cups organic sugar
1 tablespoon quick rising bread yeast
enough filtered water to mostly fill to top

Let sit between 1-7 days. Filter. Serve in 1-2 weeks. Bottle a day or two before serving if carbonation is desired.



Flashbrewed carbonated ginger beer, in a Kölsch glass.

The lemon is partly for flavour, and partly for nutrient for the yeast.  Though there was almost no bubbling over, like there is in beer and ale making, I still left some air in the top for it when I poured in the water.  I'll leave less next time.  When everything is in, put on the cap of the jug and shake by inversion a few times, just to get the sugar all dissolved.  I did that a few times every day or so for the first few days, just to be on the safe side, but then I left it alone so it could grout up. Bung it or cheesecloth the top, and let it sit. I put it by the register to keep it warm, but not too toasty. I filtered it after 4 days, but I could have left it a bit longer.  It seems to be perfect by 2 weeks, and I had no desire to add more sugar to ferment after it had used up all the yeast, since I let it do so in pop bottle instead. No extra sugar!

Enjoy!

Mulled Wine and Cider: Traditional Yule Ritual & Recipes

Glühwein, or gleewine, is a sacred, ancient winter drink found all over Western Europe traditionally presented to warm and welcome guests in from the cold. Its medicinal herbs and spices can also help fight off colds, aid digestion, and increase circulation.

This drink can be made with wine, cider, and be alcoholic or non, depending on your guest list. Practice a bit to get the ratios and recipe you prefer, and it will become your one of your essential tools for the season. It's versatile and festive, turning any gathering into a Yule party!  

At times of celebrations in many areas, the brandy was first lit on fire in the bowl, with the rest of the brewed gleewine poured over top to snuff it.  We tried it last year for Twelfth Night and it was a huge hit!  We had to improvise the equipment, though. In England, they had a traditional shallow punch bowl designed for this kind of entertaining, complete with herb sieve.  I used a big stainless steel bowl, which showed the flames when the lights were out, but not quite as much of a show as the traditional bowl.  Also, the stainless steel was hot, and I had to use a separate hand sieve, so it was a bit of a challenge to serve...

If you want to get really authentic, don't forget the toast!  That's where we get the concept of "A toast!" from.  Bits of herbed croutons floating about in the mulled wine were highly prized, and one found in a punch cup was cause for congratulations and portended well-being, health, and success for the upcoming year. 

For convenience, herbs can be put into a muslin bag that can be dropped in as is but I prefer to let the herbs float around. Great effect!

 

For my recipe, the herbs, depending on availability, are whole or pieces of:

lemon peel
orange peel
cinnamon
cloves
ginger
nutmeg
allspice

The citrus note is considered necessary for the recipe and can be whole or fresh peels or even entire fruits floating around.  Try whole oranges pierced with cloves.  I know you might be tempted not to include the sugar, since most recipes are wayyy to sweet, but if you are making the red wine version in particular, you really need it to balance out the flavours. Use stevia for the low-cal version!

You will need:
non-metallic pot (enamel, glass, Pyrex, etc.)
2 bottles dry red wine (zinfandel, merlot, burgundy, etc.) or one gallon cider (alcoholic or non)
7 tbsp sweetener or more as desired (Sucanat, Demarra, or honey preferred)
3/4 cup brandy (optional)

Pour the wine into a large pot and begin heating over low heat. Use a stainless steel pot if you need to, but herbs are affected by metal, and a non-metallic pot ensures the flavours blend better. As it begins to warm, add sugar and spices. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Heat thoroughly, but do not allow to boil! Steep at least 30 min. over low heat. You may add more sugar during this time if desired, stirring well so it dissolves. Now is the time to add the brandy.  Pour it in, or light it on fire in a bowl and pour the wine over top! Serve hot and garnish with orange slices or cinnamon.

There are other traditional Northern European variants, too.  Swedish Glogg has aquavit instead of brandy and the fruit is blackcurrants, raisins or sultanas, and usually includes shaved blanched nuts such as almonds. The ritual is more like our modern version of absinthe, where the sugar cubes are soaked in the liqueur, lit on top in a grate, and then flow into the wine as they burn.

Enjoy, and make merry in your holiday season!

Homebrewed Mead: Traditional Yule



After adding everything together, and before the cloth on top!

My apprentice and I just made mead, and it wasn't nearly that much of a trial as some authors seemed to imply.  I personally think it's easier than canning, which frankly makes me nervous. You almost can't screw up making mead, and it's one of the most sacred and magical tasks we do here in the Medieval Still Room that connects us to our ancestors.  My husband pronounced it as the best concoction to come out of the brewing room yet!

Mead is possibly one of the first alcoholic beverages and has achieved legendary status among many pagans and historical re-enactors as the traditional guest drink of Northern Europe - the beverage of Beowulf, the Viking Norse and the Halls of Valhalla. Druids and Odinists alike embrace it as a extant example of traditional lifestyle and tech, as well as a communion with the culture of the ancestors. Yule, the Norse sacred holiday of Solstice, is not the same without this divine gift of the Gods. Since our modern pagan and Christian traditions were largely lifted wholesale from Yule, in our household, especially as pagans of North European descent, our down home Holly Days cannot be complete without a fine flowing of mead.

Mead is mostly honey based, of course. The yeast can't as easily digest the honey as it can some other sources of sugar, like dextrose or sucrose, so in modern times, either another type of sugar or a chemical nutriment is added to help feed the yeast. We wanted to be a bit more purist, so we added a fruit to our mead, making it technically a melomel rather than a pure mead. The apple tree produced more than enough apples this year, so our fruit component was an easy choice. To help access the nutrients, a bit of acid is recommended, usually lemon, so we included that as well.

Like country wines, many recipes suggest bread yeast for mead.  However, since the alcohol component for mead is higher due to the sugars, we chose the recommended champagne yeast. "Beer or bread yeast may essentially be paralyzed when the alcohol concentration reaches 6% to 8% alcohol. Wine yeast can normally tolerate at least 12% to 14% alcohol, and the hardier varieties (with a little help) will get to 18% or so." 1 We do use bread yeast in our country wines and vinegars, which is selected to act quicker but can leave a slightly bread tasty flavour, mostly because it's darn cheap and readily available. However, bread yeast would simply not be able to continue brewing in the mead environment. We also use filtered or reverse osmosis water in all our brewing, mostly to keep out the chlorine. Not only is it detectable to my palette, chlorine is included to inhibit bacteria growth, not exactly what we are going for here...

With that in mind, it was really such a simple process. We melted the unpasteurized honey, fresh and cheap from our local Farmer's Market, and some of the water in a pot. While it cooled, we washed and prepared the apples by cutting them up into fairly big pieces and cutting off all the nasty bits that might ruin the brewing process. We didn't bother to peel them, and I think we even used windfall! We popped those into a big glass gallon jar, like one of those restaurant pickle jars, and once the honey water was reasonably cool, we poured it in with a bit of lemon, the yeast, and enough water to fill it nearly to the top, and did a gentle but thorough stirring. Don't forget to leave enough space at the top to ensure that the brew doesn't gurgle over the edge in it's enthusiasm! We then covered our mixture with a clean rag tightened with an elastic band, which we took off once per day in order to stir the brew.

After the bubbling was noticeably halted, we got out our big funnel, stuffed it with a bit of cheesecloth to filter, and poured the brew into a cider jug. The gravity method, as in letting the apples sit for a bit in the funnel, got out nearly all of the apple bits and other detritus. I suppose we could have used those now alcohol soaked apples for something, like some decadent dessert, but they just went into the compost. Bunging up our remaining liquid with an airlock, we just left the poor neglected thing on the shelf until it cleared up, the yeast fell mostly to the bottom, and the bubbling went down to only two per minute. And it still took about a month!

For bottling, though it's not as traditional, we decided that we wanted sparkling mead, so when we siphoned and re-filtered, we just used old pop bottles that we still had the caps for. I didn't want to dilute our brew, so we plopped in carbonation drops into each bottle rather than use more sugared water to carbonate. We did taste some of the bit on the bottom of the jar, of course, and it was truly sublime. The darn things should be magnificent by Yule, and they are the perfect beverage to bring out for something very special. Even better than our handmade cider! Although it might compare to the applejack I'm making from that...

It really is a snap. Each part of the process only takes about an hour, and you can make as small or as large a batch as you have the equipment and patience for. We didn't even bother to boil the water or honey! Though we did sanitize every bit of equipment before we used it... Helps keep down the chance of souring...

For those of you who want to try this sacred and ancient beverage at home, here's the recipe we used.

3 lbs honey
3 cups water

Heated until it melted in a stainless steel pot. (Though glass or enamel are always more recommended, to reduce the chance of reactions with your brew, especially if you use herbs or spices in your blend!)

6 - 10 apples
lemon juice or concentrate
champagne yeast
enough filtered water to fill jar


Wash, cut, and groom apples, though peeling is not necessary. Fill a layer or two on the bottom of your glass gallon container with apples. Pour in cooled water/honey mixture. Add 2 Tbsp. of lemon concentrate (we used certified organic), one package of champagne yeast, and fill up the remainder of your container almost to the top with water. Leave some amount at the top for bubbling, or it will overflow. Cover with a clean, not too thick cloth, and tighten with a rubber band.

Stir every day. After about a week or two, the bubbling will appear to be gone. Filter into another glass container that you can stopper with an airlock. Let sit for another month, checking the bubbling occasionally. When it's down to about one bubble a minute, bottle it by siphoning the brew out of it's container until just before it hits the crud on the bottom. If you choose not to sparkle it, it will have no grouts on the bottom of the bottles, and you can drink as is, without concerning yourself with the type of jars you need. Masons will do, though not terribly classy...

If you wish your mead to be sparkling, like we did, it's only slightly more complicated. Adding more honey water or sugar water stimulates the yeast back into action, and creates more bubbling. As it does so, just like homebrewed beer, it will generate more grouts on the bottom of the bottle, so be careful when pouring it out. Only use bottles designed to handle the pressure, like beer or pop bottles, and make sure you do your calculations right, or your bottles may explode! Carbonation drops take out the guesswork of making up a sugar water addition, but they are highly processed sugary drops. I didn't want a water dilution, so we opted for those.

Because honey is harder for the yeast to digest than sugar, it does take far longer for mead to brew than beer or wine.  We suspect that without nutrient or fruit added, ancient mead makers may have just put it in a barrel or pot and forgotten about it for a year or so.  We just opened one of the bottles from the batch we started in September, and it only just began to get bubbly!  But it was sooo amazingly good... So be patient with your mead, and to keep yourself from cracking it open, try a new recipe in your gallon jar almost as soon as you bottle up the last one.  This time we have apples and fresh ginger!  It already smell like ambrosia...

Even after it's done, remember:  the longer you leave your mead to sit in the secondary fermentor with the air lock, or in the bottles, the better it will taste!  So by all means drink as much as you can for the holidays, but save a bottle or two for Imbolc or Midsummer.  As one of the mead makers for your gatherings, you will always be one of the popular guests! 

I find it even easier to brew mead than beer.  Even for those who haven't tried making home brewed beer or wine yet, mead is truly inspiring beverage that has loosened the tongues of Gods, and giving the bardic gift to mortals for centuries.  Lift up your glasses!  Got Yul!