I've recently found this excellent blog on Nordic and Baltic farmhouse ales, which I found immensely interesting. Having also discovered a style of beer I'd never heard of, Gotlandsdricka, from an old post on here by a Swedish member, Johan, I knew this was going to be a beer I needed to brew.
I'm not sure how faithful this brew is to tradition - however I've gone by the farmhouse ethos of using whatever is in stock. I think I've been ultra conservative of the smoked malt so this is something I would correct next time.
I had originally planned on only doing 5l of this, however the element on my boiler is about the height of 9l so I decided I'd do a larger batch. I played about with a recipe and came up with:
Batch size - 11 l
Estimated OG: 1.038
Estimated FG: 1.011
Estimated ABV: 3.6%
Estimated IBU: 4.7
1.00 kg Lager: 51.3%
400 g Munich: 20.5%
200 g Rye: 10.3%
200 g Wheat: 10.3%
100 g Smoked Malt: 5.1%
50 g Flaked Oats: 2.6%
9 g Magnum - Added to mash
10 g Juniper Berries - 5 minutes
10 g Juniper Berries - 0 minutes
Baker's Yeast - I also added some Wyeast 3638 slurry as these beers are meant to have strong banana esters.
Mash for 2 hours at 68úc. 30 minute boil (I believe that these are no-boil traditionally)
I had intended on this being around the 5% mark - however I didn't want to reduce the percentages of rye and smoked malt, so it's ended up much weaker.
I bought a juniper shrub and trimmed some of the branches away. I washed this thoroughly and then left to sit in a campden solution to kill any nasties. I rinsed again and laid it in the bottom of my Mash Tun - traditionally the juniper would act as the filter in the wooden mash tuns used. I would have ideally had much more juniper and covered the bottom of the MT more.
I forgot to poach the juniper in the brewing liquor (as is traditional - this liquor is used for all parts of the brewing process, including cleaning, due to the antibacterial properties of the juniper), but hopefully enough of the juniper character comes through.
Hops aren't at all traditional - these beers tend to be drunk very young (often whilst still fermenting), however I want to bottle mine so desired the antibacterial properties of the hop as you might have in a Berliner Weisse.
I ended up with about 12 l at 1.039, so better efficiency than predicted.
The baker's yeast/Bavarian Wheat blend has kicked off a very vigorous fermentation. I believe baker's has very **** flocculation but hopefully this will settle out in secondary. If not I will do a crash cool.
I never thought I'd write juniper or traditional as many time as I just have.
Didn't get many pictures, but here are what I have:
Juniper filter
Steady at 68 on my trusty meat thermometer
Evidence bags A and B
Meet the twins
I'm not sure how faithful this brew is to tradition - however I've gone by the farmhouse ethos of using whatever is in stock. I think I've been ultra conservative of the smoked malt so this is something I would correct next time.
I had originally planned on only doing 5l of this, however the element on my boiler is about the height of 9l so I decided I'd do a larger batch. I played about with a recipe and came up with:
Batch size - 11 l
Estimated OG: 1.038
Estimated FG: 1.011
Estimated ABV: 3.6%
Estimated IBU: 4.7
1.00 kg Lager: 51.3%
400 g Munich: 20.5%
200 g Rye: 10.3%
200 g Wheat: 10.3%
100 g Smoked Malt: 5.1%
50 g Flaked Oats: 2.6%
9 g Magnum - Added to mash
10 g Juniper Berries - 5 minutes
10 g Juniper Berries - 0 minutes
Baker's Yeast - I also added some Wyeast 3638 slurry as these beers are meant to have strong banana esters.
Mash for 2 hours at 68úc. 30 minute boil (I believe that these are no-boil traditionally)
I had intended on this being around the 5% mark - however I didn't want to reduce the percentages of rye and smoked malt, so it's ended up much weaker.
I bought a juniper shrub and trimmed some of the branches away. I washed this thoroughly and then left to sit in a campden solution to kill any nasties. I rinsed again and laid it in the bottom of my Mash Tun - traditionally the juniper would act as the filter in the wooden mash tuns used. I would have ideally had much more juniper and covered the bottom of the MT more.
I forgot to poach the juniper in the brewing liquor (as is traditional - this liquor is used for all parts of the brewing process, including cleaning, due to the antibacterial properties of the juniper), but hopefully enough of the juniper character comes through.
Hops aren't at all traditional - these beers tend to be drunk very young (often whilst still fermenting), however I want to bottle mine so desired the antibacterial properties of the hop as you might have in a Berliner Weisse.
I ended up with about 12 l at 1.039, so better efficiency than predicted.
The baker's yeast/Bavarian Wheat blend has kicked off a very vigorous fermentation. I believe baker's has very **** flocculation but hopefully this will settle out in secondary. If not I will do a crash cool.
I never thought I'd write juniper or traditional as many time as I just have.
Didn't get many pictures, but here are what I have:
Juniper filter
Steady at 68 on my trusty meat thermometer
Evidence bags A and B
Meet the twins
