Another Gruit - Leann Fraoch (Heather Ale)

[mashani]

No hops at all this time - Did it like I was hanging in a cave with my animals like a badass Pict. Sorta.



I kept it pretty simple. I didn't have peat smoked malt, so I used my oak smoked wheat. I will like it better that way anyway.

For 3 Gallons in my "Mini Cooper"

BIAB Mash of:

4.0# Warminster Floor Malted Maris Otter
0.5# Oak Smoked Wheat
6.0 ounces Simpsons Medium Crystal
2.0 ounces Honey Malt
1.0 ounce Roasted Barley
1.0 ounce dried Heather Tips
0.75 grams Wormwood - trying to use it up, I've got a lot

60 minute boil.

1.00 ounce dried Heather Tips @60
0.75 grams Mugwort @30 - trying to use it up, I've got a lot
1.00 ounce dried Heather Tips @5
0.75 grams Mugwort @5

@flameout I added ~1.5# raw wildflower honey (it was slightly less then that as I think my kid used a few squirts of it, but it was more then 1.25#...).

I let this stand 20 minutes so it would pasteurize

Chilled, and pitched a mix of some 7 month old Wyeast 1318 I never got around to using last spring and revived as a 800ML starter, and some Mangrove Jack M05 mead yeast. Because you know some of the pictish yeast came from the honey source. They certainly did not have the pure modern Scotch ale strain. So that yeast produces floral esters. Which sounds good to me, it should bring out everything. I've used White Labs sweet mead yeast in Belgians before (it is the most correct tasting strain for a Karmeliet clone), so I'm not scared of this as a concept.

OG was 1.059.

[bpgreen]

Of the herbs you're using, the only one I've used is wormwood.

When we're used to weighing hops in ounces, it's funny to think of using .75 grams of something because you're trying to use it up faster. But with herbs, a little can really go a long way.

[mashani]

It all depends on the herb, but wormwood, you gotta be careful, it's really easy to get insane amounts of bitter, and this isn't supposed to be bitter, just enough to balance it out so it's not disgusting. Wormwood wasn't even necessary here if I had more heather tips on hand, but since I was just looking for the bitterness from any extra if I had them I didn't want to buy more since I had other stuff available that would do the job. Mugwort I could probably have used twice as much or more, but I didn't want this to be about mugwort. Just wanted a bit of a different flavor to be in here then just the heather to play against it. Between the mugwort and the floral esters, it should be like I used a little bit of fresh meadowsweet in this, which would have been a very possible ingredient in the real thing. But too much mugwort can be nasty because it has some camphor in it. And although it has a sweet taste, it also contains the same bittering compounds as wormwood, and at a certain threshold those take over and mugwort tea stops tasting slightly sweet and earthy and spicy (it is actually tasty) and starts tasting like fooking bitter cough syrup. So... we are looking for balance in all things

That's also why if you use lavender you want to make sure it's the culinary variety, other varieties have a lot more camphor and nobody wants cough syrup beer.

I don't know if anyone cares about such things, but although lots of folks know that wormwood has thujone in it (which is what got it banned for a while), lots of other herbs do too, IE the mugwort does. Juniper does... And sage does. Sage actually has a humungous amount of thujone. Thujone is bad for you in large amounts. Most foods are limited in their Thujone content by law. But sage containing foods are not... because... sausage?

But anyway, that's another reason to not go nuts with the stuff. Although the good news is that alcohol actually makes thujone less toxic. So drinking beer with your sausage is good.

[mashani]

So I never do this, but this has kept slowly creeping down in FG and is still super cloudy and had a huge amount of trub already, so I "secondary" it to an LBC, where I will leave it for a bit longer, hopefully it will clear up a bit and settle at some FG. It's at 1.006 now, which is already 88% attenuation. Some is due to the large amount of honey, but even without it, it's still at 82% attenuation. Any question of if the mead yeast would eat up the maltose is answered - yes, it will. The London Ale yeast usually stops around 72-74%. So it's that, or else something that tagged along with the honey and survived my pasteurization attempt at low levels has grown and gotten involved... which is possible I guess. It's not my brett, doesn't taste like it, doesn't have a funky pellicle.

Regardless, it tastes good, it's floral and more like "dry winey" vs. "beery", which is I believe how it is supposed to be.

The question is how low it's gonna go.

Also I don't know why but this had the most hideous beer stone I've ever gotten. Took me a while to carefully get that out of my fermenter (plastic, do not want to scratch it). Some of it was like "coffee grounds".

[mashani]

So this rekrausened and started actively fermenting some more, krausen is a bit bubbly - I'm starting to think it has a lactobac infection or some kind of lactic acid producing brett. It's not my house brett. I think the honey brought along some low level fun that survived my attempt at pasteurization. It has a tart lemony vibe going on and my sample was quite highly carbonated.

The good news is it has no IBUs, although it does have some bitterness from the wormwood and the heather. But it is possible that even if it turns into a sour it will be good to drink.

I think I'm going to rack it again to some 1 gallon cider jugs, and let it sit for a while, and bleach bomb my fermenter.

[mashani]

So...

Soo....

Soooo.... I did what I said above and racked this to a couple of 2 gallon cider bottles a while back, and then put the rest into a couple of 1L PETs without any sugar and capped them figuring the ongoing fermentation would carb them and if it got too much I could vent.

So they carbed up nicely, and didn't need any venting, and I decided to just pop one open to see what was going on here.

So it absolutely has Lacto in the mix. It has that lemony sour nose and flavor that only Lacto gives.

I don't know where it would have come from except the honey. I never get lacto infections. I wonder if the total lack of hops let some wee little beastie live that wound not have normally.

It is tart, with just enough malt behind it still that the sour is refreshing and pleasant. Except that I'd rather have sours like this in the summer.

The only way I can describe it is say you took a Berliner and mixed with some dry mead with hints of honey and flowers and woody herbs.

The amount of bitterness isn't too high for the sour IE it didn't make it "nasty" like some American sours are. The balance is perfectly fine.

So I went ahead and just bottled it as it has stabilized in the glass carboys.

If anyone who goes to the borg meetup likes sours, I can send some along. You do have to like sours. But this is (at least right now) pretty good for an unintended sour.

If nothing else, it's good probiotics, but I will be happy to drink it, I just wish it was July now.