Ellen-Ealu (Elder-Ale)

 

1) No boiling the wort (authentic): Do not boil the wort if you are making an authentic ale (and are planning on drinking it within 4 days). Leave all the strained out wort to cool. Go to ‘adding Gruit without boiling the wort’ instructions.

2) Boiling the Wort (75 minutes): This is when you need the ale to last longer than just a few days, (not authentic). Put the sieved wort back in the cleaned saucepan and onto a high heat, and bring to the boil. Once you have brought the sieved wort to the boil simmer it just under the boil for 75 minutes. This boiling of the wort will make it froth up so make sure your saucepan (or similar) has enough room to allow for this. After 75 minutes turn off the heat, and take the saucepan to somewhere clean and cool, and undisturbed, to allow it to cool. The quicker the cooling the better. Go to ‘add Gruit after boiling the wort’ instructions.

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1) Add Gruit Without Boiling The Wort: After 40 minutes of cooling carefully pour all of the cooled wort through a fine-meshed sieve into another large, clean, sterilized tub – we want to leave behind any larger solid impurities that sank to the bottom of the tub, so try not to disturb them. Then, using a long wooden, sterilized spoon, stir the sieved wort vigorously to get some oxygen into it and dispel any remaining heat.

Now add in all the gruit ingredients to the wort in the tub, giving it a good stir with the spoon. Then leave uncovered to ferment in a warm, airy location over night for 10 hours. The tub needs to be left uncovered in a clean place air borne yeast can settle on it, at around a constant temperature of between 18C to 24C. After 10 hours stir the wort vigorously to get oxygen into it, then cover the wort with a clean, thin, muslin cloth, (to allow air in) and leave for another 24 hours undisturbed at the same temperature, 18C to 24C. With experience you can alter the amount of honey etc. you put in as a flavouring, (or change them with authentic, period seasonal ingredients an Anglo-Saxon brewer would use).

2) Add Gruit After Boiling the wort: After 40 minutes of cooling carefully pour all of the cooled wort out of the saucepan through a fine-meshed sieve into a large, clean, sterilized tub – we want to leave behind any larger solid impurities that sank to the bottom of the saucepan, so try not to disturb them. Then, using a long wooden, sterilized spoon, stir the sieved wort vigorously to get some oxygen into it and dispel any remaining heat.

Now add in all the gruit ingredients to the wort in the tub, giving it a good stir with the spoon. Then leave to ferment in a warm, airy location over night for 10 hours. The tub needs to be left uncovered in a clean place air borne yeast can settle on it, at around a constant temperature of between 18C to 24C. After 10 hours stir the wort vigorously to get oxygen into it, then cover the wort with a clean, thin, muslin cloth, (to allow air in) and leave for another 24 to 48 hours undisturbed at the same temperature, 18C to 24C. With experience you can alter the amount of honey etc. you put in as a flavouring, (or change them with authentic, period seasonal ingredients an Anglo-Saxon brewer would use).

Strength Of The Beer: The final strength of the beer will be affected by the length of time the brew is left like this at this stage, (the alcoholic content of Anglo-Saxon Ale was traditionally low). If you have observed a clean brewing regime, and sterilized everything as you go, (especially if you have chosen to boil the wort) you can start to experiment leaving the brew fermenting for longer, up to 4 days.

What we want to encourage is yeast formation, not bacteria. Therefore, we recommend starting at almost two days of fermenting and working your way up to four days, with experience and practice. Note: If the storage area / weather is cold then it might need the full 4 days.

Fermentation: The first sign of fermentation is a thin white line round the side of the tub, which gradually creams over the surface. By degrees this creamy head grows thicker and thicker. We will never achieve the high yeast rates of modern beers which add in dried yeast, but we should see and smell this fermentation process happening. This is the magical time in brewing.

Sieving the wort: When sieving at each of the next stages always do it carefully and gently, now we do not want to ‘excite’ the beer and introduce too much oxygen, at the expense of the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast. After 24 hours, (34 hours in total) check the brew, if it has become ‘foamy’ on top, and smelling like beer, then it is good to go, if there is not much fermentation happening, leave for another 24 hours and check again.

Using a sieve strain out the wort from the tub into another clean and sterilized tub to get rid of all the gruit flavourings. Leave it for an hour covered and undisturbed for any particles to settle to the bottom of the tub. Then strain it once more back through a sieve, or through a muslin cloth, back into the previous, (now cleaned and sterilized) tub, leaving any large particles in the last dregs. This is now on its way to becoming beer.

Cooling the ale: Leave this finer sieved ale for another 24 hours covered with a cloth and undisturbed for any last particles to settle to the bottom, if possible this should be in a cool place that will chill the liquid (about 10C to 14C or slightly lower / higher). Then after 24 hours a final sieving needs to be done with the finest sieve of all or a piece of fine muslin cloth folded over twice, the beer is reaedy for storage, bottling or casking etc.

We are trying to get the ale as clear as possible, but this will never be as clear or as fizzy as a modern ale, (you should expect it to be dark-yellowish and cloudy). Having sieved the wort/ale at least three times, through progressively finer sieves or cloth meshes is essential – if nothing else an Anglo-Saxon brewer of ale within a rich household was a professional person, and in their trade they would take time and care over their brew.

Ale Quality: It is the solids left behind in the ale which will spoil the ale and make it go off quicker. No doubt, in some of the poorer Anglo-Saxon households, the brewing of domestic ale would have been done in a quicker brewing cycle, (with the same ingredients, but perhaps leaving the mash in the wort, or recycling the spent mash into the next brew many times) but this weak ale would also be drunk quickly, within a day or two after fermenting it, otherwise it would cause stomach upsets.

This weaker ale was a substitute for water, ingested on a daily basis, rather than a purpose brewed ale for more important occasions. Yet we know that beer/ale of this period was also a common Anglo-Saxon food rent, and a food rent ale would not have been of such a poor quality.

Anglo-Saxon physicians give us some of the better written descriptions of ales and beers that we have and they call for the ingestion of, ‘hluttor ealu’ or a, ‘clear ale’. And as previously mentioned, in the writings from monasteries, monks of the period have made an important difference between the daily allowance of a ‘good’ ale, which was then supplemented by a weaker, poorer quality one. So in terms of quality, the only way to get a good ale, a clear ale, by the Anglo-Saxon brewers was to sieve the wort through a fine weaved cloth multiple times, to add a gruit preservative and flavouring to the wort, and to get as good a fermentation process going as possible, for as long as possible, all brewing techniques that still continue to this day.

Retain the yeast: using a fine weave cloth to sieve the beer a final time retains a great deal of the yeast, if a second brew is anticipated keep this and add it to the start of the fermentation of the next brew. Put it into an open necked jar, with a little water and sugar, and placed in a warm room, this way you can keep the yeast alive until ready to use it. To say that Anglo-Saxon brewers only used natural yeast from exposure to the air is probably incorrect, constant brewing of ale, which was common, would see a recycling of the fermented yeast matter sieved out.

Store It: Once the beer is sieved for the last time, to be as clear as possible, (it will still be a, dark-yellowish opaque, ‘flatish’ liquid, reminiscent of real scrumpy) the ale can be stored in sterilized containers ready for drinking. These can be of various designs, e.g. a small wooden beer-barrel, (authentic) or a small plastic pressure barrel, bought from a home-brew stockist, or you can even use sterile glass jars, or smaller glass bottles, which are firmly sealed. At this stage the ale needs to be stored in a cool dry place to help keep it preserved. Ideally less than 10C but not less than 3C.

Drink It: You now have an authentic Anglo-Saxon Ale. It is best left for a day undisturbed in the barrel, jars or bottles, and then consumed within two to five days if you have not boiled the wort. Although, following a good, clean brewing regime, and by boiling the wort, the ale should last longer in storage this way, before turning sour and undrinkable. Becoming more experienced in this field will give you a better understanding of how long it can be stored for.