Original recipe found in OED.

"To brewe beer x. quarters malte. lj. quarters wheet ij. quarters ootos/ xl. ll weight of hoppys.// To make lx barrell[es] of sengyll beer

arnold chron. (x-um 20), fol.xciv.r/b (r.i.r/b)"

Translation:

"To make 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of wheat, and 2 quarters of oats, with 40 pounds of hops."

- Richard Arnold, "Customs of London", 1503

• 5 lbs. Pale 2-row Malt
• 3 lbs. Brown Malt
• .25 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• .25 lbs. Scottish Peated Malt
• 1.5 lbs. Wheat Malt
• 1.5 lbs. Flaked Oats
• 1.5 oz. English Fuggle Hops
• 3 Varieties of Yeast: Yeast Lab Whitbread Ale Yeast, Yeast Lab Australian Ale Yeast, Lallemand Nottingham Ale Yeast
• "Burton-on-Trent" Water Treatment Mixture (Gypsum, Epsom Salts, and Potassium Chloride)

Water: Treated water with salts to harden it up to approximate English water hardness.

Malt: Used a combination of modern grains of various levels of roasting and smokiness to approximate malt.

Hops: Used oldest known low bittering English hop strain.

Yeast: Used multiple strains to approximate theoretical mixture.

Methods: Based on writing by Gervase Markham, 1615

Mashing: Poured boiling water bit by bit over grain, and rested 1 hour.

Boiling: Boiled the resulting liquid with hops for one hour

Fermentation: Cooled, and added yeast to glass carboy. First break with period method.

Casking: Since proper oak casks impossible to obtain, used modern kegs to force carbonate. Biggest break with period methods.

This Paper is an attempt to recreate as close as possible an beer from the year 1503. The inspiration comes from a quote found in a quote from a book by Richard Arnold entitled, Customs of London printed in 1503. The Quote can be found in the Oxford English Dictionary (online at the University of Washington), and is read thusly...

This is one of the earlier hard data references to brewing beer that I have been able to find, and forms the basis for this attempt. Further in this paper I will document, and explain my use of grains, water, hops, techniques, and storage. As the amount of information of brewing in the early sixteenth century is very sparse, I have chosen to use techniques from the latter part, and into the early part of the seventeenth century as it is very documented.

• 5 lbs. Pale 2-row Malt
• 3 lbs. Brown Malt
• .25 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• .25 lbs. Scottish Peated Malt
• 1.5 lbs. Wheat Malt
• 1.5 lbs. Flaked Oats
• 1.5 oz. English Fuggle Hops
• 3 Varieties of Yeast:
• Yeast Lab Whitbread Ale Yeast
• Yeast Lab Australian Ale Yeast
• Lallemand Nottingham Ale Yeast
• "Burton-on-Trent" Water Treatment Mixture (Gypsum, Epsom Salts, and Potassium Chloride)

1 quarter = 8 bushels = 64 gallons of wheat = 512 troy pounds = 422 us. pounds

1 pound of hops = 1 avipodourus pound = 16 oz.

1 barrel = 36 imperial gallons = 36(1.2 us gallon) = 43.2 us gallons

So...

To make 60 barrels of single beer, use 10 quarters of malt, 2 quarters of wheat, and 2 quarters of oats, along with 40 pounds of hops.

translates to

To make 2592 gallons of single beer, use 4220 lbs. of malt, 844 lbs. of wheat, and 844 pounds of oats, along with 40 pounds of hops

Grain: Here I equate the yield with total grain, and use the simple algebraic formula of a/b = x/y and solve for x. x = ay/b. If I do a similar equation, and solve for 5 gallons, I discover the amount of grain needed.

5908 lbs. grain to 2592 gallons = 11.3966 lbs. of grain to 5 gallons of beer.

With percentages of each type of grain at 71% malt, and 14% each of wheat and oats, I yield numbers like 8.0916 lbs. malt, 1.5955 wheat, and 1.5955 oats. Rounding to even half pound units for simplicity I yield a grain bill of 8.5 lbs. malt, 1.5 lbs. wheat, and 1.5 lbs. oats.

Hops: Here is use a similar method as I did with the grain, and also rounding into half oz. units for ease of use.

640 oz of hops to 2592 gallons = 1.2346 oz. of hops to 5 gallons of beer.

Rounding up to 1.5 oz. This is a convenient measurement because commercial sold English hops often (and in my specific case) come packaged in .5 oz increments

To make 5 gallons of single beer, use 8.5 lbs. of malt, 1.5 pounds wheat, 1.5 pounds of oats, with 1.5 oz. of hops.

Here I shall explain all of the ingredients that I used, why I used these specific things, and what might have been used in period.

One might think that water is water, but in brewing that is not quite so. The presence of the different minerals in water that make up its relative "hardness" also affect the taste of beers and ales. One of the most well known water profiles is that of Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire England. There is a mixture available at my local brewing store here in Seattle that is specifically designed to bring the relatively soft water we enjoy, to the appropriate hard levels of Burton-on-Trent.

In the book "A Description of England" by Harrison, he describes what he considers to be the best brewing waters.

So with the addition of the mixture of Gypsum, Epsom Salts, and Potassium Chloride into my brewing water, I can "harden" my water from the fairly "soft" water of Seattle, and closer approximate the brewing water of one area of England.

Malt: As water is not just water, neither is malt just malt. The term Malt here refers to "malted barley". The technique of malting the grain to improve storage time, and activate naturally occurring enzymes in most grains that allows the conversion of starch to sugars, and since grains are primarily starch, this allows for conversion of grain to fermentable sugars. The currently available malted grains benefit from the advances science has brought the malting industry and is there for not entirely appropriate for reproducing period malts. But as it is a difficult, equipment intensive process to malt your own grain, I have to make do with these malts until such time as I can produce my own malts. One of the major differences is the automating of the production, and the method used to supply the heat. From Harrison we learn...

And from Markham we learn interesting things about drying the malt ...

These little bits of information led me to thinking that the malt would have been a touch smoky tasting, unevenly roasted, and in some cases where the malt was near the fire, or in a case of negligence burnt. I chose a selection of grains that would give a resemblance of the flavor I theorize might have been the case. Choosing a grain bill of a mix certain commercially available malts to approximate the malt that might have been used gives me something to work with. Using this logic, I decided to use Pale 2-row malt from England which is, barring agricultural advances, fairly similar to what was probably used, and adding in Brown malt, which is bit more roasted, and darker colored, with a small portion of Scottish Peat Smoked malt to simulate a bit of smokiness, and finishing it up with a small portion Chocolate malt, which is roasted almost to the point of burnt. While this is just a theory, it is a starting point, and can allow the brewer to "fiddle" with grain amounts to reach a pleasing flavor in future beers.

Wheat:Malted wheat fortunately is available to brewers, and I used the what the local brewing store had in stock. I am uncertain as to whether wheat was malted or not. Since both malted and unmalted wheat is still in use to day and unmalted wheat is mainly used for head (foam) retention, and body I theorized that the mediveal brewer would be more interested in the malted wheat. Also the malting process allows the grain to be stored for longer periods, malted wheat makes an uncommon amount of sense to me as the choice.

Oats: Markham mentions several techniques for malting oats, and refers to "oatmalt".

On the other hand, malted oats are not available to the brewer these days, and I had to settle for plain old rolled oats, which does contribute some character to the beer, and has been used by modern brewers with excellent results. I hope to one day track down a source for malted oats, but so far have been unsuccessful.

Hops was another of those variables, that the modern brewer cannot reproduce, as the cultivation of separate strains of hops is of a relativly recent introduction, and I was unable to establish one strain as better than another. Hop strain cultivation is purported to be period as evidenced by a reputable web page called "breWorld" as has the following information to tantilize us with.

Since I have no idea exactly what strains were used, I chose to use English Fuggle hops because they are lower in the acids that cause bitterness in beer than a lot of the currently grown hops, and impart a pleasing aroma and flavour to my beer. Hop bitterness was one of the main characters that hop growers have been breeding for, and the hops of yesteryear would not be as bittering as the newer ones. Fuggles is the oldest hop strain that I have found, being identified as a separate strain in 1795.

In modern brewing there are a plethora of separate ale yeast strains available. The strains are mostly single strains pure cultured which is something the medieval brewer would not have been able to do. Yeast culturing was developed in the 1800's and has been developed into a fine art. Since most period texts give us little information about what yeasts they were using, what the flavors resulting from the yeast (one way to identify strains) or nearly any information, the modern brewer must use what he has on hand. Fermentation in period was done using "wild" yeasts using open fermentation. In other words they uncovered vessels which were exposed to the air for fermentation. This is not something that modern brewers are comforatble with. There are many things floating around in the air, many of which are bad tasting in beer. Some of the wild yeasts that can infect a batch of beer, can ruin all the hard work, and energy put into it. Late in period, the brewers had identified yeast as substance, and used for example Markham writes...

Barm is another word for active yeast (Ren) and the above sentence tells us to prepare a large quantity ahead of time, and make sure it active before adding it to the beer. Mixing the barm (presumably left over from a previous batch or bought from a yeast seller) with some of the wort (or the water which has been run through the grain, and contains a large amount of sugar) activates the yeast, which reproduces at enormous rates, and begins to eat up the sugar. If you add this active yeast to the unfermented beer it will take off, and begin rapidly turning your wort into beer. One reason to create a large amount to begin with is to ferment your beer using the yeast you want, before it gets infected with something else.

For this experiment, I used a combination of three separate yeast strains to sort of randomly approximate a period yeast. I save about 600 ml of "sludge" from a previous fermentation that contained two separate strains, and pitched this yeast along with a packet of dried ale yeast. The result was a amazingly quick start (4 hours as opposed to 24-48 hours) because of the high volume.

The method I used to brew this beer was taken from Markham, as it is the clearest written instructions, and close the earliest. The earliest step by step instructions I could find were 1577 (harrison), and echoed what markham used. I break the procedures down into its separate components..

My steps are fairly close to this. First I take my grain mixture, which I had ground at the brewing store when I bought into my boiling kettle-cum-mashing vat. I placed 7 gallons of water on to boil previously. When it reached boil, I pulled it off the stove, and began to scoop it a bowlfull at a time into my mash vat. I installed a colander in the top of my mash vat to diffuse, and spray the water over the top of the grain bed so as not to "scorch" the grain, and render it useless. After quite some time of laboriously pouring the water into the mash vat, and stirring it all up, I checked the temperature. It had settled to about 158 degrees. Which is close to the ideal temperature for enzyme conversion of the grain. This is how the medieval brewer accomplished a very temperature sensitive operation without the use of a thermometer. I then wrapped my stainless steel kettle in a blanket to reduce heat loss, as the mashing vat was probably much better at retaining heat than my thin walled kettle. After about an hour the temperature had dropped to 152.9 degrees which is still pretty good. Then I slowly drained the wort into a separate bucket through the ball valve I had installed in the bottom, which had a strainer attached to it.

After I had cleaned the grain out of the kettle, I drained the bucket back in the kettle, as I only had 1 pot big enough to handle the volumes. I turned on the heat, and began to bring it to a boil, using my derived amounts for hops from the 1503 recipe instead of Markhams. I boiled the wort for an hour, and then instead of letting it sit overnight, and be exposed to infection, I instead used a modern gizmo called a force cooler to bring the temperature down to safe yeast temperatures. The force cooler is 25 feet of copper tubing coiled up into a small package that has tap water flowing through it. This cools the wort from 200 degrees to 80 degrees in about an half and hour.

Here is where my methods and period method begin to diverge a bit. What I did was drain the cooled wort through the same valve and strainer assembly on my boiling kettle into a 5 gallon glass carboy, into which I added the yeast mixture I had prepared. I then attached an airlock to the neck of the carboy. An airlock is a plastic water trap that allows air out, but not in. As the yeast begins to eat all the sugar it can reach, it gives of two waste products: alcohol, and Carbon Dioxide. The constant CO2 production needs to be vented, but outside air, and bacteria needs to be kept out. This is what Markham calls "purging". One thing to note is the "beating it and the barm exceedingly well together" that Markham mentions. This is done to aerate the wort, to give the yeast enough oxygen in the liquid to be happy and healthy yeast.

Here is where my method really diverge. Since pitch-lined European oak casks in a 5 gallon size are almost impossible to come by these day (not for lack of trying mind you.) I had to use my modern kegging equipment instead. What I did was drain my fermented and un-carbonated beer into a 5 gallon stainless steel soda canister that I have adapted for my use. When Markham says " and after close it up as close as may be" he is saying to stop the cask up, while fermentation is still going on. The fermentation is almost done at this point, and when you stop it up like this, the CO2 that ordinarily be vented is absorbed into the liquid resulting in carbonation. Since this is a rather imprecise method of carbonation, I opted instead to use "force carbonation" wherein I use a CO2 canister, and force by means of pressure CO2 into the liquid.

• The Complete Anachronist:
• #81 "Period Metrology: A study of Measurement, Part 1"   The Society for Creative Anachronism Inc., 1995
• #82 "Period Metrology: A study of Measurement, Part 2"   The Society for Creative Anachronism Inc., 1995

Renfrow, Cindy. "A Sip Through time: A collection of Old Brewing Recipes", 1994

Markham, Gervase. "The English Housewife", 1615. edited by Micheal Best, 1994

Harrison, William. "The Description of Endland" (reprinted from Hollinshed's Chronicles published in 1577.)

Oxford English Dictionary Online. Telnet: uwin.u.washington.edu

BreWorld: http://www.breworld.com