Just paid for my license a few minutes ago. Getting ready to make a braggot inspired by George Washington's "Small Beer" Circa 1757. Primarily, I'm using honey instead of corn syrup or molasses as the original recipe calls for. I've run into an issue trying to add a new fermentable and finding the details for Wheat Bran. Where can I find that information? Would Flaked Wheat be the same?
New to BrewSmith need help with fermentable profile.
- Thread starter Jaxom65
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GigaFemto
Grandmaster Brewer
Wheat bran is the outer layer of the wheat kernel, while flaked wheat is made from the whole kernel so they are not the same. I have never heard of using wheat bran in beer and have no idea what its characteristics would be.
--GF
--GF
Oh, I know what the differences are! LOL! What I didn't know was that my family doesn't like bran muffins as much as I do! UGH!! What's wrong with a hot bran muffin with butter and honey on it?! But, I digress... I have all this wheat bran, and even I'm getting tired of muffins now. So I started looking up what I can make with it. That's when I stumbled onto Washington's "Small Beer". I thought I'd give it a shot, as I've never made anything like ale or beer before. Just mead and wine. Making this a braggot crosses over that line from beer to braggot because most of the fermentables are honey.
Being "retired" now, I'm going stir crazy trying to keep busy. Thought I would take my brewing and fermentation hobby to a higher level. In the detailed section of editing a fermentable, I'm mostly concerned about the "Yield/Sugar content" for wheat bran. Where could I find that information?
Being "retired" now, I'm going stir crazy trying to keep busy. Thought I would take my brewing and fermentation hobby to a higher level. In the detailed section of editing a fermentable, I'm mostly concerned about the "Yield/Sugar content" for wheat bran. Where could I find that information?
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BOB357
Grandmaster Brewer
One cup (58 grams) of wheat bran contains .24 grams of sugars. Not worth much as a fermentable.
Kevin58
Grandmaster Brewer
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The original George Washington Small Beer recipe did not list bran as an ingredient... it says "bran hops". There are a lot of guesses as to what was intended - everything from a missing comma to "brown hops" (which was a thing).
Deciphering 250 year old text is difficult because the use and meanings of many words has changed. For example in brewing beer mild was never a style but instead a description of condition which meant fresh. And Stout meant strong (regardless of color). Aged beer was called stale. A word that has a completely different meaning today. Many an error has been passed down as fact because the reader did not understand the true meaning of a word or phrase and just passed it along. The error is often compounded when that error is published in a book or article.
In my experience historic recipes are fun to read about but not practical to actually make. We will never know exactly what ingredients were used, their makeup, or how the beer tasted. This from someone who regularly searches out and brews recipes from the 1800's. (I usually don't go any farther back than the 1830's)
That being said I do have some (as in two) 1700's recipes that I have made including this one claiming to be the "original Porter". The caveat however is that the specialty grains listed did not exist at the time so, like GW's small beer recipe, you have to take it with a big grain of salt. https://durdenparkbeer.org.uk/index.php/original-porter-circa-1750/
Deciphering 250 year old text is difficult because the use and meanings of many words has changed. For example in brewing beer mild was never a style but instead a description of condition which meant fresh. And Stout meant strong (regardless of color). Aged beer was called stale. A word that has a completely different meaning today. Many an error has been passed down as fact because the reader did not understand the true meaning of a word or phrase and just passed it along. The error is often compounded when that error is published in a book or article.
In my experience historic recipes are fun to read about but not practical to actually make. We will never know exactly what ingredients were used, their makeup, or how the beer tasted. This from someone who regularly searches out and brews recipes from the 1800's. (I usually don't go any farther back than the 1830's)
That being said I do have some (as in two) 1700's recipes that I have made including this one claiming to be the "original Porter". The caveat however is that the specialty grains listed did not exist at the time so, like GW's small beer recipe, you have to take it with a big grain of salt. https://durdenparkbeer.org.uk/index.php/original-porter-circa-1750/