Questions on the role of hulls, hay and hops in the mash

I'm interested the role that non-grain additions to the mash may have on the resulting wort and beer - primarily mixed-culture beer, but some of the same considerations would apply to Saccharomyces only beers as well. So in this post I'd like to lay out some quick thoughts on three such additions: hulls, hay or straw, and hops. Sorry this post is poor on the image side. Based on the nature of the post (ramblings on ideas with historic context) I don't have images of my own to share from employing these processes.

A couple factors came together over the last week or two that convinced me to put this quick post together. The first, as addressed in the Hulls section, is the latest malting runs from my friend Mike. And the second were some facebook posts (here and here) from my friend Ed over at Ales of the Riverwards detailing some aspects of a collaboration brew, with among others, another friend James at The Referend Bier Blendery. In this brew they used hay in the mash.

This post is more of an open question about the role that alternative mash additions could have. I haven't tried any of these myself, and it seems that I'm unlikely to get the chance to try much in the near future (more info on that in the coming weeks to months) but there is historic precedent to some. As with many cases, this seems mostly to have been done from a practicality standpoint, though it certainly could have had an impact beyond this practicality on the beer. And in at least one case this is noted by the author writing about it. So anyway, I'd like to more from others results from using some of these ingredients in mixed culture beers. If you've got some experience/thoughts on this, feel free to add them in the comments. The two main points I'm curious about, if you have used hulls/hay/hops in the mash, are: do you think this contributed something to the wort? How far did this characteristic make it through the process?

1) Hulls - The use of grain hulls in the mash is probably the most approachable of the three to modern brewers. Similarly, the use of wheat hulls shows up in multiple different Belgian texts from the 1800s. Perhaps most prominent from what I've seen, is the discussion of mashing presented in Lacambre's 1851 treatise on brewing. Lacambre notes the use of wheat hulls in fairly high levels in lambic mashing to help act as a filter aid. These hulls were added at the beginning and more are throughout the mashing. I've discussed the presence of wheat hulls in lambic previously in this post in a two part series on Lacambre's text (part 2 focuses on bière de mars).

What I think is most interesting to me about this discussion are the closing couple paragraphs of the Brussels section (which focuses on lambic/faro/bière de mars). In these, Lacambre stops to note that he finds this high rate of wheat hull use interesting and, in his mind, wheat hulls are a necessary component of the flavor of lambic. In this, he disagrees with the lambic brewers, who note that they are only used for their practical purpose. Though in defense of the brewers they may be speaking to why they use them and not the complete spectrum of the results (brewers were not be adding wheat hulls for the aroma they contribute, whether or not that is an outcome of their use).

It is also possibly worth noting that this isn't the only place where Lacambre disagreed with lambic brewers. Less trivially, Lacambre wasn't sold on the idea of spontaneous fermentation and thought that lambic brewers should control the fermentation more. I wouldn't be surprised if that opinion was as unpopular then as it would be now. Anyway, whatever the case is with wheat hulls, Lacambre's final words on the section dealing with lambic are that he feels wheat hulls have become an indispensable component which is, in part, responsible for the final aroma of the beer.

The author believes that wheat hulls contribute something important to the character of lambic
and that their use in brewing is necessary for that character. From Lacambre, 1851 (p.394).

Lacambre bases his assertion on the extractions he has made from wheat hulls. Unfortunately I don't have any wheat hulls (or for that matter rice hulls) around to try this out, but assessing the impact in water or wort would be pretty easy task. You could make a tea out of the hulls and taste that. And next time you brew you could pull off a couple mugs of wort and do the same in one while keeping the other as is for a comparison. That would at least inform the initial difference (pre-boil and fermentation), It is likely that impacts may decrease from this point, but perhaps there are compounds that would be altered during fermentation and/or components that would come forward more after sugars are removed and the wort has cooled (think of hot sweetened tea/coffee compared to cold sweetened tea/coffee and cold unsweetened).

On the opposing side, the sorts of processes used by some homebrewers allow some (hull-less or nearly so) beer to be made. If you are using brew in a bag (BIAB) you don't have the same need for husks as a lauter aid as when not using BIAB. My malting friend Mike (of Doehnel Floor Malting and Skagit Valley Malting) just sent me the list of the malts he made this year and one of them was a hull-less barley malt. This might be an interesting malt to brew with and make a beer without hulls or with very little hull material compared to conventional beer while still using a base of primarily or completely barley.

Hay in the mash. Photo: E Coffey, Ales of the Riverwards

2) Hay and Straw - Moving a step further from the realm or standard brewing ingredients, hay and straw could also be added to mashes. From a practical point of view, this would fill the same role as hulls as discussed above - to aid in the formation of a filter bed. But, as noted by Lacambre, there would likely be a flavor component to it as well. This is the motivation behind some of the modern brewers employing hay in their beer. As I mentioned in the top of this post, seeing a recent collab brew with hay in the mash was one of the prompting factors for this post. Other brewers have also used something similar in the mash, for example hay in Jester King's beer Repose (this is also a repeat connection from the lambic in 1851 post linked above).

And, like wheat hulls, straw has historic precedent in Belgian brewing. In his 1874 book on Grisette, Peslet mentions that when the grisette mash begins, the first thing to happen is to lay down a bed of hulls or short pieces of wheat straw. And I'm sure if I looked around more I would find further mention of the use of straw in historic Belgian brewing. The presence of hulls or straw in the two thorough books that I've spent more time focusing on suggests that record of its use likely shows up elsewhere as well.

Because the motivations for using straw, both on the practical side and the organileptically-active side are basically the same as for hulls, the same considerations apply as noted above - namely that straw contributes a flavor to water and this flavor may be an important component in final beer. Whether the imparted characteristics survive boiling, fermentation and aging is a valid question. But also a question that we can address by brewing and tasting. And some folks out there may have some experience to weigh in on this question. Meanwhile, the rest of us can put it to a test ourselves.

3) Hops - I know the idea and/or practice of mash hopping has been around for hoppy North American beers (IPAs, etc.) for the preservation of some aroma/flavor compounds in a form where they reach the final beer and contribute to the already strong hop character. My personal interests are a bit different. The addition of hops in a mash are mentioned in Pelset's book on Grisette. The author writes that in the warmest months (in the brewing of ordinary/young grisette, as this was the only grisette which would have been brewed at this time of year) that hops would sometimes be added to the mash.

The mention of hops in this setting is rather matter of fact so I don't read it as if it were any sort of radical/especially unique process. When hops were used in the mash they were used in place of the wheat straw/hulls as the first component added to the mash to help provide a filter bed. The substitution is made in hottest months to protect the mash under the influence of bad temperatures, or to prevent bacterial activity during the mash. In the typical modern warmer and faster mashes this is not really an issue, but if there were prolonged rests around 40 C or so then this might be more of a concern.

So hops, like hulls or straw, are performing the function of a filter aid, which seems less necessary (or at least less popular) in modern brewing. But it is quite possible that they had an influence outside of their primary practicality-driven role. In the case of hops in comparison the hulls or straw, perhaps this is lessened by the additions of hops at other points in the process. But the potential additional influences still intrigue me in a beer like young/ordinary grisette which would have been somewhat hoppy but not IPA-style hoppy.

Conclusion/call for input: So there are some quick thoughts on the use of mash filter aids which may also have flavor and aroma contributions to at leas the wort, and possibly the final beer. Hopefully some people out there with experience using these can weigh in and hopefully some of you try this out, possibly in paired brews without hulls/straw/mash hops to see the influence of these ingredients. As I noted above, it is unlikely that I'll get to much of this in the short term, but if/when I do I'll weight in with my thoughts.

Blending 2016-17 #1

As the weather warms up around Victoria I'm starting to think about a bit of end of season brewing and blending. And with these thoughts fresh in mind, plus blending #2 which was a week ago (FB post here), I realize I never wrote anything up from my major blending back in December (here is the quick FB post I made when doing the blending with photos, some of which are duplicated here). This blending had been postponed somewhat significantly by my not having enough free carboys to do anything. It was a self-propagating problem. I didn't have enough carboys free to blend so I'd brew into the couple empties that I had. Sometimes this would be a quick turnaround beer and in a couple weeks I'd be back to where I started. But sometimes it would be a beer for aging and then I was even worse off - I had more full carboys of beer destined for blending and fewer that were empty to blend into.

But after a couple months of restraint, fulfilling barrel re-fill responsibilities on my barrels and borrowing a carboy from my friend Kyle, I finally had enough free in December to do some blending. There was a bit of a time crunch (flying to South Africa for work 3 days after the blending, though that's another story) so I didn't quite get through what I was planning. But I was able to make and bottle 5 turbid-mashed, open-cooled blends, including two with components that had only ambient microbes. In total I bottled just under 80 L (~21 gal), so large for a home scale but not a ton. Though corking & caging ~140 bottles by hand definitely made it feel like a ton. I feel for the commercial guys who do this all by hand!

Almost ready to start the blending.

The Beers

I had put in a lot of work leading up to this blending session and, as such, I had a lot of beers to work with. I think this is the single biggest factor in success here. In the short term, I had multiple beers of a pretty good age range so come up with blends. And, in the long run, the repeated brewing should also help me to fine tune recipe and process. So I'd say if you can make the space and if blending aged mixed culture or spontaneous beer is something that you're serious about, then make a point of building a reserve such that you have plenty of blending choices (not just one or two carboys of a couple different years).

I did an initial tasting back in August and out of 15 or so beers from that tasting plus one more from a recent barrel pull I ended up selecting 8 plus the barrel pull as sufficiently ready to make some trial blends. These beers were between 15 and 47 months old when the blending time came around. The remaining beers weren't awful but they weren't ready for a variety of reasons (generally uninteresting, still some fermentation to go, too bitter, etc.) and I'll continue aging them until either they are ready, I need to trim down my brewing space/gear, or I give up on them/they go off. Whichever comes first.

Glasses and notes ready for individual beers and trial blends.

The beers I ended up using are below. Except for one component and part of another, they were all turbid mashed with at least 30% unmalted grain, brewed with aged hops and open cooled overnight. All except for one had pitches of bottles dregs and/or lab cultures added. Here are very brief thoughts on their profiles as well as their brew dates.

M#1 (brewed Jan 2013): This beer factored into my 2015 blending session as well. It was lightly acetic (a bit more than I'd like on it's own, but not that high), had nice oxidation, and a good fruit character.

WR (brewed July 2013): This is also a remainder from the previous blending. It was brewed with unmalted rye rather than unmalted wheat. The spice character is bit more mellow than it was before, but still a more forward. It worked well as a component for that reason, as well as on its own.

SB (brewed Feb 2013): This is the last holdover form previous blending. It was brewed as a saison base with unmalted spelt and a step mash and boiled with non-aged hops before open cooling overnight. I then added saison yeast as well as lambic and mixed culture saison bottle dregs. It was fruit forward with a pleasant degree of oxidation and a light edge of acetic. This component worked well with more phenolic beers.

Setting up to make test blends.

Dec 2014: This batch was more hop forward and phenolic in the taste. A bit too hoppy/bitter on its own but will work nicely for certain other beers in this blending session. There was good citrus and funk to the beer as well.

May 2015 spontaneous starters: This is the closest thing to fully spontaneous in here. I did some wild capture starters to trial local microbes and added the good starters to this batch. Nothing else was pitched. It had a nice brightness and tropical fruit.

May 2015 ECY: This beer had some stonefruit and candy-like sweetness and was on the mellow side.

May 2015 G(u)euze dregs: There was some good funk and citrus in this batch, though the intensity was a bit muted compared to others.

September 2015: This batch tasted older than many of the others, which was a bit puzzling. It was grapefruit forward with some nice oxidation and funk. 

Barrel Pull 2: This is from a 60 gallon barrel that I co-own that we are treating as a solera-type barrel (not in the true proper solera sense, but more in the sense as homebrewers use the term). This is the second pull from the barrel and was composed of 67% saison brewed Nov 2014 and 33% turbid mashed beer brewed June 2015. This beer had light acidity and a forward wine barrel character that was pleasant and will add nicely to the rest of the beers, which were all carboy only. It also had a bit of oxidation that was creeping up since pulling it from the barrel (Oct 2016). I wasn't excited about that and was a bit hesitant to use it, but the blends worked out so I went ahead with it. It wasn't awful, but it was not as good as before the oxidation started creeping in. So lesson for next time - be prepared to use a barrel pull shortly after it is pulled. Or make sure some extra yeast is in there to protect the beer.

My notebook with trial blends & percentages,
and component volumes used & remaining.

The logistics and choosing the blends

I did a separate tasting from the selected set of blend-worthy beers shortly before blending and again noted their individual characteristics. From this I was able to think about which beers might go well together (more acidic with less, more fruit-forward with more funky/phenolic/hoppy, working a bit of oxidized beer in with fresher beer, etc.), and I made trial blends with those. I did this by weight so that I knew the proportions well without having to use large volumes. I ended up making 8 trial blends, with blends later in the trial blending benefiting from the room to improve on the earlier blends. From this subset I decided upon 5 blends: C, D, E, G and H (from trials A-H).

The final choice of which blends to do and which sizes to blend was based primarily on what was best, but to a secondary degree it was influenced by what carboys I had around and the volumes of the beers I was using as components. I wanted to either use something up completely or leave an appropriate volume to fill another carboy. So at least as much energy was put into what tasted the best as making it work in terms of carboys to blend into, leaving full carboy increments of partially used beers, optimizing order to make workflow go well, etc. I started with maximizing the volume of the best blends with the carboys I had on hand and then fitting in the others based on beer remaining. After a bit of spreadsheet work to optimize that I was ready to go.

I also spent a bit of time thinking about the blend order. I was going to need some carboys that I was emptying to end up holding the remaining portions of some beers later on, so those had to be blended first. I was also starting siphons with the remainder of the previous beer, so it was helpful if I only had to move one end of the racking cane (if ending carboy 1 on blend a, I would then start a new carboy that was also going in to blend a so I could leave the tubing in blend a).

Setting up an easy to follow order while blending was key.

The Blending

That setup was really all the hard work. From this point I put priming sugar into each of the blends so that it was well mixed and I could fill up to the top without worrying about leaving space for that. I didn't re-yeast but I did make a point of taking a bit of yeast over in the racking rather than keeping things as clear as possible. It doesn't take much so don't go overboard on this. My blends all carbonated fine going with this route and the sediment levels in the bottles is reasonable (not excessive/obviously more than taking clear beer and re-yeasting). Nevertheless, I'd like to move toward less intervention so maybe next time I'll skip this yeast carrying step. We'll see...

From there it was a bit of kitchen acrobatics, but it all went smoothly. I had a CO2 tank on hand to purge carboys before and after filling. And bottles before filling as well. I bottled 2 blends that same day and bottled the remaining 3 blends 2 days later. Then I could leave the bottles conditioning (I left them on their side) for 6 weeks while at sea in the Southern Ocean and come back at the end of January to somewhat conditioned beer. I've tested each blend by now and am happy with how they were progressing. But, as of late Jan/early Feb, each blend needed a bit more time to finish out. The carbonation was there but the flavor was a bit muddled at times compared to the trial blends. And some bottles had a touch of THP that I expect will age out.

It's about time to start checking back in on these. And this post makes me want to get to that. So perhaps this week and next I'll start revising the blends and maybe getting some tasting notes up.

Two bottled blends.