Bread and Beer: Spelt

Whole Grain Loaf with Sprouted Spelt

Brewing and baking complement each other in various ways: key to both is an understanding of the logic behind your process, the stages of fermentation in the product, and the ways in which modification in the former can shape the latter and change the flavour profile of whatever it is you are making.   The most recent Tartine Book by baker Chad Robertson contains an extended digression comparing the fermentation cycle of lambics with the much shorter cycle of naturally risen breads:

"Lambic brewers are conducting a symphony of natural processes, acting as both catalysts and shepherds in an attempt to achieve the desired outcome. The notion that the pattern has a specific sequence was a revelation; there was surely something valuable in this discovery related to bread. Lambic beers typically go through at least five distinct phases of fermentation. Unlike more common styles of beer where the flavor character is mostly determined by the types of grain and hops used, lambic’s complex character is shaped in large part by the wild fermentation, which changes with seasonal temperature fluctuations among other things. The origins of the lambic process and the way our bread was taking shape were closely related. Over time, the concept of sequential phases of fermentation would illuminate parts of my bread-baking process that had been invisible before.
...
Tartine bread goes through a process closer to a 24-hour cycle than the 24-month cycle of lambic beer. With bread I am working with fewer dominant types of wild microorganisms than the extraordinarily diverse process that produces lambic. But as much as I try to control the process on the one hand, letting the wild fermentation go through very active phases to develop depths of flavor is key to my approach. Minimal manipulation in the early stages—to allow maximum expression and transformation wrought by the microflora—is always the goal."

But there is also a more mundane overlap between baking and brewing in the ingredients its useful to have on hand.  Since I don't have a flour mill, in my case this is limited to raw grains that I can crush for brewing, or use whole or coarsely chopped in baking: things like spelt, rye, buckwheat, etc.  I confess I enjoy the thought that I can use these grains to make either beer or bread: it fits with the no doubt romanticized picture of traditional farmhouse ales, brewed with whatever grains were on hand, all of which might also be put to various other uses around the farm.

Whole spelt can be used in a variety of ways in bread, but it must first be rehydrated one way or another.  This achieves two important goals: softening the grain so that it won't be too tough in the final bread, but also beginning some enzyme activity (similar to what goes on in the mash) that make various minerals nutritionally available and begins breaking down starches into sugars.  One way to achieve this is by making a "soaker", hydrating coarsely ground grains in water overnight.  I've tried this a few times, but more recently I've been germinating the grains first by briefly hydrating them, the leaving them to sprout for a day or two (this is the process that is initiated and then halted in malting grains).  One final technique, which I haven't tried, involves basically mashing the grains or boiling them into a gelatinized porridge, then using this as part of the dough for the final bread.  This last method is closest to how we use these grains in beer.

I've used raw spelt three or four times when brewing, usually as a substitute for wheat malt in saisons and farmhouse beers.  I don't know if I could pick out differences between the two in separate beers, but I have noticed that spelt seems to improve the perception of body without being quite as silky as oats---something that can be useful when you're trying to make beers that are dry but not too thin or astringent.  The spelt saison I brewed with The Yeast Bay's saison blend remains one of my favourite home brews, and I recently added dry hops to another bitter, hoppy saison brewed with spelt which was also tasting very promising.

When using raw spelt in small quantities  (less that 5% of the grist), I usually just mash it along with everything else, though perhaps taking the time to change the gap on my Corona mill and give it a finer crush (raw grains are often difficult to mill).  When using a higher proportion, I now do a cereal mash with the spelt and a small amount of base malt. As I understand it, spelt should gelatinize at mash temperatures, making a cereal mash unnecessary; but the one time I tried to skip this step, my efficiency dipped considerably.  It may be that crushing the spelt more finely (or using rolled or even malted spelt) would have facilitated gelatinization, so that more of the starch was converted and my efficiency remained the same.  However since its raw spelt I use in baking, and the cereal mash isn't too much extra work, this is the process I've settled on.

Cereal Mash

You can find good accounts of the science behind cereal mashing online; my process is fairly simple.  I draw out a quart or two of water from my main kettle, add the crushed spelt along with a handful of base malt, and heat it to around 150°F; I hold it here for about 10 minutes, then bring the mixture to a boil, stirring it regularly for anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes, until I have a thick and gloopy porridge.  This then goes back into my main kettle, which by this point is on its way up to strike-in temperatures.  I add the rest of the grist, and mash as normal.

I'll post tasting notes and recipe for my most recent spelt saison in a few weeks when its bottled and carbonated.  In the meantime, with the weekend coming up, I'm finally back to brewing again!

Tasting Notes: Pale Mild

This pale mild was just a quick beer, intended primarily as a vehicle for growing healthy yeast; but I thought I'd write some brief tasting notes anyway since it turned out pretty well.

Appearance: Slight chill haze, but nice and bright once it warms up a bit.  Decent thin  but lingering head.

Smell: Fruity esters dominate.  Banana and apricot.  Bready malt and very light spice beneath it.

Taste: Slightly sweet, compounded by the fruity esters.  Followed by bready, maybe even slightly nutty malt.  Very gentle hop bite at the end.  Maybe a slight lactic twang?

Mouthfeel: Low carbonation is perfect.  Medium full mouth-feel.  Doesn't seem too light, despite being 3.4%.

Drinkability & Notes: Fairly happy with this one.  It has a nice subtlety to it.  The esters from the yeast are a bit more dominant than I'd like, probably because fermentation started a little high, but its not a fruity mess.  I'd also like a bit more expression from the malt: its slightly muddled, getting a bit lost in the sweetness.  But I've been drinking these most nights, and J seems to like them too, so I'll probably brew something like this again in future.

Toronto

We're not here for beer, but we've still managed some good drinking. I forgot to bring a camera so I don't think I'll write a proper post, but needless to say I was pretty excited to be greeted by this display of beers from Brasserie de la Senne on our way into Bar Volo. We tried a fair few beers by local breweries as well, some familiar from previous trips (e.g. we first visited Bellwoods two years ago), some new to us.  Stand outs included an English IPA on cask from Granite Brewing, and some beers by Dieu du Ciel and Le Trou du Diable. 

Tasting Notes: Lochristi Grisette

Inspired by this excellent write up at Ale of the Riverwards, I thought I'd come back to one of the beers I hadn't written about from my first order from The Yeast Bay.  It is a grisette fermented with Wyeast 3522, with half a vial of the Lochristi blend added in secondary; I also added some oak cubes that were fresh from a beer fermented with lactobacillus and White Labs brett trois.

I called it a Grisette for no better reason than that it had a high percentage of wheat and oats (see recipe below).  This ended up giving the beer a slightly creamy body that I'm not too keen on, which is exacerbated by the low carbonation and light hopping. I deliberately aimed for this low carbonation, expecting the brettanomyces to eat through the last remaining gravity points---but there's been little change since bottling. Its developed a light but definite tartness during secondary, which might mean that some lactobacillus survived on the oak cubes---though this could also be from the brettanomyces, since the website blurb says it can "impart a pleasant acidity over time".

The blend itself doesn't really shine in this beer, but I think that's a problem with the recipe more than anything else.  The second beer I fermented with this blend was a golden sour.  I transferred this onto 3 lbs of peaches a few weeks ago, at which point it had a similar flavour profile to this beer, but with more sourness and funk to back it up.  Hopefully the peaches will elevate it further.

Appearance: Hazy golden colour.  Head dissipates to a thin cap leaving some lacing.

Smell: There's a distinctive aroma profile I've found in both beers brewed with this blend, but its hard to find words to describe it beyond generic descriptions like "fruity".  The blurb on the website mentions strawberries, and I think I can see that, but to me its more of a green unripe strawberry than a luscious fresh berry.  There's perhaps some yellow citrus fruit too, and as I swirl up the glass I get more musty and earthy funk beneath the fruit.

Taste: Lightly sour, slightly lemony, and maybe a touch of orange peel.  Its comes together nicely, but its hard to pick out individual flavours.

Mouthfeel: The carbonation is low, and the mouthfeel fairly creamy.  For me, this detracts from the beer: I think if it were more spritzy it would be very refreshing, and the flavours might pop out more.

Drinkability & Notes: Not a bad beer by any means, but not particularly memorable either.  The contribution from the Lochristi blend is pleasant but subtle, and not enough to carry the beer by itself.  The light lactic tartness helps, but really it needs higher carbonation and maybe a dry hop to liven it up a bit.


Recipe:

Measured O.G.	1.041
Measured F.G.	1.002
ABV.	5.1%
Mash:	149°F
Malt:
64% 2-Row
18.3% Wheat Malt
9.1% Vienna 5.4% Golden Naked Oats 3.2% Table Sugar
Hops:
Hallertau (US)	60 min	23.9 IBUs	(25g@ 5.4%)
Styrian Goldings	15 min	5.8 IBUs	(20g@ 3.29%)
Fuggles (US)	2 min	0.9 IBUs	(15g@ 4.1%)
Yeast:
WY3522; Lochristi Blend

         

Tasting Notes: Biere de Coupage (Brett Fermented Wit)

When I told J I was making a witbier she asked me why, and with good reason: neither of us like them all that much.  Its probably in part because I haven't sought out many good ones, but in my limited experience witbiers are often creamy and a little sweet, whereas I prefer dryer beers that finish bitter and/or sour.  Its no surprise, then, that the wheat beers I tend to enjoy have a tart snap to them (like Jolly Pumpkin's Calabaza Blanca , or New Belgium's Snapshot), nor that when I've brewed wheat beers in the past its been styles like berlinerweisse or gose.  And yet here I was, brewing a straight up witbier...  Well, kind of.

The original inspiration for this beer came from an old article by Chad Yakobson in Zymurgy.  It included a recipe for a brettanomyces-fermented wit---probably an early version of Crooked Stave's St. Bretta.  I'd never tried that beer, but I thought it might be interesting to brew something along the same lines and ferment it with a couple of strains of brettanomyces.  As I mentioned in the earlier post, I was a little disappointed with the finished beer, so at bottling I cut it 3:1 with a no-boil sour I brewed earlier this summer.  Tasting notes below are for this blended beer.

Appearance: Hazy yellow colour.  Head retention is OK from a vigorous pour, but I like a more billowing head on this one.

Smell:  Very light grapefruit and general citrus, with a musty brett funk beneath it.  Aroma comes across as slightly sweet, if that makes sense.

Taste: Starts with doughy and slightly sweet wheat, and rounds out with a nice tartness at the end.  Grapefruit is there in the background, but I'd like it to pop out more.  Probably partly a result of using out of season fruit, but maybe I need to change other aspects of my process (adding more zest, adding juice, changing when I make these additions, etc.)

Mouthfeel:  Carbonation is a little low.  It begins with a fairly full and creamy mouthfeel, but the tart finish cuts right through it and makes the beer very moreish.

Drinkability & Notes: To my taste, cutting this beer with the no boil sour improved it immeasurably.  Where before it was cloying and dull, its now quite refreshing and drinkable.  There's no sign of over-carbonation yet (and if anything, I wish carbonation were a little higher)---I'm not planning on aging any of this, but I'll keep at least one or two bottles around for a month or so to see if this changes.  Perhaps the tartness will increase, along with the carbonation? I would also like the citrus to be more forward, and the whole thing to be brighter, but all things considered I'm satisfied with how this turned out.  I might even make another witbier some day soon!

Process: Brewing with English Yeast Strains

I've ended up taking a few weeks off from brewing this month, and since J and I are headed up to Toronto next week, it will probably be at least a fortnight before I brew again.  I have a couple of tasting note posts scheduled for while I'm away, but it will be a a bit longer before I have any interesting brew days to write about.

Part of the reason for this is that I'm in between pitches of yeast, and it didn't seem worthwhile to grow one up when I knew I'd be travelling.  Why should that make a difference?  Well, I realized that it all comes down to the way I brew when I'm using English yeast, and I thought it would be fun to write a quick post about my process.  Maybe its uninteresting for others, but I for one quite like hearing people discuss how they go about their brewing.

When I'm doing English beers (and some Belgian ones), my ideal process is to grow up a pitch of a top-cropping strain, and then brew with it once a week until its gone through at least three or four generations.  This only works when I know that I'll be able to brew regularly over a several weeks (so in the summer, and maybe at the start of a school semester).  When I have this kind of space, I brew each weekend, cropping mid-week for the next batch, and keeping this going as long as I need to.

Its fun to be able to trace the lineage of a particular pitch of yeast that's gone through this cycle.  For example, early this summer I grew up a pitch of Wyeast 1469 from a slant.  It was first pitched into this pale mild, and cropped a few days later; after that I brewed two bitters back to back on subsequent weekends, pitching from one to the next  (I haven't written about these yet); the yeast from the last bitter was pitched into Old World's Mantra; some of the yeast cropped from there was pitched into the Keeping Porter, while the rest was grown up on a stir-plate and pitched into Stingo, along with more yeast cropped from the Keeping Porter.

So you can see that the original gravity of the beers increases steadily, with early beers acting as starters to ensure I have healthy yeast.  Since I'm top-cropping, I don't worry too much about the colour or hopping rates in the beer I'm cropping from, as the yeast that I skim off is almost completely free of trub (it may be coated in hop oils, but I haven't had any trouble with this).

I haven't done this consistently enough with particular strains to have any information about how flavours vary between pitches, though I have noticed that attenuation will often increase steadily over several generations.  One thing that has probably been very inconsistent up to now is the pitching rate across batches: I try to pitch roughly the same volume of slurry by eye in beers of the same gravity, but without taking cell-counts or actually measuring it out I suspect I am often over-pitching (remember this is thick, fresh, and healthy slurry).

That should change in future: a fellow home-brewer who runs one of the labs on campus recently told me that his old school was selling some microscopes, so I asked him to pick one up for me.  Once I get the hang of using it, I'll be able to do cell counts for the slurry I'm repitching.  It will be interesting to see what these show about the cell numbers and viability in top-cropped yeast, especially compared to the washed yeast I use in my saisons.

I'm curious as to whether other home brewers think about their process in the same way.  Part of the fun for me is thinking out a series of beers for a particular yeast.  I can tell you now that the next strains I grow up after our trip will be Wyeast 1028 and 1318 (I'm not sure which I'll do first)---and I have a pretty good idea of the sequence of beers I'll brew with each, which is to say that I have at least four beers in mind, and a couple more possibilities that I could work into the sequence if I think I'll have time. (E.g. 1028 goes Ordinary Bitter, Bitter, Summer Ale, IPA, and maybe a stock ale at the end.)

A final note: this is very different from the way I use saison yeasts.  Since these are rarely good top-croppers, and often fairly poor at flocculating, I usually harvest them from one of the clean Better Bottles that I use as bright tanks / secondary fermentation vessels.  In the right context, this process has its advantages too: it means I can wait longer in between brews, and keep a single pitch going over many months.  Obviously brewing with mixed cultures works differently too.

Tasting Notes: 1909 Lees Bitter

I've been waiting to post tasting notes for this beer because it was a bit rough around the edges for the first month or two.  I suppose that's unsurprising given the amount of hops used in it (70 calculated IBUs), especially since I also missed my O.G. by almost 10 points!  For the first month or so, it tasted like a poorly fermented kolsch: lots of honey and light fruitiness.  The bitterness wasn't too rough, but the whole thing didn't really come together.  Its started to come into its own in the last few weeks, and may well continue improving.

Appearance: Golden colour. Has a chill-haze if poured straight from the fridge, but crystal clear if you let it warm up a bit.  Head retention is terrible.

Smell: It had a strong honeyish aroma when it was young, but this has faded quite a bit.  Very slight fruitiness, but hard to tell if its the sugars, the yeast, or even residual aroma from the hops.

Taste: Honeyed malts, light fruitiness (apples, pears, maybe apricot), tea-like tannins in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Low carbonation.  Not too thin.  Bitterness is not at all rough, but builds gradually as you drink a pint to become almost numbing.  I like it, others might not.

Drinkability & Notes: It all comes together quite nicely at this point, drinking smoothly where before all the edges stuck out.  I'm surprised that the bitterness isn't harsher.  It definitely builds up as you drink, but I don't find it at all unpleasant.  Probably won't make this again, if only because of the quantity of hops involved, but J and I have both been drinking it fairly regularly.