For anyone who has seen our website or asked us why we started a malt-house in Hadley, MA you know our story. We liked to homebrew and support local agriculture so we started a malthouse. That is the story, but is it the whole story?
To tell the truth we were not avid homebrewers, just liked to make beer about once a month. We consider ourselves localvores but still buy bananas from Trader Joe’s when we want them. So why did we decide to build a malthouse? All I can really say is once the idea of starting a malthouse came into my mind; I just could not stop thinking about it. Malting was and still is what occupies my brain at least half of my waking hours.
It was 2 years ago that we were writing our business plan and hoping that someone would give us the money needed to build our business. During that time, I had become immersed in research about malting and growing malting barley and most of that research lead me into the past. I had found a librarian at UMASS that was willing to help me find old USDA farmer bulletins about barley and malting. These old articles helped me to trace varieties of barley that were grown in New England in the 1600′s. Around that time I was told by a historian in Hadley that she remembers hearing about a malthouse right down field from where we live. I loved hearing that but was reluctant to believe it.
I could not find much evidence of actual malthouses in New England except for Frank Jones in Portsmouth, NH. When I have time, I still do internet searches to try to find more evidence of malthouses in New England and low and behold last week I hit the jackpot. Through googlebooks I found a text from 1905 called The History of Hadley written by Sylvester Judd. In this book on page 66 is a paragraph that mentions 3 maltsters that lived in Hadley in the mid 1600′s. John Barnard and his son Francis and Andrew Warner. With these names I was able to do more research using online genealogy sites and old maps of Hadley. Sure enough Andrew Warner was documented as a maltster. It also looks as though his land was in the original meadow settled and parceled out in Hadley. This is the meadow our malt-house is perched a top and where we now grow our heirloom barley.
There is so much history available about Hadley. What was grown here, how beer was made and sold, how “hops grew wild in the intervales of the CT river”, and now even evidence of who malted those grains some 350 years ago. Right where we are doing it today.
While touring malthouses in the UK this summer, Christian and I were impressed by how each malthouse worked to preserve their history. Tuckers Maltings is a living museum and working malthouse. History about malting and its ties to agriculture were brought to life in humorous ways and many school children tour this facility each year as they are tought about their local history. Walking through Tuckers was like walking back through time 200 years. From the moment you enter through the door at Warminster Maltings you are greeted by old photos, books, and malting tools from hundreds of years before. Chris Garratt, their Head Maltster, confess that he constantly checks Ebay for any old malting books or items that may come up for auction so that he can add them to the collection. It is the former owner of Warminster, Dr. E.S Beaven, who in 1905, himself reached back into history to find the Scandanavian varieties Plumage and Archer which he then bred together to create Plumage Archer. This variety eventually became the grandmother of Marris Otter. The maltings we visited in Scotland were also deeply rooted and extremely proud of their history. If you are still reading this and in case you couldn’t tell, I could seriously go on for hours about this subject. It is fascinating stuff but it does make me wonder, are we doing enough to preserve our history? This kind of history? I know for me and others I have met, it is this kind of history that we are made by.
I would encourage anyone with a little time on their hands to search for references of maltsters, brewers, and/or malthouses in their town. If you find any evidence, I would really like to know about it. It would be so interesting to piece together the history of malting and brewing in America before it became so centralized.
As we look forward toward this new year let’s also continue to look back, for both are full of mystery, excitement, and beer.
by Nicholas Gagnon
The leaves are starting to change, days are shorter, it is (finally) cooling off, apple picking has begun…..it must be time for Pumpkin Ale! While quite a few breweries (who will remain nameless) decided to release their beers WAY too early. We patient brewers have waited for our local sugar pumpkins to ripen to perfection. Pumpkin ales are a surefire way to use local, seasonal ingredients in a unique and delicious way.
The pumpkins you want to use in your ale are sugar pumpkins. However other varieties of pumpkins and squash will suffice in a pinch. The sugar pumpkins will provide a subtle but noticeable pumpkin / squash flavor and slight aroma to the beer. The spices used (cinnimon, clove, nutmeg, ginger, ect) should be present in the beer but not overwhelming. I like to use whole spices and crush them just before brewing. However both pre-ground spices and “Pumpkin Pie Spice” will work fine.
There are many ways to use pumpkin in your beer varying from mashing with it to simply adding it to the fermenter. This recipe calls for a making a pumpkin concentration from the guts and adding it to the boil as well as adding pumpkin to the mash.
Preparing the Pumpkin:
Day Before Brewday:
-Go get your sugar pumpkins from a local Farm Stand (if you can)
-Gut your sugar pumpkins and separate the seeds.(Save for later)
-Place guts in kettle with enough water to simmer for several hours.
-Start simmering guts.
-Save liquid in fridge for brewday, note the volume!!!
-Cut pumpkins into chunks and shred with a grater.
-Place shredded pumpkin onto a cookie sheet and cover with tinfoil.
-Bake in oven until cooked, uncover and allow to caramelize, remove from oven when it begins to blacken on edges
Seeds:
You can toast the seeds you saved in the oven and add them to the secondary fermentor if you want a toasted almondy/nutty flavor in your final beer. Or salt and eat them…YUM!!
Valley Malt Pumpkin Ale
Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Boil Length: 1hr – ?
Target OG: 1.051
Target FG: 1.016
Target Bitterness: 15.7 IBU
Target Color: 11 – 13 SRM
Alcohol: 5 % ABV
Primary Fermentation: 7-12 days
Bottled Conditioning: 3 weeks
Notes:
Efficiency calculated at 70%.
Ingredients:
5 lbs Valley 2-Row
2 lbs Valley Malt Red Wheat or Valley Rye
2 lbs Valley Munich (or eq)
3.0 oz Valley Malt Dark Crystal (or eq)
1.0 oz Liberty hops
1 Stick Cinnamon
3-5 Whole Cloves
.5 tsp Nutmeg
3-4 sugar pumpkins
Yeast:
US-05, WLP 001, Wyeast 1056
Mash:
Type: Step
Step 1: Protein Rest
Thickness: 1 quarts / lb
Target Temperature: 122*F
Mash Time: 15 min
Add pumpkin to mash. It is a good idea to add quite a bit of rice hulls and even then watch out for stuck and slow sparges.
Step 2: Saccrification Rest
Thickness: 1.5 quarts / lb
Target Temperature: 156-157*F
Mash Time: 90 min
Boil:
-Start ? minute boil. Boil for enough time so that your 15 min addition of pumpkin extract brings the volume of the kettle back up to just over 5gallons. For example: I boil my wort until I have reduced my volume to 5 gallons. I add my 60 min hop addition and boil for 45 min. At 45 min my volume is now 4.15 gallons. I add my pumpkin gut extract (1 gallon) and my volume is now 5.15 gallons. I Finnish my boil add my spice additions, and my volume is 5.0 gallons.
@ 60min remaining add 1.0 oz Liberty
@15min remaining add pumpkin extract.
@10 min remaining add spices.
Chill wort.
Fermentation: Ferment with a neutral American ale strain for a clean profile (65-68*F).
October 2, 2011
By Alastair Hewitt
Around this time of year Oktoberfest beers are everywhere. The authentic version of this style is a lager brewed in the spring and matured at cool temperatures during the warm summer months. The beer was saved in this manner to celebrate the harvest and the beginning of the new brewing season.
This style poses many challenges for the average home brewer. Keeping a beer cool, typically as close to freezing as possible, will take up valuable refrigeration space when is is most needed during the summer months. Lager brewing also takes additional effort. The cool fermentation temperature require a much higher yeast pitching rate and accurate temperature control. Even at these low temperatures an infection is possible and the longer lag phase, sometimes up to 48 hours, can benefit uninvited guests in the form of bacteria.
This all sounds a little intimidating, but there are some short cuts with the help of a hybrid lager yeast. The particular strain of interest here is used in making the classic California Common, or Steam beer. This is a true lager yeast, but has the ability to work correctly at higher temperatures. It can also develop a clean taste without the need for extended cold conditioning. This yeast is therefore a good choice for lager brewing in the warmer months due to this versatility.
Another consideration in making traditional German lagers is decoction mashing. This involves removing the thick part of the mash and going through a quick saccrification mash followed by a boil. This portion is returned to the rest of the mash to raise the temperature and then the process is repeated. This is a fairly time consuming activity and not really necessary given the great performance you can get from Valley Malt.
The recipe below is made using a single step infusion mash and you will find this works great at extracting all the flavor you need from the grain. The grain bill is made up of Valley Malt Pilsner and Munich malt. Oktoberfest beers are often made up of all Munich and/or Vienna malts. The Valley Malt Munich is towards the dark end of the range, so the Pilsner is needed to keep the color within range. Some people add crystal malts to Oktoberfest, but this is not a traditional ingredient in authentic versions. Due to the higher kilning temperature, you will get some caramel notes from the Munich malt, so think twice before adding any.
Hopping rates should be in the 20′s of IBUs. This recipe aims at the center of this range (24 IBUs) by using the higher alpha German grown Magnum hops. These can be substituted for one of the Hallertau varieties, but will require about twice the amount of bittering hops to get to the same level of alpha acid. The bittering hops are added directly to the kettle during the sparge. This is know as first wort hopping and helps bind some of the more volatile aroma compounds in the hops before the wort reaches boiling temperatures. The boil should be a full 90 minutes to help develop the rich malt flavor. More aroma hops go in at 10 minutes from the end and then right at the end of the boil.
Make sure the wort is cooled to below 60*F before pitching the yeast. This can be difficult given the warmer tap water temperatures in the summer. If the cooled wort is still over 60*F just place the primary fermenter in the fridge for a couple of hours to drop the temperature. Make sure to aerate well and pitch plenty of yeast. This will typically require a large yeast starter to build up the necessary quantity needed for a lager fermentation. One easy way around this is to brew another beer with the same yeast and pitch the slurry. The hybrid lager yeast used in this recipe can behave very much like a typical clean ale yeast when used in the 62-66*F range. Brew up a batch of ale that would normally use a vial of WLP001 or 1056 and you should have plenty of yeast.
Valley Malt Oktoberfest
Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Target OG: 1.058
Target FG: 1.014
Target Bitterness: 24 IBU
Target Color: 14 SRM
Alcohol: 5.8 % ABV
Primary Fermentation: 14 days (below 60F)
Secondary (lagering): 4 weeks (below 50F)
Keg, or bottled condition for 3 weeks
Notes:
Efficiency calculated at 70%.
Ingredients:
6 lbs Valley Pils (or Pale) Malt
7.5 lbs Valley Munich (or eq)
1.25 oz Magnum hops (10-12% AA)
Yeast:
WLP810 San Francisco Lager, or Wyeast 2112 California Lager
Mash:
Single Step: Saccrification Rest
Thickness: 1.25 quarts / lb
Target Temperature: 150*F
Mash Time: 75 min
Boil:
-Start 90 minute boil
@ 90 min remaining add 0.5 oz Magnum
@ 10 min remaining add 0.5 oz Magnum
@ flameout add 0.25 oz Magnum
Chill wort.
Fermentation (primary):
Ferment with a hybrid lager strain anywhere between 48 – 60*F. If fermenting in the lower end of this yeast make sure to raise the temperature in the last couple of days of fermentation to help reduce diacetyl.
Lagering (secondary):
Store beer at cool temperature for around a month. This can be in a regular fridge without any temperature control (35-38*F). Make sure it doesn’t freeze!
It’s time for a late summer/ early fall kind of beer and with Valley Malt’s Rye on the way, what better could be better then an easy drinking but fortifying beer that showcases the flavor of rye?
Roggenbiers are an Old Skool German Style of beer, most similar to a modern Heffeweizen but with a refreshing tartness and spicy flavor due to the Rye. (learn more by clicking the title link above) I personally like to brew a little out of style(BJCP) with this beer as I find that a little more hop aroma and flavor can go a long way into making this beer truly quaff-able.
There are a few things to keep in mind when brewing a Roggenbier. Rye is a huskless grain and will be composing about ½ your grain bill or more (if you would like). Because of this a protein rest is needed (I like to rest for about 15 min) and rice hulls are recommended (a couple handfulls) to help mitigate the headaches of a stuck or slow sparge. Rye also tends to lend a greater perceived dryness and tartness to beers especially at these rates so if you change the hops or malt bill remember that you want to keep the IBU’s to a minimum and leave some body in the beer.
For hops I prefer staying in style and using Noble hop varieties with Roggenbiers. However, Rye plays well with many hop varieties, so experiment away. I chose to go with Saphir for all my hop additions on this beer as I think it is an ideal hop for a Roggenbier and it is a personal favorite of mine.
You want to go with a Hefe yeast on this one as they really accentuate the flavors of the Rye while providing aroma and flavor complexities. I really like Wyeast 3333 for Roggenbiers and Wyeast 3056. 3068 is ok but can trow off a lot of Banana at higher temps. You can also use the WLP equivalents. I prefer to ferment this style on the cooler side (66 – 69*F) as I want to accentuate the clove and get as little Banana as possible. But again feel free to experiment!!
Look for more recipes this month including a Harvest Ale, and a possibly a Pumpkin Ale recipe!!!
Valley Malt Roggenbier!
Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Boil Length: 1
Target OG: 1.051
Target FG: 1.013
Target Bitterness: 14.8 IBU
Target Color: 16-18 SRM
Alcohol: 5 % ABV
Primary Fermentation: 12 days
Bottled Conditioning: 3 weeks
Notes:
Efficiency calculated at 70%.
Ingredients:
5 lbs Valley Rye
3.5 lbs Valley Pils (or Pale) Malt
1.5 lbs Valley Munich (or eq)
12.0 oz Valley Malt Dark Crystal (or eq)
1.25 oz Saphir hops
Yeast: S-05 or Wyeast 1056 or WLP001
Mash:
Type: Step
Step 1: Protein Rest
Thickness: 1 quarts / lb
Target Temperature: 122*F
Mash Time: 15 min
Step 2: Saccrification Rest
Thickness: 1.5 quarts / lb
Target Temperature: 154*F
Mash Time: 60 min
Boil:
-Start 60 minute boil
@ 60min remaining add .4 oz Saphir
@ 15 min remaining add .5 oz Saphir
@ 2 min remaining add .33 oz Saphir
Chill wort.
Fermentation:
Ferment with a German Wheat strain at lower temperatures (66 – 69*F)
An Introduction to brewing with Rye:
Rye is a fantastic, versatile grain that is often overlooked in the homebrewing world. It can be used in a large array of styles very successfully. Rye can give a beer that little “something different” (Rye Pale Ale) or can be the main flavor and component of a brew (Roggenbier). No matter how you decide to use it there are some things you should consider when brewing with Rye.
Rye malt contributes a unique flavor to beer. Your first instinct may be to think of Rye Bread as a good flavor reference. However, most Rye bread contains Caraway seeds which impart the flavors most people associate with Rye bread and not of Rye itself. Caraway seeds have and can be used in brewing to get that flavor however we are looking to impart just the flavor of Rye. Rye’s true flavor contribution to the bread is the soft grain, tartness, and spicyness and that is what we are looking for in our beer. Along with this flavor Rye contributes a crispness or tartness on the palate often creating the impression that the beer is drier than one would expect. It is important to take these factors into consideration when brewing and adjust recipes accordingly.
Rye contributes a subtle to noticeable flavor and slight to evident crispness on the palate between 10-20% of the malt bill. Above this concentration the flavor of the Rye and especially the spicy character of the grain will begin to become a major component of the final flavor of your beer. At 50% or above the flavors and tartness that Rye imparts is a dominant factor. These concentrations(+50%) of Rye are typically seen in Roggenbiers or in malt bills typical of wheat beers but with Rye substituted for wheat.
Rye is a huskless and small grain that requires special consideration when milling. It is recommended and generally practiced to tighten your mills gap to better crush the grain. It is also sometimes necessary to run the Rye through the mill an additional time to get a good crush. DO NOT OVER CRUSH. We are still looking for a good crush, not flour. Mill your Barley and any other grains separately and as you normally would.
Mashing with Rye presents its own challenges and is most similar to malted wheat or flaked oats. The outer shell of Rye Malt is high in Beta-Glucans and will increase the viscosity of the wort considerably. A malt bill of 10-20% Rye can be mashed by single infusion with no problems, however it will be dependent on your equipment. Over 30% Rye in the malt bill may require a protein rest at 122-124F (50C) for 15 minutes that will help break down some of these proteins and aid in preventing headaches such as a slow or stuck sparge. A couple of handfuls of Rice Hulls added to the mash can also help, especially when a large percentage of the malt bill is Rye and there is a general lack of barley hulls that would normally be present. Finally a good sparge temperature 168-169F (76C) is critical to help lower the viscosity of the wort. Expect a slightly slower sparge then normal with malt bills containing higher percentages of Rye.
Rye is an exciting and refreshing grain to brew with. It may take a little more effort at times however the beer you will be rewarded with will be worth it. Look to Valley Malts Blog for a few fall recipe’s using Rye in September.
SMASH IT UP
I recently picked up my bag of Valley Malt 2-row and decided a nice SMASH (Single Malt and Single Hop) Pale Ale was just the thing to lead off with and to really get a feel for the malt and the wort it will produce. In the chew it has a nice biscuit/bready quality with some sweetness.
I ran off about 8 gallons of wort from 14lbs of grain for a starting gravity of 1.057. The wort produced is much darker then that produced with other 2-row/pale malts out there. I’d guess about 7L without doing a proper test. It has a prominent sweetness with a nice biscuit/bready flavor and an earthiness to it that is hard to describe.
I choose to use Calypso hops in this SMASH as I wanted to see how they would do with a hop burst and felt they would mesh well with the Valley Malt’s 2-Row Flavors. The final wort tasted fantastic and with a dry hop addition should make a great beer.
One other thing worth mentioning is that a short protein rest is recommended when using this malt. I have experimented a few times and find the wort produced with a protein rest produce a more refined finished product.
Recipe:
Title: SMASH I
Style: 10-A American Pale Ale
Author: NRG
Batch Size: 6.0 gal
Efficiency: 70.0%
Original Gravity: 1.057
Ingredients:
14.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
.5 oz Calypso (12.8%) – added during boil, boiled 15 min
.5 oz Calypso (12.8%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Calypso (12.8%) – added during boil, boiled 5 min
2 oz Calypso (12.8%) – added during boil, boiled 1.0 min
Dry Hop 1.0 oz in secondary.
Mash @ 155*F for 1hr
* Nicholas Gagnon is co-owner of DIY Homebrew Supply www.diybrewing.com in Ludlow, MA