Heather Ale

[Yob]

I recently watched a show that talked aout using heather as a flavouring/bittering agent and have been curious. I found this http://byo.com/component/resource/article/...749-heather-ale here

18.93 Lt, all-grain; OG =1.048; FG =1.008; Color = 18 SRM; Bitterness = 23 IBUs

Ingredients:
3.29kg. Marris otter or other English pale malt
.45kg. Carapils or dextrin-type malt
.23kg crystal malt (20 Lovibond)
.23kg crystal malt (40 Lovibond)
.06kg. chocolate malt
3 cups fresh or 1-2 cup dry heather flowers
(1/2 added for 60 minutes, 1/2 added at end of boil)
.03kg of 4.2% alpha -acid Fuggles hops (4.2 AAU) (optional)
.01kg of 4.2 % alphaacid Fuggles hops (2.1 AAU) (optional)
starter of Scottish Ale yeast (Wyeast 1728 or equivalent)

2/3 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:

Mash grain in 11.36 L of water at 65.6 C for 60 minutes.
Sparge with 75.6 - 76.7 C water to collect 21.77 L of wort.
Total boil time is 90 minutes. After 30 minutes of boil, add first addition of heather flowers.
Continue for remaining 60 minutes.
Whirlpool and add second addition of heather flowers or use a hopback of flowers.
Cool to 20.6 C. to pitch starter. Oxygenate-aerate well.

Ferment at 20.6 C for seven days then rack to secondary fermenter.
Continue fermentation for seven more days until gravity is about 3 Plato (1.012) or fermentation is finished.
Let settle. Rack, prime and bottle.

Age seven more days before drinking.
--
(18.93 Lt, extract with grain)

Ingredients:
Substitute the pale malt with 3.18 Kg. English pale malt extract syrup.
Other ingredients remain the same.

Step by Step:
Start with 19 L of 65.6 C water. Steep crushed grain for 30 minutes. Sparge grains with enough 76.7 C water to make 20.82Lt.
Heat to boiling and add extract syrup.Total boil will be 60 minutes.
At beginning of boil add first addition of heather flowers. Continue for remaining 60 minutes.
Whirlpool and add second addition of heather flowers or use a hopback.
Cool to 69 F to pitch starter. Oxygenate-aerate well.
Follow fermentation schedule above.

I couldnt find anything on the RecipeDB so thought Id open a discussion before trying this one, it doesnt seem like many people have tried one? er.. I havnt.. sadly I was recently over there and didnt even know about it. Waaaa
Oh well I shall keep my eyes open for one of these http://vikingbrewhouse.com/viking/2010/05/...her-ale-review/ along the way.

:icon_cheers:

[edit] oh yeah and the question how would you work out the IBU's for heather.. Beersmith has no heather.. can it be input somehow? Trial and error I guess

 

[Bongchitis]

If you can source Heather that would be great. Let us know as there are probably a few here wanting to knock up a gruit.

There are a few posts from a couple of months back that outline a method of making a hop tea and then diluting the tea. The degree of dilution until the bitterness is not detected having a direct correlation to the approx IBU. This was for hops though but I would assume that the method would be OK.

I think it was in a topic for estimating the bitterness for home grown hops.

Good luck mate and let us know how it all goes.

 

[brettprevans]

Ian if ve interest in doing a split batch with u if u like. I've been keen to do a heather ale for a while. I've got info on heather ale recipe and can source heather

 

[mwd]

One of the Oz and James Drink to Britain series from Scotland featured a 'heather ale' but did not give any details on recipe. If you could source real Scottish heather it must make an interesting beer. Never seen heather here.

 

[Charst]

There's s Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage episode where he goes to scotland and helps harvest the heather for an ale but it doesn't mention much about the process.

 

[brettprevans]

Heather ale is a traditional ale no linger in large commercial production anymore. Fraoch is the last? Remaining commnercial production heather ale. There is a thread on it somewhere in AHB but as I'm on iPhone I'm not looking for it.

The heather I can get is from Scotland. Ive never seen it here either.

 

[IainMcLean]

The Fraoch recipe uses Sweet Myrtle for antibacterial/bittering instead of hops.
I had a Fraoch recipe somewhere. My uncle in Barrhead, Scotland was talking about possibly sending Myrtle over with some heather flowers when I visited over xmas as I'd like to give it a try also.

 

[Yob]

Ian if ve interest in doing a split batch with u if u like. I've been keen to do a heather ale for a while. I've got info on heather ale recipe and can source heather

sounds good, being able to source the heather locally is fantastic.. would they be fresh or dried flowers? [edit] assumed dry from the previous post

I was going to try a friend of mine who worked in a nursery and got us heather for my wedding... I have seen a few recipies that have a diff. ammount for fresh and dried, anyway, pleased to throw one of these down with you
:icon_chickcheers:

I have (havn't if youre from customs) got some seeds sent to me from Scotland and was going to plant them, obviously no good for an imediate batch but should be good next year (or later this year) for fresh flowers. Will throw a few pots in and see how they go.

 

[brettprevans]

The Fraoch recipe uses Sweet Myrtle for antibacterial/bittering instead of hops.
I had a Fraoch recipe somewhere. My uncle in Barrhead, Scotland was talking about possibly sending Myrtle over with some heather flowers when I visited over xmas as I'd like to give it a try also.

Fraoch uses sweet Myrtle and meadowsweet as a 'seasoning' along with heather.

U also need a lot of heather unless u cheat a little and use a little low %AA hops like saaz to bump up the bitterness.

From Radical Brewing
65% pale ale
25% amber
2% brown
8% honey in secondary

Some saaz @60 (for a19L batch use 28g)
Heather @ 0 (57g)
Medowsweet @0 (7g)

Mash at 68C
OG 1065
IBU ~11
scottish ale yeast

 

[leiothrix]

I've just bottled (this morning ) the heather ale from radical brewing.

It'll take a month or so before I actually taste a bottle.

Tasting the hydrometer sample this morning was good though. Nice malty profile. The herbs added a bit of background to it, which you probably wouldn't notice unless you were 'looking' for it.

 

[brettprevans]

Nice. You'll have to report back once its conditioned.
So u used 57g of heather?
Dry or fresh?
Where did u source it from?

 

[leiothrix]

My recipe was:

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
3.60 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 64.86 %
1.40 kg Amber Malt (Joe White) (23.0 SRM) Grain 25.23 %
0.10 kg Brown Malt (65.0 SRM) Grain 1.80 %
40.00 gm Saaz (2006) [2.50 %] (60 min) Hops 10.5 IBU
10.00 gm Meadowsweet (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
30.00 gm Heather (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.50 kg Honey (Rainforest blend from wollies, into secondary) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 8.11 %
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


I'm not really sure why i only used 30g of heather, i'm guessing I didn't copy the recipe properly into beersmith. Oh well.

Herbs were dried, and I got them from herbsupplies.

Rob.



Edit: That was for a batch that came out around 25L into the fermentor. Done BIAB, mash temp ~68*. OG was 12B, but honey was added after primary ferment had mostly finished so that stuffs that up. FG 1.014. Beersmith reckons 5.57%abv, but my volumes are a bit wrong. Probably 6-6.5% correcting for volumes & priming sugar.

 

[brettprevans]

The recipe I posted above is the same recipe.

You could make up a 'heather tea' and add it in to make up the rest.

I was thinking if doing that if I wanted more heather character.

Yeah I've seen herbsupplies before but hadn't ever checked them for heather

 

[leiothrix]

I bottled it this morning though, so I can't really correct it.

Unless I make a very small tea with 1g heather per long neck at serving.

Just means I'll have to make another batch :lol:

 

[brettprevans]

Oh yeah sorry I forgot u said u bottled it. Yeah I guess its staying as is. I'm sure it will be nice or at least interesting.

 

[Yob]

Herbs were dried, and I got them from herbsupplies.


Edit: That was for a batch that came out around 25L into the fermentor. Done BIAB, mash temp ~68*. OG was 12B, but honey was added after primary ferment had mostly finished so that stuffs that up. FG 1.014. Beersmith reckons 5.57%abv, but my volumes are a bit wrong. Probably 6-6.5% correcting for volumes & priming sugar.

thanks for the link, were you able to get values for heather to use for bittering (in addition to the saaz) to enter into Beersmith? I have beersmith but dont fully understand it yet...

playing with it sure is fun though..

:icon_cheers:

[edit] additionla recipies http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/fraoch-ale...e-please-90363/

 

[thanme]

This sounds rad
Where did you get the Heather from?

 

[brettprevans]

This sounds rad
Where did you get the Heather from?

you read the thread well didnt you... <_<

 

[Yob]

from a quick look at the website, from the link above...

$50 minimum order - 1kg Heather Flowers $30.50..

still keen as mustard

 

[thanme]

you read the thread well didnt you... <_<

Must be Monday morning. I swear I read the thread twice and still missed it :/