Notes towards a cock ale

[MHB]

I know several brewers who have tried making "cocked ale" one even used quail and another squab, I don't know anyone who has done a second one!
Lots of potential down sides and I cant think of a single upside, brewing has moved on a bit in the last couple of hundred years, there was from around the early 1800's quite a push to prevent additions of nefarious ingredients to beer, some of which are now known to be toxic but which were in quite common use.
In ancient Rome Lead Carbonate was used as a condiment and they used Galena (Lead/Silver alloy) to make drinking vessels.
As recently as Victorian times Arsenic pentoxide was used in house hold paint and Mercury was used to keep household silver shiny.
Just because people used to do something doesn't mean it was then or is now a good idea.

I'm not suggesting that a chook is toxic, but I would rather make a good chicken cacciatore to have with my beer.
Mark

 

[TimT]

I thought an obvious value of this would be you not only get an ale but you get a few meals out of it as well. After making some sort of wort-stock by boiling a chook you can just take it out, shred it to pieces, and throw it in a pie.

 

[Feldon]

My understanding of this is that the chook acts as a big chunk of yeast nutrient. The yeast consume everything in time - fat, bone, flesh etc. So I don't think there will be any chicken flavour in the beer. Similarly, I've seen a recipe for scrumpy cider that has a leg of pork in it which is said to be totally consumed by the yeast.

Interested to see how this one turns out.

 

[Spohaw]

This thread give me a good chuckle haha

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Dont forget that a whole cock would contain gelatin.

 

[Ross]

Tim,

We regularly brew our Cock Ale (sorry MHB), & it was awarded a Silver medal at the Australian International Beer Awards (despite 2 of the judges being vegetarian so I'm told), so I guess it stands as a pretty good beer.
We brew a strong Scottish Ale with Belgian yeast & pretty well follow the original procedure as linked previously. We take the chicken, smash the bones, & put in a litre of port (we originally used Sherry = sack) with the fruits & spices & reduce by 50% on a hard boil.The resulting broth is added to the finished beer (bones & all) & left for a further week, before kegging.
What we discovered from our making of this beer, is what we believe is the reasoning behind the process. The chicken broth is extremely rich in gelatin & the beer will drop completely bright within 24 hrs of adding it in. Pretty well every recipe calls for the smashing of the bones (releasing the gelatin). I could find no reference to this reasoning when we made our first batch, but since revealing our findings, they have been much referenced, so pretty chuffed we might have helped in identifying one of the earliest forms of fining...

Cheers & good luck with your version....

 

[Feldon]

Dont forget that a whole cock would contain gelatin.

I don't think there is any gelatin in a raw animal. It is produced by boiling the beast which causes the natural collagen to breakdown and form gelatin. Acidic environments can also produce gelatin from collagen, so maybe some might be produced during the fermentation process - dunno.

 

[Ross]

I don't think there is any gelatin in a raw animal. It is produced by boiling the beast which causes the natural collagen to breakdown and form gelatin. Acidic environments can also produce gelatin from collagen, so maybe some might be produced during the fermentation process - dunno.

That's probably why the original recipe calls for the chicken to be boiled - It is not added raw. If you look at the chicken juices from your roast dinner after it has cooled, you will see they have all turned to jelly...

The first time I made this beer, the reasoning behind boiling the flayed chicken in the sherry was to release any fat & hopefully skim it off the top of the broth before adding to the beer. However, no fat layer formed, so i but the flask in the fridge (suspecting the broth was still too warm), but still no fat layer. We then went to pour the broth into the beer, but it wouldn't come out the flask, it had solidified into a solid jelly.

Cheers Ross

 

[TimT]

Thanks Ross! Hmm, interesting. The release of gelatin is fascinating. Martha Washington's 'Cock Water' recipe is pretty brutal - it calls for the cock to be flayed while still alive. I'm assuming the reasoning is similar, break the bones.

So for one chook do you make 10 gallons of wort as the recipe provided in the link suggests?

 

[Pogierob]

If the end game is flavour and the gelatin I would suggest simply making a chicken stock and using that in place of your water. A quality stock will have extracted all of the gelatinous/flavour properties from the cock.
I cant help but think this would be a safer option also, although be careful. . I have seen 200lt of chicken stock go sour within 24 hours so I would tread very carefully and make sure your starter is kick ass to ensure ut is the dominant "infection".

Just be careful an infected cock ale has . potential to be not just a pain but deadly.

 

[Feldon]

If it were me, I'd throw a bit of veal in there as well - go after a cock & bull ale.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

I can see Ross's special board " Come on in and grab a nice cold cock........ale"

 

[TimT]

Yeah I wouldn't want it to be an utter cock up.