Bygg Beer

 

 

Here it is, my first Bygg or Bere beer, either one has a nice ring to it. Yields were very low last summer as everything got swallowed up by weeds but I did manage to come out with about 8 lbs. of Bere. I decided to make a 2.5 gallon batch with 6 lbs malted, 8 oz roasted and then save the rest for planting this year. 

Malting- Initial moisture content was 12%  I did an unaerated steep in keeping with a more historical malt. I changed the water twice (once every 24 hours) during the 56 hours it steeped. Final moisture content was 48.5 %, a little high so I probably could have taken it out at the 48 hour mark. Ambient temperatures were between 12 and 14C. Germination lasted 10 days. Air-on temperatures for kilning were 25C for 17 hours with a fan, 11 hours at 50-60C without a fan and 3 hours at 185F for a total of 5lbs 3 oz. of malt.

Check out the size difference! Bere on the left Chevalier on the right.

The awns on the Bere barley are very tough, some of them didn’t break off even after malting.

The recipe: I took 3 oz of the Bere malt and roasted it at 400F until it was very dark. I also took an extra 8 oz of raw Bere barley and roasted it at 350 until it was a nice brown colour. For hops, I used some Hallertau for boiling and then some Perle and Saaz at the end for 30 IBU. Yeast: Whitelabs Edinborough Scottish Ale.

Brewing: Just a single infusion at 149F for an hour.

The original gravity was low as expected. According to Beer Tools at 75% efficiency, my O.G. should have been 1.061. Instead, it was 1.051 making the efficiency around 62%. However, my final gravity was very low at 1.002, probably due to my low mash temp. This puts the a.b.v. at 6.3%, slightly higher than the 6.1% predicted by Beer Tools.

The flavour: Clean and dry with some caramel and toasted bread flavours. Very little bitterness present but that’s what I was going for. It’s a very easy drinking beer. 

 

Bere barley

Well even though I meant to scale back my gardening this year I just couldn’t let a year go by without growing some barley. I had given up one of my two garden plots and I was trying to talk myself into just growing boring old vegetables when my friend Andrew from Locality Brewing suggested growing some test plots on a section of their land. Andrew and his wife Melanie are in the process of creating a farmhouse brewery and cidery. For more info on what they’re doing check out their website. I had quite a few varieties that I’ve collected over the years so we thought it would be interesting to see what would work on their farm. We planted small beds with Alba (6 row), Copeland, Conlon, Chevallier, CDC McGuire (Hulless), some Jet and some Bere barley. All together it was about 1,000 sq. feet.

Unfortunately, this year was a great year for weeds, we had lots of rain and cool weather this spring which also caused some lodging. I couldn’t tend to the weeds as much as I would have liked and they just seemed to erupt during a few weeks in June and quickly took over. The big surprise, however, was the Bere barley. It has grown and ripened so fast I’ve been able to harvest most of it already! It seemed to outpace the weeds. I’m hoping to have enough to make a batch of beer with some more for planting next year. I’ll be harvesting the rest of it this week. As for the other varieties, we’ll have to wait and see, so far the Chevallier looks pretty good.

Bere barley was traditionally grown in areas with a short growing season and is able to grow in sandy soil. It’s still grown on the Orkney Islands in Scotland. Here’s a little blurb from Beer and Brewing about Bere or Bygg. https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/izxSEht6Z2/ The drawbacks to Bere are it’s low yield compared to regular barley and it’s inconsistent kernal size. Not a big deal if your malting it yourself, I’m just interested in the flavour, will it be noticeably different? Will it be worth growing again? Stay tuned to find out!

Prepping the beds.

Finished planting. No opener? no problem. Andrew using a hacksaw as a bottle opener

Two weeks after planting.

Bere barley

Harvesting was challenging with all the weeds.

Not a bad haul after an hour.

Letting the kernals dry out before threshing.