Cock Ale
the finest english refreshment
The recipe, thanks to Samuel Pepys:
"Take eight gallons of Ale, take a Cock and boil him well; then take four pounds of Raisins of the Sun well stoned, two or three Nutmegs, three or four flakes of Mace, half a pound of Dates; beat these all in a Mortar, and put to them two quarts of the best Sack: and when the Ale hath done working, put these in, and stop it close six or seven days, and then bottle it, and a month after you may drink it." cock - boiled well. on fourth day of ale fermentation start cock - concoction. |
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English Pale Ale
A simple starter
kettle
for the cooking
whole malted grains
Berkeley's Oak Barrel Winecraft sold me a recipe without cracked grains.
cracked grains
there's a certain skill to this
beginning brew
the water and the cracked grains begin to heat up.
The silver ball in the kettle is used for the hops. Here, it is empty.
hops
'That wicked weed', four portions of which are added during the boil.
The yeast, in the test tube, is added afterwards.
fermentation - start!
when the boil is finished, the brew is cooled down
and put into this carboy. The yeast is added at this step.
There follows an interlude of a week, where the brew actively transmutes into ale.
infusion
the recipe does not call for it but I boiled everything for 2 minutes
to kill off anything lingering in the dried fruit.
the dates, raisins, and spices were then mashed together at this step.
There were some on-the-fly substitutions, as I ran out of raisins
and had to add some cranberries, for that North American twist.
mince
it's like pie filling
in fact, i bet the idea for this beer happened
when a someone's wife started cooking pie at
the same time the beer was starting brewing.
cock
This was a 10lb capon. Capons are
eunich roosters. When they get their bits removed,
they become the sweetest, fattest chickens you can buy,
and additionally they make great mothers.
True old cocks are hard to find, as Cambells buys them up,
cuts them into chunks, and adds them to their stews.
Regardless, Capons are technically cocks. They just don't have any balls.
chopped cock and dry sack
The cock is all chopped up, ready to be
combined with fine dry sack and fruit mince.
shaked infusion
This was all shook up, and stopped with a cork.
A day of anxiety and anticipation follows
Cock-Ale
The ale and the cock meet at last.
Fermentation restarts vigorously, and then a week passes.
Fermentation
By the end of the fermentation, the ale is topped with three inches of sludge.
Scum
It looked funny, but it smelt good.
However, bottling directly from this morass
would have included a lot of chicken in the bottles,
so racking was required.
Tertiary fermentation
Here it sits, awaiting bottling
Bottles
Where it will then join my syrup-y porter, and my accidentally full-grain heferoggen.