epic Baltic farmhouse ale - part 1. how to brew beer the old way
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- Опубліковано 22 сер 2024
- In this episode we experience the age old process of making Latvian style farmhouse beer with malted barley, wheat and hops.
NOTE* I'm no longer making content on this channel but have left up 3 of my most watched episodes for those who are interested.
About: Hi I’m Olaf Savage, join me as I head deep into the Baltic frontier lands where Northern Europe meets the wild east. A new language, old skills and so much more to learn as I move towards a simple life on the homestead with my partner Liene.
Our little homestead is on the Jersika plain of the East Latvian lowlands and is situated on 30 acres of meadow and forest by the Great Pelečāres wetlands, in the centre of which lies the Burning Lake, Deguma Ezers. At 56 degrees north we have short summers and long, cold winters which will provide ample challenges as we make our way into a more self-reliant future.
Music:
“Baltic Levity” by Kevin MacLeod
From the Free Music Archive, CC BY
creativecommon...
“Medieval Abstraction” by Lucas Perný & Miloslav Kollar
From the Free Music Archive CC BY-NC-ND 3.0x
creativecommon...
Love to see the many ways beer can be brewed. Doesn't have to be done in a $3,000 stainless steel pressure homebrew system. Awesome vid
I never thought I'd want to try a beer more than when I saw the Beer Hunter drink from the tanks at pilsener urquell. I want to try this beer more. I brewed for a decade. This process defies so many rules of model brewing. Astoundingly simple, perfect, and the way God intended. Cheers
You should really consider doing more of these. This style is catching on alone with the kveik yeast here in the US. Great video hope to see more
Cheers to home brewed beer friend we just found your video and subscribed. We are home brewers that love to brew beer, grow hops, make mead and wine and others on our channel . Stay thirsty brew good beer , great video .
We are so preoccupied about sanitization and close hermatically the fermentation barrel and others cares whem producting beer. And the ancient way is so simples. Yeah... I liked it!!! Sorry about my poor english...
thanks for watching! Yeah I agree the ancient way is so simple but yes we've become so accustomed to sanitised beer in this modern age.
Because this beer will last a week before souring, perhaps two if you over do it with the hops and boil the whole mash. Add it to a month or two if you also carbonate. The hops acts as a antiseptic, as does juniper (and some others but I do not know personally which). Without either of those herbs you must drink the beer you make pretty much within three days assuming you have been efficient and quick with the brewing.
That's an awesome way to do beer,. Brewing these days is so clinical, nice to see an old school prospective.
thanks, yeah not much is clinical with this stuff.
This way of brewing reminds me a bit of John Seymour's book 'self sufficiency'. Love it.
Very cool, I am from Lithuanian ancestors and they do it the same way . I am a brewer but of the new age but still use fire in the process.
fantastic guys! thanks so much. finally one in a million videos with an authentic "old" technique
thanks tredudon! appreciate your your comment!
-minus the whole sugar thing
Im building a brew shed on my desert homestead in Arizona USA. This is how I want to brew! Thanks!
thanks for sharing! Lovely
Very fun. The kitty at the end knows where the goods are at 😛
I'm reading Historical Brewing Techniques by lars marius garshol and this is exactly what is described in the book. Awesome content! Greetings from Mexico :)
Gonna need to get that book.
Great experience and video. Thanks for sharing. I must try and do a brew like this some day.
Very interesting, thanks for upload.
Thanks Shark!
LOVED the video! Very interesting to see some real traditional, old-style brewing!
Thanks Peter! glad you liked it.
Enjoying your channel mate, and this was an excellent video.
I’m hoping to get over there in the next couple of years and track down some long-lost relatives. My grandfather left there for Australia post WWII.
Thanks for watching Colin! Yeah a lot of Latvians went into exile, especially in Australia, after the war to escape being sent to Siberian gulags by the occupying Russians. You should definitely make the trip to connect with your ancestral land!
Just getting into this beer making this was awesome to watch.
thanks Jason!
Very interesting!
thanks for watching Faith R
Great vid! Thanks for sharing. Theres a lot of interest in old farmhouse yeast these days. You should pass that yeast on to a home brew yeast comapany. Norwegian farm house yeast strains (kveik) are all the rage atm. Would have loved to have seen the finished beer. A Baltic smoked malt farm house beer sounds awsome. Cheers!
thanks D Noss! Yeah I had no idea about this interest. We no longer have the old yeast anymore but another viewer has mentioned getting it off our fruit trees and starting afresh. I have to say the finished beer is an acquired taste. Cheers!
@@aBalticHomestead is there a sour taste to it? Kinda, lambic?
@@MrDavidTiller yep, lambic for sure... almost sickly sour.
@@aBalticHomestead oops! I think the caramelized sugar made it go sour? Love the simplicity of it. I am looking to do brewing like this in the future. But not so sour! :-)
@@MrDavidTiller yeah pretty simple. Interesting re caramelized sugar. Good luck with your brew David!
I've been away and have just binged watched 4 Baltic Homestead Eps. So great! This is my favourite channel by far. And Brewing Beer the old way was fascinating. How did it taste after you left them for 3 days.
Thanks Sar Bear!!!!! Sorry for the late reply, I thought I'd already commented. Anyway, yes the beer has a very dense flavour that tingles on the tip of your tongue then follows on with a smokey after taste. We are still drinking it and it continues to improve with time. Although we'll need to finish it soon as without preservatives it has a short shelf life. Thanks for watching!!!!
cool video dude
Thanks for watching and commenting!
This is pure beer porn thank´s for sharing i have been doing homebrew for years and this is awesome, forget sanitizin´ and lab like brew houses this is the authentic way to make beer i just grew a beard for watching this. what kind of yeast you used? it was a home strain, some strain of kviek, bakers yeast?
Hahahaha fantastic comment dokaik! We just used bakers yeast for this brew.
Very interesting video. What were the little sticks in the fermenter for?
Roots Bloody Roots
excellent video congratulations,
I have a question about how you make your caramel and why does it add it at the end at that temperature?
and the most important thing is that candy is sugar? what flavor gives the beer thank you very much .
Looks like fresh made caramel, so he would've had sugar heated up enough to caramelize it and put it in hot before it set up in the pot
Que loucura! Como que esse negócio não contamina ?
At 11:24 the shot includes prepping the yeast. In the mug with the wort and yeast there are several little straw(?) crosses? They can be seen again when you pitch at 11:44. Can you talk about those? What is that?
Hi Mug Ruadh! Crosses of the godess Mara. It is a folkish thing to bless the brew. Lot's of these things abound in the Baltic countries probably on account of being the last Europeans to be converted to Christianity.
Parabéns mano, muito maneiro!!
How can there be one person that disliked this video?
Mormons and Muslims. Religious people who don't like alcohol.
Don't forget Baptists!
Long time brewer here. What malt did you use? My grandpaw made a wild ale and used bread yeast as well. Came out beautiful as well.
Thanks for watching! We just malt wheat and/or barley from a local farmer in exchange for the final brew. Theres more details of that process in ep.10
Thanks for this video ! That’s so great!
I have a practical question for you, what are you looking for in a wooden mash tun like this one ? Assuring the wood don’t cracks or leaks after so mutch h uses?
Thanks for commenting, I can't say I'd know. This mash tun has been in use for decades and is a remnant of a time when most farmsteads brewed. Back then there would have been little choice but to use wood methinks. Seems hold up pretty well, and is filled with water a couple of days prior to use so that the wood swells.
@@aBalticHomestead thanks a lot for your reply
@@bretonleo8740 I have experience working in a barrel room at a winery conditioning barrels. For beer I would soak the barrel with clear water prior to use for 1-3 days, drain it and torch the inside to steam it off. Pouring in 5 gallons of boiling water down the walls wont hurt either. Charring the inside of the barrel like done with some red wines could also be beneficial flavoring porters.
@@Mountainrock70 thanks for your feedback !
Leo
great lad you are doing great please comment me so i can show your vid
I feel bad for the yeast when you poured in that boiling sugar, but (enough of) the yeast seem to survive, so why change a winning concept :)
This is amazing stuff mate! Been brewing a bit of beer myself. How are you on cleaning fementing vessels etc so to not get wild strains of yeast affecting the beer? Also no adding carbonation to the beer? Thanks!
Thanks for watching Anders! Good question. The style of beer in this video is primarily the work of my father in law who brews in the tradition of his father and so on down the line. Their process doesn’t involve sterilisation of the equipment beyond washing with cold water while the stainless steel kegs in which we do the second ferment get a rinse out with dish washing liquid... To my pallet this level of cleaning creates a phenolic flavour which I can’t stomach. That said it is how these guys have done it for well over a hundred years so to them what I consider off is more about how it is “meant” to be. I’m thinking it may well be that they want those wild strains :-)
As for carbonation, nope it is a very flat beer.
@@aBalticHomestead Haha cheers! Gotta respect the way they've been doing it for centuries now. Thanks for replying
Plānoju drīzumā pārvākties uz latgali pēc 8 gadiem Anglijā. Žēl, ka nav vairāk video, Tavā kanālā, no kā iedvesmoties.
i never seen it done that why before but give me a comment so i can recommend
Why you stoped making videos?
Lost interest. Might return to it one day. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Love the video.
What yeast did you use?
Thanks for watching Lee! We use just your standard brewers yeast. The father-in-law has also used bakers yeast before but I found the result undrinkable. The locals loved it nevertheless.
@@aBalticHomestead thank you for the reply.
I asked because I am very interested in traditional farmhouse brewing and I myself, although I am in Thailand, have some traditional yeast strains from Norway and from Lithuania.
Interesting! Yeah I've heard about the Lithuanian strain. Not sure about whether there is still such an old strain here in Latvia... probably, but I think the closest they get here is with the bakers yeast which interestingly has a banana aroma on the 1st ferment but then is just way too phenolic for my pallet in the end. Not sure if that's primarily because of the yeast though.
@@aBalticHomestead yeast does adapt to it's environment and nutritional sources, so that could be the reason.
Have you ever thought of harvesting yeast from fruit/veg/flowers on the property? That would make your beer truely unique to your homestead.
great idea!!!
How was the beer? did you make a sampling vid?
It's an acquired taste. The locals love it. There's some more specifics on taste in the comment threads. Never got around to making a sampling video unfortunately. Stopped making content on this channel about a year ago. Thanks for watching!
Are you an Aussie of Latvian descent? Or just a traveler that ended up there?
Just a German-Australian who ended up in Latvia.
@@aBalticHomestead Are there similarities between the Latvian language and German? Or did you have to learn a new language?
@@blahkjboubblah9856 There’s a lot of German loanwords in Latvian due to 800 years of German hegemony but the case system is more complicated than German. English is my first language so I find Latvian incredibly difficult to learn.
add more hops homie
What was added to the hops?
Hi, nothing was added to the hops themselves. They were just boiled and added to the mash. Thanks for watching and commenting!
a Baltic Homestead very fun video it looked like a bag of something was poured in at 5:14
Ah yes, sorry forgot. It was sugar