Blah Blah Blahg

Help

Hey friends,
I need some help. I really love old recipes. Old as in ancient, medieval, or even just 100 year-old. Old. A few years ago I had a turkey prepared with a medieval recipe and it was the most fantastic thing in the world. Since then I've kept an eye out for old recipes. So if any of you out there find an old recipe please send it along!

I'm especially interested in beer recipes. When I was perusing the rare book room at the Peabody library I came across beer recipes from Henry VIII's own stoc.
The Peabody Library (not the rare book room though, it's off limits).

So in the spirit of "original" recipes I'm posting something I came across today on Kaiser Penguin Blog that is also in my homebrewing book (admittedly I have not gotten to this part yet): Chicken Beer.

Here's where the author of the post got the idea from:

“Take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken (you must gut him when you flay him). Then, put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it five pounds of raisins of the sun - stoned; some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has been working, put the bag and ale together in vessel.” from Charlie Papazian’s “The Complete Joy of Homebrewing,” and originally from “The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digby Kt. Opened,” 1677.

And this is the method he came up with after some research:

• 6lb light malt extract (or 10lb of 2-row, if you prefer all-grain)
• 4 gallons of hard water
• 2oz German magnum hops
• 1 chicken
• 1/2 gallon of dry white wine (”sack”)
• 12oz raisins
• cloves, thyme, and nutmeg to taste
• white wine yeast (used Wyeast #735)

1. Rub the bird with cloves and thyme.
2. Bake the chicken. Eat half while enjoying a tasty homebrew.
3. Crack the bones and stuff into a cheesecloth sack along with the raisins. Drop the sack into the wine to soak.
4. Add spices to taste, and let sit for 2 days.
5. Meanwhile, start the beer: Bring the 4 gallons to a boil, and add the malt extract and 1oz of hops.
6. Let boil for 45 minutes, then add the other 1oz of hops. Boil for 15 more minutes.
7. Remove the malt-water (called the “wort”) from heat and pour into your fermenter (a big plastic bucket or a glass carboy work equally well… just make sure you have an airlock to let the CO2 escape).
8. Cool the wort - an ice bath works fine. Keep the pot covered and cool as quickly as you can to avoid contamination from wild bacteria or yeast. But don’t worry: have a homebrew instead.
9. When the wort has cooled, pour in the yeast.
10. After 2 days, the yeast will have magically transformed your wort into beer. But now it’s time to make it truly magical. Pour in the wine, cock-in-sack and all! Let this ferment for another 5 days.
11. I recommend transferring at least once into a secondary fermenter, just because you’ll have some chicken fat to get rid of (this will reduce the head quality of the final brew). Throw out the sack o’ cock when you transfer: I tried to eat mine, but there really wasn’t any flavor left in it. Let it mature for at least a week, but a few months of aging will really improve your cock ale.
12. Bottle (with boiled priming sugar) and let sit for 2 weeks to carbonate, or just keg and drink immediately.

Thank you, Kaiser Penguin, for such an incredible post!!!!! I am definitely going to try this out once I perfect my homebrewing.

posted by Bagel @ 3:48 PM