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Wort that?
Know your malt
from your mash.
There really
is an ART
– and a
science –
to the
brewing
craft!
Captain Cook’s
Brew of Tea Tree
Spruce Beer
Captain Cook set sail with the
HMS
Endeavour
loaded with
250 barrels of beer ~ but they needed more.
(Alcohol inventory: 250 barrels beer, 44 barrels brandy & 17 barrels rum)
Can we thank Captain James Cook for beer being the most popular
alcoholic drink in New Zealand?
In 1768 as Captain Cook was fitting out the
Endeavour
for its
voyage, Nathaniel Hulme wrote to expedition naturalist Joseph
Banks recommending that he take “a quantity of Molasses and
Turpentine, in order to brew Beer with, for your daily drink, when
your Water becomes bad. … [B]rewing Beer at sea will be peculiarly
useful in case you should have stinking water on board; for I find by
Experience that the smell of stinking water will be entirely destroyed
by the process of fermentation.”
On 26 August 1768 the
Endeavour
left England. Captain Cook states
in his journal that there were four tonnes of beer on board! Obviously
the
Endeavour
’s crew were a thirsty bunch – barely a month later, the
Endeavour
’s tonnes of beer were almost gone! Cook wrote: “Served
wine to the ship’s company, the Beer being all expended to two casks
which I wanted to keep some time longer.”
“We also began to brew beer from the branches or leaves of a tree,
which much resembles the American black-spruce... I judged that, with
the addition of inspissated juice of wort and molasses, it would make
a very wholesome beer, and supply the want of vegetables, which this
place did not afford; and the event proved that I was not mistaken.”
On Cooks’ second voyage, this time aboard the HMS
Resolution,
NZ
was primarily the staging area for exploring Australia. On 27 March
1773, Captain James Cook had the distinction of putting down the
first brew in NZ on Resolution Island in Dusky Sound
.
Certainly we should consider celebrating this day as a NZ holiday!
W
e at first made our beer of a decoction of the spruce leaves; but,
finding that this alone made it too astringent, we afterwards
mixed with it an equal quantity of the tea plant (a name it obtained
in my former voyage, from our using it as a tea then, as we also did
now), which partly destroyed the astringency of the other, and made
the beer exceedingly palatable, and esteemed by every one on board.
We brewed it in the same manner as spruce beer, and the process is
as follows.
First make a strong decoction of the small branches of the spruce and
tea-plants, by boiling them three or four hours, or until the bark will
strip with ease from the branches; then take them out of the copper,
and put in the proper quantity of molasses, ten gallons of which is
sufficient to make a ton, or 240 gallons of beer. Let this mixture just
boil; then put it into casks, and to it add an equal quantity of cold
water, more or less according to the strength of the decoction, or your
taste. When the whole is milk-warm, put in a little grounds of beer,
or yeast if you have it, or anything else that will cause fermentation,
and in a few days the beer will be fit to drink.
Any one who is in the least acquainted with spruce pines will find
the tree which I have distinguished by that name. There are three
sorts of it: that which has the smallest leaves and deepest colour is
the sort we brewed with, but doubtless all three might safely serve
that purpose.
~ Cook’s Second Voyage towards the South Pole, 4th edit. vol i. pp 99&101 ~
Model of decks of
HMS
Endeavour
showing beer
kegs and water
barrels.
Below is Captain
Cook’s beer
recipe.
“
”
I
n the 18th century
, beer was frequently homebrewed.
Beermaking involved readily available ingredients
(barley or other grains, hops, yeast, and water) and
supplies (a boiling pot, a strainer and casks or barrels).
The Malt...
The barley provides sugars (maltose) for
fermentation by the yeast. The grains are crushed a bit,
then soaked until they begin to soften and sprout while
enzymes transform the starches. Varying temperatures
will release different enzymes at different times. After
the barley has undergone this process, it becomes malt.
From Mash to Wort to Brew...
The sugars from this
slush are liquefied during the mash phase. The grains
are mixed with hot water, and the vat stands for an
hour or so for the mashing process. The resulting
liquor is drained off, and this Wort Tea syrup is then
boiled with the flavourful hops, stirred in near the
end. Yeast is added and they happily ferment the wort
into beer. The yeast particles are strained off and the
brew given fermenting time for a while in the keg
(1-12 months), but, if you can’t wait (after a few days),
bottom’s up!
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COROMANDEL LIFE
2016 LATE AUTUMN / WINTER