Co-Op Beer Making Challenge

As some of you know, a year and a half (or so) ago Philosopher #2 and I made a commitment to changing our diets to mostly local, mostly organic foods. (You can read about why we made this decision here.) We had been shopping at farmer’s markets for years, and had an interest in local food, but precipitated by watching the powerful Food, Inc., we decided to really make a commitment to knowing where the vast majority of our food was from, and supporting local farmers.

On the road to making this major lifestyle change, we were helped by our local Co-Op, and for the next couple weeks I’m celebrating my local Co-Op. Some people shop regularly at a Co-Op, others go in every once in a while if they need a specialty item, and others have passed by and perhaps felt intimidated about entering. I think we fell into the middle category, being somewhat turned off by prices that seemed above average and a sometimes too specialized selection. We appreciated the fresh, local produce and the great selection of cheese, but the Co-Op was an occasional stop, not our first or only food stop, as it is now.

We looked at our Co-Op with new eyes, however, after deciding to become more conscientious about our food. Suddenly it became the only place in town (and therefore a valuable asset in this otherwise isolated area) that stocked so many local products and ones that had been conscientiously farmed. This should come as no surprise; this is what the Co-Op does, after all. But when you’ve narrowed your diet to ideally consist entirely of local and sustainably grown foods, the motivating factor in your purchases is no longer cost but how things were grown and who grew them. Part of the Co-Op’s place in the producer-consumer ecosystem is to vet farmers and organic products and provide the best ingredients for consumers. This is an important relationship in a sea of food items about which you suddenly realize you know very little. It’s hard to know who to trust or what their farming principles and practices are. The Co-Op looks into this as a part of its mission. And its members give suggestions for food because it’s in everyone’s interest to eat well and to eat conscientiously.

So that’s my plug for shopping at your local Co-Op (and if you live in Carbondale, that local Co-Op is the Neighborhood Co-Op in the Murdale Shopping Center). Yes, prices are higher, but it’s the price we pay for conscientious and sustainable farming practices. Eating cheap food is offset by an intake of pesticides and hormones and many other taste-sapping and inhumane practices. And, hey, yes it’s more expensive, but it won’t break the bank. We’ve been grad students for the last 7 or so years; the slightly higher cost can be managed by people making less than $12,000 a year. We’ve done it.

Anyway, wandering through the aisles of the Co-Op I’m always astonished by how much variety there really is. I even use the bulk section for brewing. Wheat flakes are perfect for making beers with wheat. I brewed a witbier yesterday, half of whose ingredients came from the Co-Op in the form of wheat. Eventually it got me to thinking: Would it be possible to make a beer entirely out of ingredients I could buy at the Co-Op? I have many friends who are not brewers but love the idea that they can make beer at home with minimal ingredients they can get at the store. (Sima, a traditional Finnish home brew is one of those easy drinks.) Since beer was, once upon a time, brewed by average people in their kitchen, I suddenly had a challenge: Could I make a beer with Co-Op ingredients that could be brewed by someone without beer making equipment in their home? Here is my first attempt.

Knowing that wheat, barley and rye are available in flaked form, I decided to make a witbier of sorts, using a basic wit recipe and altering it slightly for what I could find in the Co-Op. I figured most people don’t have a 5-gallon bucket or kettle lying around, and I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, so I did a 1-gallon test batch.

I got a pound of wheat flakes and a pound of barley flakes, an orange, a lemon, coriander seeds, and 1.5 lbs of honey. I had a packet of baking yeast at home which I had purchased at the Co-Op several months ago to use as my yeast addition. Basically I went through the steps someone would normally go through to create a witbier. Below is my recipe.

Co-Op Witbier

Ingredients (for 1 gallon)

• 1 gallon + 1 qt water
• 1 lb flaked barley
• 1 lb flaked wheat
• 3 g coriander
• 1.5 lbs wildflower honey
• Zest from 1 lemon and 1 orange
• Juice from 1 orange
• 1/4 tsp baking yeast

Heat 1/2 gallon water to about 160 degrees. If you have a thermometer, watch the temperature. If not, this will be just about when you start to see steam collecting around the top of the water and it looks like small bubbles are starting to form at the bottom of the pot. Pour the water into your grains, set in a collander in a pot. It should be at about 138 degrees once you add the water to the grains. Heat another 1 qt to almost boiling, and then add to the grains. Let sit for 1 hour. Cover with towels to insulate.

Pull out collander of grains, let drain over another container. Pour liquid from pot that had grains into container with drained liquid from grains. Pour everything in the pot except for the gunk at the bottom. Run about a 1/2 gallon of 168 degree water over the grains into the pot (or the container of liquid, if you have room). Add liquid in second container to liquid in pot and heat to boiling.

Once boiling, turn off heat and add honey, juice, zest from lemon and orange and coriander seeds. Let steep about 15 minutes, and then cool in an ice bath. Once the mixture feels cool on your skin, it’s ready for the yeast. Put it in a 1-gallon jug (a growler will work) or a couple of big 2-liter Mason jars, and cover the jars with Saran Wrap with a hole poked into it. Sanitation is the key to good beer after it has been brewed, but most people who don’t brew probably don’t have sanitation solution just laying around, as I do. You can solve this problem by boiling water in a separate pot and pouring it into the glass fermenting container(s), and dumping it out before you move the beer. (Be careful, the glass gets hot!)

Traditional witbiers have hops which give them some bitterness (though not a lot) and a little earthy or fruity hop flavor. We don’t have hops at the Co-Op so I bypassed this step and added extra fruit flavor from the lemon and orange. It started fermenting within a couple of hours and had a nice krausen on top in the morning.

I let it sit for a week until the krausen had died back. That meant that it was done fermenting.

You can eat the grains after you’re done brewing, so don’t throw them away! I always save mine, even if I don’t save them all, to make veggie burgers, breads, cookies, and muffins. Next week I’ll show you how to make really moist muffins with these spent grains.

Next time: Taste test!