I am writing a short post today to capture an idea that I
have had for quite a while concerning spices and herbs in beer. I occasionally (and many times
unsuccessfully) brew a series of beers that feature herbs and spices. In some of my wheat and lighter beers I’ll
use judicious spice additions that I brew all the time. I am comfortable with amounts of coriander,
but after a while I just want to branch out.
Often when I “branched out,” with a spice or herb that I
haven’t ever used I seem to either add way too much or the addition is barely
noticeable. The only way to prevent this
is to do as much research on recipes others have written using the same spice
as before. There are a lot of variables
in this approach that the researcher cannot ever find out. One, is the consistency of recipes you might
find. By that I mean did you get the
recipe from a random BeerSmith search, or
did you get it from a site that is heavily trafficked and reliable like the Mad Fermentationist. Even if
you obtain the recipe from a reliable source you never had the opportunity to
taste the end result. I have too many
recipe ideas to brew a single one several times. There had to be something more
scientific. Shouldn’t you be able to use
a ratio of one spice to another for a good starting point?
So I started to look to the culinary world for inspiration,
a source that is far too often ignored in the beer world. I recently had the opportunity to have a
conversation with Peter Bouckaert about this very topic. He said that beer was just another food, and he
had consulted with chefs and books on cooking for his inspiration. Some of my sources of inspiration have always
been Michael Ruhlman’s Ratio:
The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking for theory and Karen
Page’s The
Flavor Bible for flavor combinations.
There still was a hole in what I was trying to achieve putting herbs and
spices in beer.
In a foray into sausage making I found the start of exactly
what I was looking for in Home
Production of Quality Meats and Sausages better known as the green bible in
sausage making circles. In this book,
the Marianski brothers present a chart of common spices used in sausage making
and usage amounts per 1 kilogram of meat.
They reproduced the chart on their website. Once on the website, scroll down to the
Guidelines for Spice Usage section.
Looking at the chart from the perspective of beer, the
genius isn’t in the usages of each individual spice, but the authors had
(perhaps inadvertently) developed a chart of ratios of spice intensity against
one another. Let me present an example
of what I mean. So say that I really
like 1 gram per 5 gallons of cinnamon in an amber ale. I really would like to place another layer of
complexity with cardamom at the same intensity.
I can go to the chart in cinnamon, which it recommends 0.5 – 1.0 grams
(per kilogram of meat). Then if you look
again at cardamom, the chart recommends 1.0 – 2.0 grams. Conveniently, 1 gram of cinnamon in my example
beer makes the math pretty simple. That
means that for every 1 gram of cinnamon, I should use 2 grams of cardamom for
the same level intensity.
Oddly enough, the chart’s recommendations for 1 kilogram of
meat seems to be remarkably close to a subtle effect in 5 gallons of beer. I have used it with success in a few
recipes. There are however a few more
factors you have to think about. Most
notably, this is relative intensity.
This is where I go back to Michael Ruhlman’s book. Your favorite wit recipe might use 10 grams
of coriander, and this level of spicing works perfectly and harmoniously with
the wheat base and yeast characteristic.
The coriander provides a firmly citrusy, earthy punch that is quite
complimentary. But you want your wit to
have another layer of complexity with say cinnamon. If you use the chart to get the same level of
intensity of spice with a ratio, the suggested amount would be 5 grams. The resultant beer might be nice, but a
dominating note of cinnamon might push the beer more into the Christmas Ale
category. In which case, I would default
to the subtle effect and add 0.5 – 1.0 grams.
There are a few shortcomings of the Marianski chart. The most notable is incompleteness for the
variety of herbs and spices that one can use in a beer. I also don’t know if I would use garlic,
onions, or paprika in a beer. Prove me
wrong. I guess the only way you could
make it better would be to collect more data points like the Milk
the Funk Wiki page is attempting, but at least the Marianski chart is a
start on some commonly used spices.
