Scratch Beer

Heating the steins

Among the many things we’d like to try at Scratch are traditional and often neglected or forgotten brewing styles. The stein beer is precisely one of those traditions, an old German technique in which the beer is brewed without direct heat, and entirely through the addition of fiery hot rocks.

Aaron did a ton of research on stein beer brewing methods and then made a trip out to Missouri to collect granite to use in the beer. Granite seemed the best kind of rock, which wouldn’t explode when hitting boiling water. He heated the rocks in a large fire, almost 4-5 feet at its height and dropped the hot rocks into water a couple days before our brewing experiment to see if they’d heat water. They did. And although they cracked, they didn’t fall to pieces, so it looked like we were in luck.

We decided to try brewing an Altbier, an easy drinking, malty German style whose flavor might be aided by a bit of caramelized malt — a byproduct of searing hot rocks hitting the sugary wort. We put together a simple recipe based on those in the outstanding Altbier book by Horst Dornbusch.

We decided to go very simple on the mash with a one step infusion, even though a step mash with a decoction is the traditional method. With so many other variables we didn’t want to have to worry about hitting our step temperatures while brewing in near freezing weather in the woods with limited water. We did a 10 gallon batch and boiled in a converted keg (in case you’re wondering the brewery those kegs are from is long since departed), which was the perfect size and shape for dumping hot pieces of granite, some of which were nearly a foot long and half a foot wide.

Aaron adds the first rock; it sizzles in the wort; and we start to get a hot break.

We put our stones directly into (and then pulled them out of) a big fire by use of simple fireplace tongs. In retrospect I think we’d find a way to keep the stones out of the ashes in the fire as much as possible, possibly by setting them on a tray of sorts over the fire. A lot of that gunk ended up in the boiling wort. Although we’ve read that sugar caramelizes on the sides of the stones, little to none of it was visible when we pulled them out of the wort. I wonder how much caramelizes in the wort itself, rather than sticking to the stone.

Missouri granite

We boiled for a full two hours, although it was not a constant rolling boil. You know the saying “A watched pot never boils”? Well an unwatched stein beer will stop boiling immediately, it seems. Walk away for 30 seconds and you come back frantically looking for bubbles. To do a 90 minute boil, let alone 2 hours, you need a lot of rocks and we discovered that bigger is better when it comes to boiling with them. The bigger ones held their heat longer and really performed well in their service to heat the whole kettle.

We pitched a Dusseldorf Alt yeast and will lager it for a couple of weeks. Nervous about the many things that had been floating in the beer as we boiled, we took an anxious sip from the hydrometer sample. It was not bad; not ashy or smoky. We will see what happens in a few weeks!

WSIL did a segment on us while we were brewing. Watch the stein beer in action here.