This is a recreation of a 17^th century recipe for a bragot, which is a beer mixed with honey and flavored with a variety of spices and herbs. The particular recipe that I followed, from the Closet of Kenelm Digby Opened, is post-period, but there are references and recipes for bragot in period. References to bragots exist as early as the Anglo Saxon period in England [Hagen]. Although in these early references there are no associated references, the drink called bragot fell between ale and mead in the price scale of the time. There is a fourteenth century recipe included in the Royal MS 17 A iii in the British Library [Hiett and Butler, 149] that is essentially a honey-fortified ale, spiced with pepper and cloves. A sixteenth century recipe for braggot is given by Hugh Platt inThe Jewel House of Art and Nature [Renfrow, 7]. This recipe would call for about ½ pound of honey for a 3 gallon batch of ale, and was spiced with a variety of spices, including licorice. Mr. Webb’s bragot uses an even wider mixture of herbs and spices. Even though it is a "post period" recipe, the directions closely mirror those provided in Hugh Platt, so I felt it was an acceptable project for a period brewing competition.

To keep the main part of the documentation as brief as possible, I’ve put explanations of the standard brewing terms in the final section. Those familiar with all-grain beer brewing should be able to follow the narrative of the procedure. If there is a term used whose meaning is not clear, please check the brewing terminology section for further explanation.

The text of the original recipe can be found here

The first thing I needed to do was to scale down the recipe for a batch smaller than a hogshead. Applying conversions to the quantities listed in the original recipe, it turns out the ratio is about 10 lbs. of malt to 3 gallons of product. At this batch size, the amount of honey scaled to about 2 cups. This was doable in my home brewing system, so I set out to do a 3 gallon batch. Looking at the scaling of the herbs and spices was a little more difficult, since Digby does not give specific amounts for the herbs. Scaling some of the spices back from the quantities given produced very small amounts for a 3 gallon batch, so the spice amounts were often rounded up to a ¼ or ½ oz. quantity just so they could be measured accurately.

Having made a batch of this bragot previously with an overwhelming amount of cloves, I took the line that mentions that the King did not like the cloves in his bragot to leave them out entirely.

10 lbs. Munton and Fison Pale malt

½ oz ginger (crystallized and sliced)

¼ oz stick of cinnamon

¼ oz each of fresh rosemary, marjoram, thyme (twice, once for boiling, and once for the primary)

3/4 oz. of hops (1/4 oz in the mash water, and ½ oz. in the boil)

1.5 lbs. fresh honey.

The 10 pounds of malt was ground up in my hand-cranked roller mill, and placed in the mash tun (a Rubbermaid cooler, in my case). First the mashing water was heated to about 170ºF with ½ oz. of hops added as per the directions The hot water was then mixed with the ground grain (which was at room temperature) to produce a mash at around 150 ºF. The mash was rested at 150ºF for 100 minutes to insure complete conversion of the starches. The wort was then drained off of the grist and collected in the brewing kettle.

The various spices and honey were added to the wort, and it was brought to a boil. No boiling time was specified in the original recipe, so I boiled for only ½ hour. At this point the wort was force cooled to near room temperature, and poured into a plastic carboy. A yeast starter (obtained fresh from a local brewpub) was pitched and a cheesecloth bag with some additional herbs was suspended in the carboy. The carboy was closed up with an airlock. Fermentation proceeded for about a week, and the bragot was then racked off the lees and into a glass carboy. After about 3 weeks of settling in the secondary fermenter, the bragot was bottled. At bottling time, a small amount of priming sugar was added to the bragot to generate fermentation in the bottle, producing a carbonated final product.

Some changes are unavoidable in producing a period beer recipe. The biggest difference is that I produced this using my modern homebrewing setup. I heat water in a stainless tank using a propane fired burner, rather than in a ‘lead’ using a wood fire. I mashed this batch in a plastic cooler rather than in a wooden tub, and I used a modern false bottom in that cooler to separate the wort from the grist. The wort was boiled in another stainless pot, also using a gas burner rather than a wood fire. The malt used was a modern barley, malted to (probably) a higher modification than period malt. This malt was crushed in a steel roller mill, rather than crushed on a stone mill. Fermentation was done in two stages, in plastic and glass carboys, rather than in a wooden barrel in a single stage. The final product was bottled in glass, and primed to produce carbonation, rather than drunk uncarbonated. If I had the capability, I would have bottled some without priming – try letting the bragot go flat and taste it again.

Malt: Grain that has been sprouted to a certain extent, then dried and roasted. The malting of grain produces a series of enzymes that can be used to convert the starches (dextrines) in the grains into sugars that can be reduced by yeast to alcohol. Modern malts come in a large variety, from very pale pilsner malts to black roasted barley malt used for stouts and porters. Period sources don’t distinguish any different types of malts. There are malting instructions from the late 16^th/early 17^th century [Markham] that would produce a pale colored malt, with no smokey characteristics. Some people believe that with the lack of fire control in the middle ages, malt roasting would be an uneven process, with some grains roasted darker than others, and some smoke introduced into the malt. Although this may have been the case, there is no evidence one way or another currently available.

Mashing: The process of soaking malted grains in hot water to activate enzymes present and allow for the conversion of starches into fermentable sugars. Mashing can only be accomplished with grains that have enzyme, or diastatic, power. Variations in the water temperature will have an effect on the wort produced. To produce sugars in reasonable times, mash temperatures have to be above 140 ºF but below 160 ºF. Temperatures that are too low produce sugars very slowly, and allow other enzymes that break down proteins in the malt to work. Temperatures above 160 ºF will break down, or denature, the enzymes that produce the sugars in the wort. Once these enzymes are denatured, they do not return and the mashing process is stopped.

Sparging and Parti-Gyle Brewing: sparging is a modern practice of rinsing the grains after a mash to extract the maximum amount of sugars from the grist. Period brewing practice, and the practice described by Digby, was to add water to the malt once, mash the grains for a period of time, and then drain off this wort to make your strong or ordinary beer. Some sugars remain in the grains, so a second rinse can be performed to make a second running or small beer. Digby comments that Mr. Webb added honey to his small beer and made a sort of small bragot as well. This process of getting multiple beers out of the same grist is referred to as parti-gyle brewing.

Wort: The unfermented pre-beer. Wort is produced by mashing malted grains, and specifically refers to the brewing liquid produced from grains. It is equivalent to ‘must,’ the pre-wine liquid generally produced by crushing fruit.

Barm: Yeast, specifically for brewing. To barm is used as a verb in several period brewing descriptions, and simply means adding a quantity of yeast to the wort for fermentation.

Grist: Term used to denote the ground malt. Grist is, of course, the product of a mill.