[Sca-cooks] Beer sludge and Marmite Herbs and Spices

[Dragon]

Sharon Gordon wrote:
>(Mix of OOP and period questions)
>
>On another list devoted to more sustainable living (good overlap with skills
>of the Middle Ages), I am trying to design a model garden  based on one of
>the other list member, David's, complete nutrition diet.  I am trying to
>figure out-- if you grow all the ingredients, how much space the garden
>would take in his area.  One of the things he eats is Marmite which is made
>from leftovers of the beer making process as its main ingredient. I am
>trying to figure out two main issues related to the ingredients.

I'm going to start off by saying this idea is probably a lost cause, 
because this is not an easy product to make. In particular, the 
separation of the yeast "husks" (cell walls) from the rest of the 
extract is not something you are likely to be able to do without some 
very sophisticated filtering aparatus.

While it is possible that some of the yeast used is from brewing, I'd 
be more inclined to believe that the yeast used for manufacturing 
these products is grown in the same way that bread yeast is grown, 
that is in large vats of molasses and water. The reason I say this is 
that a lot of the yeast used in most commercial breweries is 
harvested for reuse in future batches. The other issue is that in 
order for the yeast left from brewing to be used, it must be very 
carefully washed to remove the hop flavor and bitterness along with 
all the other sediment that occurs in brewing.

Anyway, the yeast that is used for this is mixed with a quantity of 
salt which causes the yeast cells to die and then autolyse (break 
down via digestive enzymes contained within the yeast cells).

At that point the extract must be filtered to remove the yeast husk. 
I honestly do not know how efficient the process is or how much 
extract one would get from a given quantity of yeast.


>The first is how much barley and/or wheat  (marmite has derivatives of
>wheat, barley, and soy in it so it might have some sort of miso type
>fermentation going on there too) might have been used to make the beer and
>then how much yeast extract residue would be left over?

Any soy in the Marmite was not fermented in any beer if they used 
yeast from brewing. It is likely they have done a separate miso type 
fermentation as you surmise. I'd expect that they also add some wheat 
and or barley to that paste as well.

Wheat could be used in beer, but it is not common in most varieties. 
In fact, most wheat beers focus pretty heavily on the wheat component 
and use much less barley.

>So for people
>brewing from grains my questions would be
>* What weight of each grain goes into a smallish batch (say 5-10 gallons) of
>fairly basic English beer?

I was once quite a prolific home brewer and did most of my brewing 
from whole grain.

Saying "English beer" is like saying "fruit". It's a pretty generic 
term as it covers a vast variety of types. But let's use a typical 
bitter as a point of reference. A 5-gallon batch of such a beer would 
typically use about 11 to 12 pounds of barley for an average recipe 
with good home-brewing extraction levels (commercial brewers are much 
more efficient at this, most home brewers, less so).

I am sure that Google will turn up a bunch of recipes for such a beer.

>* How much of the other ingredients would you use?

Again, this all depends on the style of beer you are making. Most 
British and German varieties use malted barley, hops, yeast and water 
and nothing else. Some varieties use wheat, some use oats (British), 
some use dark roasted malt and/or caramelized malt, others just plain 
"pale" malt.

>* Would you use hops fresh or dried?

In my experience, hops are always used dried. They are never (to my 
knowledge) used fresh.

>* How much beer would you get?

A 5-gallon batch gives you 5 gallons of beer...

>* How much of the beer sludge/yeast extract would remain?

That is something that varies quite a lot. There are a huge number of 
variables that go into this. The starting amount of sugar in the wort 
(unfermented beer), the aeration of the wort, the exact amount of 
yeast added, the type of yeast, the final alcohol content, the 
temperature, the amount of hops used and a ton of other things can 
all influence this.

I will say that the majority of home brewers never add a sufficient 
quantity of yeast for a proper fermentation in the first place. My 
rule of thumb based on 1/2 quart of thick, fresh yeast slurry per a 
5-gallon batch. By the time the fermentation is done, you will 
probably have a couple of quarts of sediment but not all of that is 
yeast. Some of it is trub (protein and phenol compounds) and some of 
it is probably bits of hop (especially if pelletized hops were used).

At that point, you would have to do a lot of processing and washing 
of the yeast to get just yeast and eliminate the bitterness of the 
hops. It's not easy to do and I don't think it would be worth the effort.

>The second question is about the vegetables/herbs and spices in it.
>  The label states that it has vegetables/herbs and spices in it, but not
>which ones.  I also know that the NZ version of Marmite is slightly
>different from the UK version of Marmite.   I am trying to figure out what
>herbs and spices are in the NZ Marmite.  I don't have any access to Marmite
>at the moment, but I think the ones I've had in the past were more like UK
>versions.  I think I taste some celery or ground celery seed, parsley,
>carrots, and onions in it, but I can't figure out what else is in there.
>And I could be totally incorrect about those four vegetables/herbs.  I don't
>think there is any garlic in it.  Any ideas?

I think you are pretty spot on with the vegetables. I expect that 
there is probably pepper and bay leaf in there but not much else.

Dragon

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  Venimus, Saltavimus, Bibimus (et naribus canium capti sumus)
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