Anyone ever thought of a fraoch type beer with manuka?

[Richard Jack]

I keep walking past this really fragrant dwarf Manuka out the back at work. It's flowering like crazy at the moment and it makes me wonder about fraoch, gruit, spruce beer and so on and so forth. Anyone ever used / heard of using / pondered then dismissed as crazy / have an opinion on using manuka flowers and leaves in a brew in place of most or all hops?I understand that the "spruce" beer from wigram uses Manuka. I've also thought about some other native botanicals to mix with it. I use kawakawa in my gin, and that's pretty yummy. Also considered horopito, but not for very long.

I think the time to pick these things is now (nice array of seeds, flowers, and buds on the trees around auckland) so I just went ahead and butchered this tree yesterday morning when no one was around. I chopped off foot long tip sections covered in flowers, will string them up in bunches to dry while I ponder my next move... Any thoughts welcome.

I'm thinking about a scotch ale sort of thing, and then a fraoch sort of procedure when you don't chill after the boil, but drain the boiler into a vessel full of heather, and let it steep an hour.

[MrC]

I've thought about it bey never done it.  I remember someone posting on here about Kawakawa a while ago.  Check out these links:

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/1500433:Topic:8?commen...

http://www.forum.realbeer.co.nz/forum/topics/1500433:Topic:8?id=150...

[Des Ross]

Hey not sure whether you want to totally avoid additions of hops but Mussel Inn, Takata, brew an awesome dark ale with an addition of manuka leaves/flowers. From memory the slight background taste of the manuka together with the darker malts was fantastic..having said that I think you would need to be careful with the manuka...too much could be overpowering! Maybe you could steep a measured ammount of crushed dry manuka flowers in 1 litre of hot water (maybe even boil it for 30 min) taste for flavour, and go from there?

[Ralph]

The Mussel Inn Captain Cooker is a nice beer, brewed with Manuka http://www.musselinn.co.nz/Capt%20Cooker%20notes.htm

 

Still has hops in it tho...

[Richard Jack]

Cheers for the tips guys. I think that you're right Des, some sort of experiment to get a handle on the size of the manuka addition will be needed.

[Des Ross]

Ri

 

chard, with your alcohol distilling background. you could also soak some pulverized material in ethanol for a week to extract all the aromatic oils and then add drops to wort prior to pitching yeast until you get close to the balance your after?

On the distillation subject, I am really keen to get a good VM column. I presently only have a S/S reflux and a 50L Keg with a 'hybrid' srripping column. I want a pure product for gin without bought essence and carbon. I would be very interested in your reflux column when you have your new one.What are your thoughts on the Stainesstuff VM column (Vietnam)? I am really keen to start producing a top product ASAP.

I'm keen to know how you get on with the manuka. Keep us informed!

[Richard Jack]

Hey mate, Manu (stainlessstuff) is a pretty good still builder, knowledgeable guy too, and active in the home distilling community (which is always nice to see). He makes a nice bog standard VM column. And, being stainless, it's a lot more affordable than copper. If I wanted to buy a stainless VM, he would be my pick. If you know a welder who can do tig for stainless, and have some modest scrounging skills you could get one made up pretty cheaply to go straight on your keg though. Happy to help with design if you need it.

Creating a manuka essence is an interesting idea actually... Think it'd want to be warm macerated then distilled though to stop the tanin and bitterness from being overwhelming. Might have a crack at that, cheers for the idea! I've got plenty of the manuka to work with, after all.

[Des Ross]

Here are some pics of my 'hybrid' stripping still. I was not able to upload them on the other message. Cheers

[Richard Jack]

Nice work on that liebig - double walled?

[Llew Bardecki]

That's almost exactly what I do with my lavender beer.

Just give the lavender leaves and flowers a good squash, soak them in vodka for ~1 week, remove the vegetable matter, then add the extract to taste at bottling time.

I originally tried this using a lavender tea, but it just extracted too much tannin from the leaves.  Might work okay with flowers though...

[Evan Davies]

Hey there Richard, very interesting thread, we have just brewed a 60lt batch of manuka beer for the re-enactment of the first game of rugby in NZ. we were asked to do a homebrew demo, and we were donated all the ingredients by local businesses and mother nature, we didnt quite hit our targets but the wort certainly tasted like a Captain Cooker. The recipe was given to us by the Mussel Inn brewery and we had to guess the yeast, my 30lt batch is vigourously bubbling away with 04 and the other 30lt is under way with 05. I was wondering about picking a sprig of my wonderful pink flowering manuka I have in the garden and bottling a few in clear 330 ml bottles and adding and conditioning with the added pink sprig. My concern is will the flowers eventually rot and ruin the beer, and how to sterilise the sprig prior to pushing it in the bottle. I would keep them in the dark of course, but thought this could make a very attactive giveaway beer. Any thoughts out there. Oh by the way a 60lt batch had 2 additions of manuka tips 160 gms from memory, and PG and NZH hops.

[Ralph]

Could you find some high strength ethanol to wash or soak the manuka flowers in? I would think this would inactivate any surface nasties. Food grade 95% ethanol can be found around NZ if you ask the right people.

 

I have no idea if the flowers would hold together or not in the beer? I would think they would be ok for a while?

[Richard Jack]

I would think you'd get too much extraction from the wood / leaves etc in the sprig if you bottled it. Still, fortune favours the bold, eh? What would Randy Mosher do?

 

Happy to help out anyone with 95% ethanol if needed in auckland. Not sure about shipping it though?