[brooms sweeps malt]
In this video, Northern Brewer exposes the
centuries-old myth about modern floor-malted grain.
You’ll learn the truth about how floor-malt is actually made; why we’ve been brewing
with it all wrong for hundreds of years; and we’ll brew a proper floor-malted beer.
Hi, Daniel with Northern Brewer Saint Paul here.
In the homebrewing world
we get a lot of information handed down from generation to generation.
Some of it true, some of it false, some of it wildly inaccurate.
Well, one such bit of information has been down from generation to generation almost
since the beginning of brewing itself, and it turns out it's been nothing but a game
of telephone: a mistranslation here, a mispronunciation
there, misunderstanding after misunderstanding.
What we've discovered at Northern Brewer is going to turn the world of beer upside-down,
not just homebrewers but professional brewers and malt houses alike.
It all started when I was doing a little bit
of research for a class we were holding on floor malt.
I was pulling some reference books out of the Northern Brewer Library when I stumbled
across something mysterious.
It was a page of notes from a former Northern Brewer employee, Dr. Kristen Englan – current
professional brewer, beer historian, and BJCP Education Director.
He had discovered something astounding.
Luckily, I was able to track Kris down and ask him about his findings.
KRIS: I get questions all the time about history, historic beer, the way that people used to
make stuff.
The thing that I can you through and through is that the only thing that follows a line
from way back in Babylonian times to now is that people [beep] cheap!
You'll never meet cheaper than brewers.
Back in the day they used to reuse hops, there were places that would take beer and pour
it back into casks, there was even an invention where you poured a cask beer it would go back
in the drain and fill back into the casks.
Good lord, floor malting.
Homebrewers, you've got it all wrong.
You thought that it was this beautiful agrarian dream where you harvest your own barley, and
you steep it, germinate it, put it on the floor, and build your kiln outside, and you
get it all dried up and perfect to make your own beer with it.
That's not what happens.
This was the stuff, the boogers, the crap
that feel off the mill, all the stuff that got swept.
Think of these giant breweries, all that leftover dust and stuff.
They swept it all up and put it inside.
This is the truth!
I challenge all of you to live the trust, try the truth.
I challenge you.
And all these homebrewers are now thinking, "This is going to be a great experiment.
I'm going to do this.
It's going to be fine."
DAN: Eureka!
I felt like I'd struck brewer's gold!
Armed with this new understanding and appreciation for floor malt, I got to work.
Here at Northern Brewer Saint Paul we have no shortage of “true floor malt.”
We sweep the Grain Room multiple times each day.
Grains of all sort piled up – base grains, adjunct grains, flaked malts.
Most of this goes into the dumpster every day, but never again!
I was able to save up 54 pounds of grains that would have gone into the trash.
There was a large amount of dark malt in this mystery grist.
I figured we might make some dark and hearty, maybe a porter.
So, we set out to brew the modern era’s first-ever Floor-ter: An Authentic Floor-Malted
Porter.
[Music / Brewing Montage]
We mashed in the mystery grist at 154F.
It was quite a thick mash as well.
The wort was immediately dark.
Weird foam kicked up on top of the mash; from dusty grain?
The run-off was inky dark; it looked like motor oil.
So, were we going to stop with just floor malt?
No!
We didn't want anything to go to waste.
We reached out to our team at our warehouse and we saved hops that would usually get swept
up and thrown away during the packaging process.
That's right, not only are we brewing the first modern floor-malted porter but we're
using floor hops as well.
We drew the line at floor yeast.
We didn't want something to go wrong after all of this effort we put in.
So, we went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of our favorite packets.
The brew day went smooth.
We ended up packaging 10 gallons in all.
CUSTOMER: What's a Floorter?
DAN: I gathered all the malt off the floor and I brewed a porter with it.
CUSTOMER: Ohhhhh.
That's disgusting.
[laughts]
DAN [drinking beer]: Delicious!
1.062 down to 1.010.
Cleanly fermented.
Wonderful notes of chocolate, just a hint of roastiness.
No foot.
No dust bunny.
Nooooo, who knows what.
But as the brewer I'm a little bit biased -- we all are.
So, we brought in a couple BJCP certified judges for a blind taste testing.
They have no idea what they are getting into tonight.
STEVE: I think it's smoky.
I get phenolics.
It's like inky dark, leather-y.
Some dark fruit.
Figgy.
JESSICA: First nose was a little fruity, but now that I'm drinking it I'm getting roast,
a lot of roast, but I'm not getting like burnt.
STEVE: It's quite dark.
It's opaque.
JESSICA: Roasted malt is prominent.
Hops are in the background for me.
STEVE: Toasty, rich, full-bodied, smooth.
I think there's a little smoke there.
JESSICA: Clean bitterness.
Clean.
I think it's like a medium mouthfeel and body.
I don't see anything out of place for me.
If someone just gave this to me I would think, okay.
STEVE: I would think smoky stout.
JESSICA: Yeah, normal stout.
I don't think it is strong enough to be an imperial stout; I don't get a lot of alcohol
on it.
It's not a sweet stout; it's definitely dry.
And I think it's too roasty to be an American porter.
So, I'm not really sure where I would put it.
STEVE: Smoked stout.
It's a completely enjoyable, drinkable beer.
I wouldn't spit it out.
I haven't spit it out.
[laughs]
JESSICA: It's probably an ingredient.
It's probably a malt or a way a malt was used.
I really can't pick up anything.
DAN: I swept up 54 pounds of malt from the floor of the grain room and then brewed 10
gallons of beer with it.
JESSICA: We used to joke that you guys did that.
DAN: To top it off, I had the warehouse sweet up a couple of bags of hops dust off the floor
during packaging day and used that for the bittering hop.
JESSICA: This then.
Talk about brewing process,
and then talk about how you actually packaged it and managed
it too.
Because it doesn't seem mishandled.
STEVE: Now that you mention it, I get some dust in there.
A few mouse droppings.
JESSICA: I like, sure, it's something dark and maybe not, I can't put it on a style.
That's fun.
I just think that you're probably a good brewer and handler of whatever wort comes out of
wherever.
STEVE: Waste not, want not!
JESSICA: I'm surprised, and it makes me feel really good about, you know, the sack of grain
I just left in the basement.
[laughs] I have no worries.
I mean, I'm just gonna say this is absolutely drinkable, it's better than some of my beers
starting out.
STEVE: Now that I think about it though, knowing the wide range of people who come in and what
they buy, it maks sense.
Here I thought you were going to unleash some specialty ingredient upon us.
JESSICA: Or a weird, I thought they were going to do some kind of weird process.
I mean it is a weird process!
I'm happy that you kept it from us, and just got to see that beer can just be beer.
STEVE: In terms of, you know, a source of fermentables, as long as it's not contaminated
and nasty, I think that range of what you and can't do is probably wider than people
think it should be.
Floorter forever!
JESSICA: To the Floorter!
DAN: There you have it.
Northern Brewer moving the industry forward yet again.
If you've got a mill at home, go ahead and try your own floor-malted beer.
Hit us up on social media, let us know what you think and how it turned out.
Once again, thank you for tuning in, see you next time, and cheers everyone.
KRIS: Authentic floor-malted Floorter?
I can't believe they fell for that.
Yeah, yeah I can.
[beep] homebrewers!
Seriously.