The Ship Biscuit & Salted Beef presentation on our version of a seventeenth-century shipboard beer replica

1. Nautical Archaeology Program
Department of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
Seventeenth-Century
Shipboard Beer
An Experimental Archaeology Approach On
Brewing Old Recipes Accurately
Presented by Grace Tsai & Christopher Dostal
2017 Society for Historical Archaeology
Fort Worth, USA
January 2017

2. PROJECT OBJECTIVE
• Replication of the food using experimental archaeology
• Salted pork and beef, ship biscuits, wine and beer, and other victuals
typically found on 17th-century English ships will be duplicated using
the same ingredients and methods
• Kept on Elissa, the 19th-century tallship, and representative samples
will be periodically sent to a laboratory for nutritional and microbial
analysis
• Data will be used to determine the past health, physiology, and well-
being of 17th-century trans-Atlantic sailors

3. INTRODUCTION
• Beer in the past was warm and flat, at least
compared to what we are used to, and
probably not very hopped.
• Horrible beer was common: “And [chicken]
dung when it comes drops right in the ale.”
Sour beer was likely the norm due to
frequent bacterial and yeast contamination
of casks.
• Sailors were rationed 1 gallon of beer a day
• Calories
• Vitamins & minerals & probiotics
• “Cleaner than water” but still hydrates
• Keeps longer
• Tasty & keeps people happy
The Brewer (16th century) by engraved by Jost Amman

4. WHAT IS BEER?
• Alcoholic beverage derived from the fermentation of
grain starches and flavored with hops
• Staple in shipboard diet
“For we could not now take time for further search or consideration,
our victuals being spent, especially our beer, and it now being the 20th
of December.”
–William Bradford in 1620 during their emergency landing at Cape Cod
rather than Hudson River as originally planned

5. BEER CHEMISTRY
• Long carbohydrates are extracted and broken down into
glucose by malting and mashing
• Yeast processes the simple sugars
• In aerobic conditions glycolysis pyruvate CO2 and water
(carbonation)
• Anaerobic conditions fermentation  acetyladehyde
ethanol (alcohol)
• Hops contribute to aroma and bittering (α-acids and β-
acids)
• So yes…beer is bacteria excrement

6. RECIPE & HISTORICAL PROCESS
“Brewing Ordinary Beer,” The English Huswife,
Gervase Markham (1615)
When small Ale hath wrought sufficiently, draw into bottles; but first
put into every bottle twelve good raisins of the Sun split and stoned;
Then stop up the bottle close, and set it in sand (gravel) or a cold dry
Cellar. After a while this will drink exceeding quick and pleasant.
Likewise take six Wheat-corns, and bruise them, and put into a bottle
of Ale; it will make it exceeding quick and stronger.
-The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie Kt. Opened
Sir Kenelm Digby Knight (1669)

7. INGREDIENTS: CARBOHYDRATES
• Unknown wheat but typically brown
malt
• Maris Otter Extract (2-row, oldest, just
turned 50—hybrid of 2 English strains)
• Brown malt, not roast malt for color.
Controlled roasting did not occur yet
• English Pale Malt Grain (added for diastatic
power)

8. INGREDIENTS: HOPS (Humulus lupulus)
•UK Kent Goldings (pellets).
•Isolated in 1780s by a man named Golding
in Kent (hybrid of 4 English strains)
•‘Beer’ = with hops, ‘Ale’ = without hops
• “[Hops] when put in beer, stops putrefaction and lends longer durability”
–Hildegard von Bingen in Physica (1150)
• But the hoppy flavor was not prized during medieval times…found distasteful.
It “make the soul of man sad, and weigh down his inner organs,” “A wicked
weed called hops”
• But by the 17th century, ale (ie. un-hopped beer) was no longer popular and
beer was the established drink

9. INGREDIENTS: WATER
• Water (Filtered Tap Water from Bryan, TX)
• Hard vs soft
• Burton-on-Trent (known for pale ale)
• Darker grains work better with softer waters as
they do not bring out the tannic harshness of
the dark beer
• Pale grains and pale ales work better with hard
water (only became popular in 19th century, but
existed about a century earlier)
Water profiles. Bryan, TX (top) vs. Burton-
on-Trent (bottom)

10. INGREDIENTS: YEAST
• White Labs British Ale Yeast
• NOT accurate
• But brewing with wild yeast & bacteria is dangerous
• Pure yeast strains were not grown until 1883 by
Danish botanist Emil Hansen. Provided the Carlsberg
Brewery in Copenhagen with the first single-cell yeast
culture.
• With four centuries of genetic drift, unknown what
yeast was used

11. INGREDIENTS: IRISH MOSS
(Chondrus crispus)
• Has been used as additive in beer for nearly
200 years, so not accurate for 17th-century
• Added to keep beer clear (aesthetics)

12. OUR BEER VS HISTORICAL BEER
• Fermented in sanitized bucket with added
yeast vs in cask that has residual yeast from
previous brews
• Pure strain of yeast and addition of Irish
moss
• Temperature, measurements etc. is better
controlled. Even up to 1840s precision was
optional. “Grains should be steeped in a pot
‘hot enough to bite smartly upon your
finger’, the resulting wort should “run as
thick as a crow quill”.
• Was from first mash, not second.
• First mash = strong beer 8-12%
• Second mash = ordinary/ship’s beer 6-8%
• Third mash = small beer 3-4%

13. See The Full Process Here
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCRrbdJWj-s

14. THANK YOU!