old historic recipes and their compounants

[hedgerowpete]

I have an old book of recipes, one of which uses eggs whites in it, now i realise the 200 years ago things were slightlyless enlightened but still egg whites?

What part or process could raw egg whites do to a fermentation.

The general read goes;
"mix well eleven gallons of river water with 35lb of sugar, 12 egg whites well beaten,six pounds of honey and boil slowly for two hours,pour this liquor onto two gallons of briar shoots, add ten selvile orange skin peel and ten ounces of gum arabica, wait till cool and add the yeast then ferment for 5 days in the bucket and then barrel.

so thats roughly translated into modern english
15 kilo sugar
42 litres water
3kg honey
12 egg whites well beaten
10 litres briar tips and shoots

so your sugar is say 18kg =42l water or roughly 2.1kg per gallon uk which is almost double a uk usual bramble tip wine, that i can get my head round,

but i have no idea the need to add egg whites beaten, was it a water cleaning thing?

 

[Brewed_Force]

Do you need to boil it in a cauldron.....

and don't forget the eye of newt....

 

[Richie_asg1]

If they were well beaten then that would separate them into smaller parts, and if then boiled with honey it would certainly cook them, so you would end up with particles floating about in the wort.
This may be to clear the water of sediment or act as a protein source for the yeast.
I'm also interested by the gum arabic, as I think that is fermentable too, but no idea of the flavour.

 

[tribalfather]

I have an old book of recipes, one of which uses eggs whites in it, now i realise the 200 years ago things were slightlyless enlightened but still egg whites?

What part or process could raw egg whites do to a fermentation.

The general read goes;
"mix well eleven gallons of river water with 35lb of sugar, 12 egg whites well beaten,six pounds of honey and boil slowly for two hours,pour this liquor onto two gallons of briar shoots, add ten selvile orange skin peel and ten ounces of gum arabica, wait till cool and add the yeast then ferment for 5 days in the bucket and then barrel.

so thats roughly translated into modern english
15 kilo sugar
42 litres water
3kg honey
12 egg whites well beaten
10 litres briar tips and shoots

so your sugar is say 18kg =42l water or roughly 2.1kg per gallon uk which is almost double a uk usual bramble tip wine, that i can get my head round,

but i have no idea the need to add egg whites beaten, was it a water cleaning thing?

used to use eggs to clear wine

 

[tribalfather]

eggs used to be used to clear wines, honest. And beers had chicken bones as part of the recipe, for body

 

[An Ankoù]

As soon as you started talking about egg whites, I started thinking of mead and, indeed, that's something like what we've got here. I make mead in five gallon batches at a time every three or four years and I've never had any problem with clarity. however, all the old recipes I've consulted say that mead can be very difficult to clear and many prescribe egg whites to remedy that. I don't like the recipe very much: it appears it's going to be very sweet and without much flavour.
I came across a book of Cornish recipes online, I think a member of this forum posted a link to it, it gives recipes for beer and wines which would be very dangerous if followed. it seems they used to let the beer ferment a couple of days and then bottle it and tie the corks down well. I see yours is of the same genre.

 

[An Ankoù]

Here's one from said book, which made me smile: Metheglin is mead flavoured with herbs and , or, spices.
SWEET DRINK
The old-fashioned name for Metheglin. Bottles were filled
with it, stood in a window of the pantry, and an ear of barley
stuck upside down in the neck of each bottle to ferment it.
MULLION
WHERE BEES ARE THERE IS HONEY
W.I.

 

[hedgerowpete]

If they were well beaten then that would separate them into smaller parts, and if then boiled with honey it would certainly cook them, so you would end up with particles floating about in the wort.
This may be to clear the water of sediment or act as a protein source for the yeast.
I'm also interested by the gum arabic, as I think that is fermentable too, but no idea of the flavour.

i know cold raw egg whites to clarify but never cooked egg whites, seems a touch off putting to me, the gum arabic to me is a total waste of time,i cant see it adding any ingrediants to the wine, i had not realised it was even fermentable

 

[hedgerowpete]

i have one old recipe that advocates the addition of fusel oils to the brew, a pint at a time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Cwrw666]

it seems they used to let the beer ferment a couple of days and then bottle it and tie the corks down well

That's pretty normal in old recipes for making bottled fizzy drinks. I guess you wait for the krausen to go and the vigorous stage of fermentation to finish but a bit of life still left in it. I think finishing fermentation and priming is obviously a safer route. My mate at school used to make alcoholic ginger beer by this method - opening a bottle was definitely an exciting experience!

 

[johncrobinson]

Yup the egg whites are used as finings (still today!)

Gum arabic has a quite nice taste and smell to it

Looking through these old books is a hobby in itself

 

[hedgerowpete]

Yup the egg whites are used as finings (still today!)

Gum arabic has a quite nice taste and smell to it

Looking through these old books is a hobby in itself

egg whites as finningsi had heard of but only as raw and at the endof fermentation, not cooked with the must, i do admit after reading these two books if someone has not already tried to manufacture these old wines for research purposes, fascinating stuff and ingrediants

 

[johncrobinson]

Perhaps they were used as a source of organic nitrogen ??? to feed the yeast.

One of the things that is very different to today is the copious use of spices,My father used to make these kind of wines and some were rather nice

 

[hedgerowpete]

when i started a million years ago every thing including the kitchen sink went in, some were great but most were really really bad,lol

i remember once been given a glass of something it was bright yellow and completly opac, tasted fantastic, but looked as if it was an atomic fuel rod

 

[Richie_asg1]

I have a book of manufacturers recipes from the last century which you can feel the print on the page. Everything from pesticides, paints, inks, lubricants, boiler cements, virtually anything that was made at the time that they could put in a tin. Of course it is very difficult to find some of the ingredients today, and quite a lot would be near impossible to obtain or toxic but it is fascinating reading as it talks in such huge quantities.
If anyone wants something specific I could look it up for you.