Ancient Brewing: Sahti

With its earliest written references dating back to 1366 AD, Sahti is a style of beer from Finland that I've been wishing to brew, but was nervous about tackling. Thankfully, I came across Ilkka Sysila's excellent article on brewing the style. It pushed me over the edge, and inspired me to take a stab at brewing this ancient beer.

The grain bill for Sahti is quite simple, but also created my first challenge. 

Pilsner, Munich and Kaljamallas (Finnish Dark Rye) are the typical grains for this style. Where my challenge lay was in finding Kaljamallas. 

This Finnish malt can be purchased online, but isn't exactly inexpensive. The lowest price I could find was $10 per pound before shipping. As a less expensive alternative, several articles I read suggested using Crystal Rye. However, they all admitted that its flavor is sweeter than the Finnish grain.

Rye Before and After

Since I wanted a malt as close to Kaljamallas as possible, but didn't want to break the bank to do it, I decided to make my own. 

One thing I noticed was that Kaljamallas and English Brown Malt share a similar Lovibond. Since I've made my own Brown Malt in the past, I decided to use that process as a guide for making my Dark Rye. 

My Brown Malt is made by spreading 2-Row on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and baking it in a 350F(177C) oven for around an hour. The malt is regularly stirred to avoid scorching. After the baking is finished, the malt is stored in a paper bag for two weeks or more to release any harsh flavors or aromas. The process creates an almost dead ringer for the commercial malt. With that in mind, I did the same thing with 1.5lbs of Weyermann Rye to make a Dark Rye. Hopefully my results were in the ballpark of real Kaljamallas.

The other unique ingredient is juniper. 

Crushed Juniper Berries

The traditional way to get juniper flavor into Sahti is to line your Kuurna with juniper branches. Unfortunately, I have neither the woodworking skills to make a Kuurna, nor easy access to edible (i.e. not poisonous) juniper bushes. A simpler option is to add lightly crushed juniper berries to the mash. Since I can easily get juniper berries at the grocery store, that's the route I chose to take. I followed Sahti brewer Mika Laitinen's recommendation of using roughly 0.2oz(6g) for a five gallon batch.

With the grains and berries together, I moved onto the mash.

Traditional Sahti brewers mash for five to nine hours. Over that time, they slowly raise the mash temperature from "hand warm" to hot. I wanted my mash schedule to follow in the spirit of that tradition. 

For my mash, I decided that hand warm water would be around a normal body temperature of 98.6F(37C). When my hand warm water met my room temperature grains, I achieved a dough in temperature of right around 95F(35C). For the keen eyed reader, that happens to align nicely with the low end of an Acid Rest. My hot temperature of 176F(80C) was chosen because it showed up in multiple articles I'd read. Most importantly, one about brewing Sahti with award winning brewer Olavi Viheroja.

To get the requisite mash duration, I performed six rests of varying temperatures and times. The schedule I chose was a hyperextended version of a multi-step mash I did that I'm saving for a future article. To time just how long my mash took, I checked what time each step began. Part of my reason for doing this was because I wanted to measure how long it took to get from one rest temperature to the next. When the entire process was complete, my mash had consumed just six minutes shy of six hours. If you add on the 30 minute Sparge I did, my total brew time was six hours and 24 minutes. 

Once the mash was done, it was time to not boil the wort.

This is definitely one of the other things that makes Sahti different from other beers. It's a raw beer, which means even boiling the wort for a few minutes to sterilize it is heavily frowned upon. This means that my wort went straight into the fermentation vessel after the Sparge. From there, it was time to add the yeast.

Just like the Kaljamallas, the Finnish baking yeast that is traditionally used is hard to come by. 

In its place, I've used a Kveik strain. I made this choice because it's what many other homebrewers have started using, and it's also easy to get at my local homebrew store.

Since this was my first time using any Kveik strain, I was anxious to see its hot and fast fermentation in action. The Hornindal strain I chose didn't disappoint. I pitched the yeast at around 92F(33C) and waited for it to kick off. Within a few hours, I had a vigorous fermentation going. Within a couple of days, it had done its thing and I was ready to move on.

After the yeast had blasted through primary fermentation, I moved the beer to a secondary fermentor in my cool basement to give it some time to mature. Olavi Viheroja feels that two and a half to three weeks from brew day is when the beer should be ready, so that's what I went with. Of course, I couldn't help but taste it early. 

How did it turn out? My tasting notes are after my recipe for five gallons:

Grains:
10lbs Weyermann Pilsner

3.5lbs Weyermann Light Munich

1.5lbs Kaljamallas (see above)

Hops:
None

Extras:
0.2oz Crushed Juniper Berries

Total Boil Time:
None

Yeast:
Propagate Lab MIP-342 - Kveik Hornindal

Mash Schedule:

8:17am: Acid Rest: 95F(35C) for 60min

9:21am: Beta Glucan Rest: 113F(45C) for 60min

10:26am: Protein Rest: 131F(55C) for 25min

10:57am: Beta Saccharification Rest: 145F(63C) for 60min

12:03pm: Alpha Saccharification Rest: 158F(70C) for 60min

1:11pm: Mashout: 176F(80C) for 60min
2:11pm: Mash Complete

Original Gravity:
1.084
Final Gravity:
1.021

ABV:

8.1%

Fermentation Schedule:
3 Days Primary
15-18 Days Secondary

Tasting Day

I'd only had three Sahtis before brewing mine. From Finland came Arctic Circle Ale from the Malmgårdin Panimo brewery and the Nøgne Ø Sahti. I drank both way back in 2009 (thank you Beer Advocate for keeping my review history). The third was by a local homebrewer. That's not a whole lot to go off of when you're trying to decide if you nailed the style points. With that in mind, here's how I feel things came out. 

Sahti is traditionally served uncarbonated, so I stuck with that tradition and bottled mine without adding any priming sugar or CO2. Despite the lack of fizz, my beer has a relatively dense body, with a lot of residual dextrins. There's obviously no head or lace to speak of. 

Moving on to the aroma, you can really smell the juniper. It's a difficult aroma for me to define, but I sensed a lot of pine, a little bit of orange peel, plus a light dose of caraway likely attributable to the rye. If you like Gin, this aroma profile should be right up your alley.

In the mouth, the beer is only slightly sweet. If you imagine a loaf of rustic rye bread, you won't be too far off. The juniper kicks in right away, and carries with it the pine from the nose. There's also a twig-like flavor that I can't quite find proper descriptive words for. Although the ABV is only a shade over 8%, there is a little alcohol heat at work late that rounds out the experience. 

As a final note, I definitely feel that Sahti tastes best when served at cellar temperatures. Straight out of the refrigerator, I found that the flavors got squelched by the extra chill. Sahti is a very different animal from a light lager, and benefits from a bit of warming up before drinking. 

Conclusion

Whether I hit the style points or not, I'm quite pleased with my creation. 

While Sahti isn't a beer I think I'd put into a regular rotation, the experience of brewing it really opened me up to new ideas about what beer can be. The unique ingredients, leisurely mash and fascinating finished product make this a style worthy of brewing again.