I am going to do another experimental small batch now that my sourdough one is done but I need some information before proceeding. How much wheat can you use in a recipe and do you need a percentage of malted barley? What would you use for bittering a beer if you couldn’t use hops?
You need enzymes. so either malted barley or malted wheat.
I just did a beer with 100% malted wheat and no hops just heather tips. it was nice. one bottle left. took 1 lb or heather tips to get enough flavor and bittering in there but it worked out in the end. mash stuck something fierce though. luckily when batch sparging you just stir it up real good and start over.
And while I’ve never done this, I’ve read where dried nettles have been used instead of hops.
I don’t know why anyone would want a beer without hops, but there is a whole list of herbs that could potentially be used for bitterness in Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher. They won’t necessarily share hops’ preservative qualities, however.
There is a commercially produced heather beer that uses no hops. The heather supposedly provides bittering.
I have not tried it in years, as I found it to be nasty. But I think they still make it, so someone must be buying it.
hops are a pretty recent addition to brewing, lot’s of other herbs have been used and many of them have the same preservative qualities of hops. The book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers by Stephen Harrod Buhner is a great resource for ideas for non ‘traditional’ brewing ingredients (although many of these ingredients have a much longer and older history than the ‘traditional’ ones)
If you are interested in non-hop bittering, I would definitely suggest reading up on Gruit. Gruit - Wikipedia as a starting place.
As Morticai points out, hops is the new comer in beer.
And I’d suggest trying to find a commercial non hop beer before you brew one. You just might not like it.
I think the recommendation is to keep the DP (diastasic power?) over 50 for mashing. As an example, 6-row barley has a DP of ~150, IIRC, while unmalted wheat has a DP of 0. Therefore, a mix of 1 part 6-row and 2 parts unmalted wheat would have the minimum DP of 50 for mashing.
I was under the impression that in America, “beer” MUST contain hops. I say this because a local nano does make a beer with nettles, but they ahve to put about 1/2 ounce of hops in or they call it “beer.”
(at least that’s what the brewer told me)
They were wrong
[quote]As indicated above, the definition of a “beer” under the IRC differs from the
definition of a “malt beverage” under the FAA Act in several significant respects. First,
the IRC does not require beer to be fermented from malted barley; instead, a beer may
be brewed or produced from malt or “from any substitute therefor.” Second, the IRC
does not require the use of hops in the production of beer.
[/quote]
I made a spruce beer using fresh tips in the spring. It turned out fine and left everyone guessing for a while what hope had been used. A little goes a long way, though!
From http://www.ttb.gov/rulings/2008-3.pdf
[/quote]
Thanks for posting that, it got me thinking about the sttement from the brewer. Looks like my state (Washington) defines beer a bit differently:
(26) “Malt beverage” or “malt liquor” means any beverage such as beer, ale, lager beer, stout, and porter obtained by the alcoholic fermentation of an infusion or decoction of pure hops, or pure extract of hops and pure barley malt or other wholesome grain or cereal in pure water containing not more than eight percent of alcohol by weight, and not less than one-half of one percent of alcohol by volume. For the purposes of this title, any such beverage containing more than eight percent of alcohol by weight shall be referred to as “strong beer.”
Looks like in Washington, “beer” must have hops. (at least if you want to sell it.)
So I am leaning towards trying spruce tips, any tips? 
I learned how to make spruce beer Pete Devaris, he gave a great talk on them at the NHC in Vegas - pick the fresh bright green tips in the spring, taste them to make sure they are good. He prefers Sitka spruce, the farther north the better (he’s from Alaska). Measure by volume not weight, the weight varies too much depending on how recently it rained. I’ve used a quart of tips in a 5 gallon batch and it had a clear spruce tip flavor (nice citrus-like quality - if it tastes piney you’re doing it wrong). I throw them directly in the boil for 60 minutes.
Wonder if you could bitter with citrus peels. Anyone?
The dry bitter orange at the HBS looks like whole peel. I’ve heard wit traditionally isn’t orangy because the peel mostly provides bitterness.
True dat. You could use regular orange peels for bittering. If you wanted to eliminate the potential for any orange flavor whatsoever you could use a good potato peeler to remove the rind and just use the pith for bittering.
I think bitter orange has more pectin than regular orange which would be beneficial if you want your beer to be cloudy too.
Thanks for all the useful info so far. I want to brew soon, so spruce is out of the question since it is winter (I think). Orange peel sounds like it may work. What I am going to do is try to brew a batch out of just common ingredients that I can get at the store or find. I am looking at Grape Nuts as a grain option because one of the ingredients in it is malted barley. I am still wondering about things like flax seed, wheat germ, and other kinds of cereals.
I’ve said it before. And It’s possible I will say it again… ovaltine!!! the plane flavour is just DME with a little anti clumping agent and maybe some kind of surfactant. perfect for making a grocery store brew.