Chapter 22

The Roast

The cabin was silent as I sat on my bed. The storm was passing, though the cabin was still buried. Burning wood crackled in the stove.

After absorbing my level 3 brewer’s skill book, an entire world of new information was mine and I had a quest to complete. Before I started, I had another mug of Honey Wick’s Brown Ale. Though I intended to leave some to share with Thrush, I couldn’t help but almost finish the beer, leaving the yeasty sediment at the bottom. The bottle was only so big after all.

Paying attention to the flavor profile, I set out to recreate it. The part that was going to be tricky was the roasted flavors and brown color. The only thing I could think to do, based on my leveling knowledge, was to roast some of the grains on the stove. Instead of brewing a gallon, I opted to brew a quarter of that and simply fill the small bottle. Had I more ingredients, I would experiment more freely.

Enough of my highest quality ingredient (Greater Poor Man’s Cracked Barley Grains) was divided into two smaller piles. One was left aside. The other spent some time in the empty cast iron pan on the stove.

Roasting malts was a delicate process, and stirring was important to be sure the grains didn’t burn. In half an hour, I had almost chocolate colored grains. Those I set aside and went on with the brewing process. I was happy with the results. The roasted malt had bled its color and aroma beautifully with the un-roasted malt. It might have been a little darker then the Henry Wicks Brown Ale, but it wasn’t too far off.

After straining the wort from the mash, and the beer cooled sufficiently, I ran into a problem. The only yeast I had left was the Greater Poor Man’s Blue Brewer’s Yeast. On the table, the bottle of Henry Wick’s Brown Ale was ready to be filled and pitched with yeast. Firelight danced in the amber of the glass while I stared at it and thought.

The glass was a bit melted which I found beautiful. Someone worked hard to blow glass and their handiwork deserved to be admired. I wonder if the brewery employed their own glass blower to produce their beers. I wondered if I could do the same at some point. The thought made me curious to inspect the bottle more closely.

With hop-sticky hands, the bottle slipped out of its leather sleeve after a brief tug. When it came off, I accidentally spilled a drop of the yeasty sediment. It splashed upon my boot and I wiped it off with my thumb. The momentum of my curiosity had me tasting the sediment from my thumb.

Whew—that is yeasty. Bready, almost. Why don’t I just pour my brewed wort right in the bottle with the original yeast?

I chuckled softly to myself until it hit me that it was worth a try. I could always try again and use the blue brewer’s yeast I had if this didn’t work.

I filled the bottle with haste and gently propped the cork on the neck of the bottle, making sure to leave an air gap for gasses to escape. After setting the beer a few feet from the stove, all I had to do was wait a few days.

Dinner was a lot easier than brewing. Less time consuming. I had a simple bowl of onion soup, opting to caramelize more of the onions in celebration of kicking off my first clone brew involving roasting. The onion soup was a perfect food to mask how bad some of my first brews were, and I had to drink them eventually. After dinner, I finished one of my earlier beers while I tidied up.

The next day, I decided to experiment with some more brewing while the snow began to melt faster. I couldn’t feel it getting any warmer, but at the rate that the snow was melting, it seemed as if I’d be seeing a warm spell settle in these woods for a bit.

I hope the warm spell makes traveling easier for Thrush.

It was a shame I didn’t have any more barrels to store fresh water from the snow. I had a steel firkin, which ended up holding almost 4 gallons. Even if I had barrels, firkins, and gourds to store snow water, I didn’t have that much space to house everything. At the rate that I wanted to brew beer, it was going to quickly become a problem. At least I knew it would snow a lot more so I didn’t have to worry about a fresh water source until summer. For now, my firkin would have to do.

Might as well put it to good use!

All I wanted to do was brew beer, so I set to brewing a large batch. With only a couple of pots, it took an entire day to finish brewing enough to fill the firkin.

I used the last of my grains, and half of my oats. Everything was roasted until nice and dark. One of the batches was almost burnt but I shrugged and brewed on.

The wort was quite dark. Dark brown. One of the darkest brews I’d ever seen. The oats added an enticing and silky aroma. It all went into the firkin and I pitched the 4 gallon brew with the blue brewer’s yeast I had left. The bung hole was fitted with a small wood marble I carved in a rough shape to let out the building gasses as it fermented.

At least that’s nearly four gallons of snow water stored up. And another beer too. I can’t wait till that one’s done fermenting. With the size of it, This whole cabin is going to fill up with blue vapors and smoke until I feel like I’m underwater.

Wouldn’t that be something to share with Thrush? I wonder if he’d enjoy these new beers that are coming along. I wonder what he’s done with the beer I gave him. I sighed. It’s going to be quite a long time until I see him again, that’s for sure. With a journey like that—finding metal—it’ll be a while.

In the meantime, the next few days were occupied by the sound of dripping snow. The walls of my cabin were swelling and the structure groaned and creaked endlessly. The entire cabin was filled with blue smoke, although it was clear enough to navigate comfortably. My makeshift corks were knocked off every once in a while and I had to crawl around to chase them all.

When I had decided to eat some squash, I sacrificed some to craft 5 new gourds. I carved some makeshift wooden plugs for corks for those and ended up storing snow water in them.

The experience was enough to raise my Gourd Blower skill level to level 2. The level up rewarded me with an innate understanding on how to be more efficient at gourd blowing. I was able to enlarge new gourds twice their size now and ended up crafting 5 more 2 gallon size gourds. Those I filled with snow water.