# T'alle - Ethiopian Beer version 2



## BernardSmith (Jun 2, 2015)

I made a batch of t'alle in the winter that involved a great deal of work - since I used sorghum and teff and malted them myself by baking the flour into bread and then adding the bread to boiling water into which I had dumped some (professionally) malted barley grain. Ninkasi might have been proud of me..or not. But this batch is going to be very different. I have 4 lbs of DME and about 1 lb of duket (the powdered form of the gesho leaves) and I am simply going to make a gallon soup from the duket which I plan on boiling for about 15 minutes and then add the soup to the DME and then pour that mix into a carboy filled with 2 gallons of very cold water. Will use SO-5 yeast and hopefully prime and bottle June 23 and crack open around July 21.


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## wineforfun (Jun 2, 2015)

BernardSmith said:


> I made a batch of t'alle in the winter that involved a great deal of work - since I used sorghum and teff and malted them myself by baking the flour into bread and then adding the bread to boiling water into which I had dumped some (professionally) malted barley grain. Ninkasi might have been proud of me..or not. But this batch is going to be very different. I have 4 lbs of DME and about 1 lb of duket (the powdered form of the gesho leaves) and I am simply going to make a gallon soup from the duket which I plan on boiling for about 15 minutes and then add the soup to the DME and then pour that mix into a carboy filled with 2 gallons of very cold water. Will use SO-5 yeast and hopefully prime and bottle June 23 and crack open around July 21.



How did you like the first batch you made?

I have a recipe from the interweb, just haven't tried it yet.


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## BernardSmith (Jun 2, 2015)

I made only one gallon and wished I had made a larger batch. But I like unconventional beers - I make fra'och (a beer that uses heather as the bittering hop) and gruit (a beer that uses herbs like yarrow and mugwart). Would you be willing to share your recipe?


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## BernardSmith (Jun 2, 2015)

In the end I pitched Nottingham yeast


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## wineforfun (Jun 3, 2015)

BernardSmith said:


> I made only one gallon and wished I had made a larger batch. But I like unconventional beers - I make fra'och (a beer that uses heather as the bittering hop) and gruit (a beer that uses herbs like yarrow and mugwart). Would you be willing to share your recipe?



Here are a couple sites I have looked at. One is text and one is his video.
http://www.pitt.edu/~kloman/tej.html#making 
[ame]https://vimeo.com/8841819[/ame] 

I am not a beer guy but Tej reminds me more of a mead. Would that be correct in how yours tasted?


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## BernardSmith (Jun 3, 2015)

T'ej is a mead. I make small batches (a gallon at a time) a couple of times a year. Getting ready to make a new batch either tonight or Sunday. Harry Kloman is a good guy. 
T'alle is a beer. Unlike modern western beers it does not use hops to balance the sweetness of the malt but, like t'ej, uses gesho. I have seen some recipes for t'alle (the beer) that suggests the addition of honey (so it would be a kind of braggot), but two recipes I got from Harry Kloman do not refer to the use of honey at all. And the batch of t'alle I just started uses only barley malt and not teff or sorghum or wheat. Harry Kolman's recipes call for about 3 lbs (sic) of duket (the powdered leaves of gesho) or about 1.5 lbs of kitel (the leaves) and the same qty of duket per gallon but I used only a heavy pound (about 1.1 lbs of duket... so I will see how this is likely to taste in about 3 weeks when I prime and bottle the t'alle. 

T'ej uses both the twigs and leaves of gesho (at least my recipe does) whereas t'alle uses only the leaves (This, according to Harry Kloman). HK's video suggests you make the t'ej using bacteria or yeast that are on the gesho twigs (inchet ) but when I make t'ej I use commercial wine yeast and I treat the mead very much like I would treat any other mead - so I while I will stir it during the days of active fermentation once the gravity has dropped close to 1.005 I rack to an airtight carboy. I also add nutrient to the must with the yeast. What you can do is use a cup or so of the t'ej from one bottle as the starter for a second batch which makes it a bit closer to the traditional method of making t'ej. You might also want to allow the t'ej to age a little longer than t'ej is traditionally aged if you want the wine to be bright and clear - and the bottles free from any sediment. 

Last point, There is a winery in the Finger Lakes here in NY that makes t'ej (Montezuma Winery, I think it is called) and they make a very drinkable t'ej.


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## wineforfun (Jun 3, 2015)

I gotcha, thanks.
May give that Tej a try in a couple of months.

Knee deep in my new coffee roasting venture at the moment.


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## wineforfun (Jun 3, 2015)

BernardSmith said:


> T'ej is a mead. I make small batches (a gallon at a time) a couple of times a year. Getting ready to make a new batch either tonight or Sunday. Harry Kloman is a good guy.
> T'alle is a beer. Unlike modern western beers it does not use hops to balance the sweetness of the malt but, like t'ej, uses gesho. I have seen some recipes for t'alle (the beer) that suggests the addition of honey (so it would be a kind of braggot), but two recipes I got from Harry Kloman do not refer to the use of honey at all. And the batch of t'alle I just started uses only barley malt and not teff or sorghum or wheat. Harry Kolman's recipes call for about 3 lbs (sic) of duket (the powdered leaves of gesho) or about 1.5 lbs of kitel (the leaves) and the same qty of duket per gallon but I used only a heavy pound (about 1.1 lbs of duket... so I will see how this is likely to taste in about 3 weeks when I prime and bottle the t'alle.
> 
> T'ej uses both the twigs and leaves of gesho (at least my recipe does) whereas t'alle uses only the leaves (This, according to Harry Kloman). HK's video suggests you make the t'ej using bacteria or yeast that are on the gesho twigs (inchet ) but when I make t'ej I use commercial wine yeast and I treat the mead very much like I would treat any other mead - so I while I will stir it during the days of active fermentation once the gravity has dropped close to 1.005 I rack to an airtight carboy. I also add nutrient to the must with the yeast. What you can do is use a cup or so of the t'ej from one bottle as the starter for a second batch which makes it a bit closer to the traditional method of making t'ej. You might also want to allow the t'ej to age a little longer than t'ej is traditionally aged if you want the wine to be bright and clear - and the bottles free from any sediment.
> ...



No kmeta along the way or before bottling?


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## BernardSmith (Jun 3, 2015)

I don't add K-meta to honey musts and I guess I don't add K-meta to one gallon batches of wine* unless* I am back sweetening and so stabilizing with K-meta and K-sorbate (although perhaps I should)- what I do is I liberally sanitize bottles and bottling buckets with K-meta and don't take pains to dry them out so there is a little high strength K-meta in the bucket and in each bottle. I would add K-meta, though, when I rack the second time after about 2 months


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## wineforfun (Jun 3, 2015)

Ok.
I always add it whether it be 1,2, 3, etc. gallons, usually in the primary but not always. If not, then at ever other racking, if doing 30 day racking, or every 90 on longer aging/racking.


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