# Traditional Ethiopian beer with a modern twist



## BernardSmith (Dec 30, 2014)

I have been doing some reading on a home brew made in Ethiopia called t'alla (spelling?). This beer is made using malting and mashing techniques that I imagine were used for thousands of years - basically, germinating grains, baking the grains into loaves, crumbling the loaves and boiling the pieces in water then adding the leaves (kitel) of the gesho plant as a kind of hop (the same leaves and stems (inchet) used in the making of t'ej an Ethiopian honey wine.

So last night I cooked 1 lb of teff (an Ethiopian grain that I have never cooked with before) in water and then added the cooked teff to 2 lbs of Maris Otter (2 row) barley. The idea here is that the enzymes from the malted barley will be sufficient to break down the starches in the teff (now "gelatized" after their cooking) and so provide me with fermentable sugars from both the barley and the teff. That is what happens in the mashing process. 

Mashed the grains for an hour at about 158 F and sparged at 170 F. I collected about 2 gallons of wort at a gravity of about 1.040 and then boiled for 60 minutes (after the hot break). After the hot break I added about 6 oz of crushed kitel. I poured the wort (now about 5 qts - the rest lost to evaporation) into a plastic fermenter and cooled this in an ice bath. When the temperature had dropped to about 60 F I measured the SG and it was 1.060. In wine that suggests an ABV of about 8% but not all sugars in grain are fermentable and I don't know what the final ABV will be.

Pitched SO-5 yeast (I am pretty sure that the home brewers use wild yeasts to ferment their t'alle but from the photos I have seen and the videos it looks like many folk brew this beer together and the rooms and areas in which they brew this beer may be awash with appropriate yeasts). 
The wort is very dark and cloudy with the kitel. The smell of the mash and then the wort with the kitel was mouth watering (so said my wife who does not like beer). My plan is to allow the beer to ferment about 1 week in the primary and then transfer to a glass carboy for the second week, then bottle and allow to condition for two weeks. I think t'alle is usually drunk within a week or so after the grains have been baked into loaves but also think that the process and yeast I am using (and the increased potential ABV) suggest a longer fermentation. I will provide an update on the progress (good or bad).


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## petey_c (Jan 1, 2015)

BernardSmith, wow that sounds great! Keep us informed. Pete


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## BernardSmith (Jan 1, 2015)

Quck update: my fermenter is a 2 gallon white plastic food grade bucket with an airlock, About five hours after I pitched the SO-5 the bubbler was active, and for the last couple of days it had been bubbling every 8 seconds or so (I don't use that metric for any purpose except my own entertainment) . This morning the water level in the S shaped airlock is pretty even on both sides suggesting that just about all the fermentable sugars are no longer with us. My plan is to leave the brew to quietly sit until until Sunday PM and then rack into a glass gallon carboy and allow the beer to (hopefully) clear over the following week or so.. My friend tells me that in his experience t'ella is not deliberately carbonated but it is typically bottled (cloudy) and drunk within three or four days of fermentation. I have never tasted t'ella before so I may carb half and bottle half without any priming sugar.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 5, 2015)

I racked the t'ella off the trub last night (about 2 inches) and into a gallon carboy. I thought I had made about 5 qts of the beer but I was able to transfer about 7 pints. To top this up I added a pint of another beer I had made and this morning I can see the t'alla beginning to clear (another 1/4 inch perhaps of trub ) and shifting from a greenish color to something more very dark copper.


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## sour_grapes (Jan 5, 2015)

Boy, Bernard, I admire your initiative and your experimenting! Good luck with the brews.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 6, 2015)

I mentioned the other day that I topped the carboy up with a bottle of a saison beer I had very recently brewed (made with pilsner and wheat) The sugars in the t'ella seemed to have all been fermented but the yeast in the saison - Belle Saison seems to be able to ferment some sugars that regular ale yeast cannot... Anyway, the carboy seems to have come back to life again and is busy fermenting away. My brewing room is at 64F


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## BernardSmith (Jan 13, 2015)

The T'alla is _still_ fermenting more than 2 weeks after I pitched the yeast. Don't plan on measuring the gravity until all action seems to cease. The ambient temperature in my brewing room is 64.


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## botigol (Jan 14, 2015)

Belle Saison and, especially, Wyeast 3711 are often described as 'monster attenuators'. I have had WY3711 hit 1.004 even using malt extract (malt extract tends to have more unfermentable sugars due to it's processing). Hopefully you don't end up with too much saison character. Do you still have a krausen?


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## BernardSmith (Jan 14, 2015)

No krausen and this was after I had racked the beer off the trub. I know that counting bubbles is meaningless but the airlock is bubbling about once every 30 seconds or so. 

I used the saison to top up the carboy (less than 10 percent of the volume) and I agree with you about that yeast (belle saison) . It is like a wine yeast on fruit. I don't think that it will give the beer too much saison character as a) the grains I used included teff and b) the bittering is coming from gesho leaves and not hops. So while the T'alla may be somewhat - um.. unique, I think it can still be called T'alla and not saison...


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## jswordy (Jan 14, 2015)

I have a friend who has a beer in secondary right now and he has had it there for 3 weeks and is still waiting for it to quit. Cold weather.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 14, 2015)

I think that that is what it is. I am deliberately keeping my "brewery" cool (at about 64F) - but on the same table I am also fermenting a mixed berry wine (with K1 V1116) and a t'ej (with a starter from a bottle of t'ej)


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## jswordy (Jan 15, 2015)

Could try a heating pad underneath on low. Or a brew belt. If you get antsy about it. 

Alternately, could possibly stop it with cold.

I'm very intrigued with this. Awaiting taste test.


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## BernardSmith (Jan 15, 2015)

jswordy said:


> Could try a heating pad underneath on low. Or a brew belt. If you get antsy about it.
> 
> Alternately, could possibly stop it with cold.
> 
> I'm very intrigued with this. Awaiting taste test.



I think I am OK with the length of time it has been fermenting. I plan on taking a gravity reading tonight.. I guess the yeast is able to get at the really long molecular sugars that other yeasts cannot get at or else I have some "lambic" type activity going on and the bacteria are chomping on those sugars... Will measure ... and taste...


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## BernardSmith (Jan 15, 2015)

measured the gravity this evening and it is a hair below 1.002. Needs to age a while... a few weeks...


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