kalsarikänni

A journey in brewing a nearly-authentic Finnish sahti in the Seattle area.

Background

Ever since I began homebrewing, I wanted to connect with my Finnish heritage and make sahti — as authentically as possible, with the ingredients and equipment available to me. This is perhaps the oldest style of beer still made in the world today, and it is very difficult to find outside of Finland.

Mika Laitinen and Lars Marius Garshol have both written extensively about sahti, its history and brewing techniques, so I will try not to repeat too much of what has already been written and focus mostly on my own experience.

Sahti is unique as a style of beer, both by process and ingredients. The grain is usually mashed for over 5 hours, instead of the 30-60 minutes typical of modern brews. Mash temperature is raised slowly from 100F to 170F during this time, so effectively this is just an insanely long step mash. Sahti is also a raw or “no-boil” beer, which means that the proteins and polyphenols that are usually removed through hot break are preserved. This creates a fuller, more nourishing mouthfeel, but also a shorter shelf-life, as the beer is never fully pasteurized.

No hops are added either, so the grain itself takes center-stage in the final flavor profile — with more of a rustic, “raw grain” character than boiled beers. Traditionally, the mash is lautered through juniper branches, which lend some bitterness to balance out the sweet malt character. And finally, sahti is usually fermented with cubes of fresh baker’s yeast which provide some fruity, banana flavors and aroma. Before fermentation is complete, the beer is moved and kept in cold storage, served still with almost no carbonation, and drank while it is fresh — within a few weeks.

In other words: it’s different from every other beer I’ve ever had, in almost every way imaginable.

Authenticity on a spectrum

This being my first attempt, I decided not to get hung up on making a 100% perfectly authentic sahti. I didn’t want that to get in the way of me actually brewing the damn beer within my lifetime. I’ve also never found sahti at a brewery or in bottles here in the United States, so it would be impossible for me to hit a target with any assured sense of what it should taste like. For me, the main point of brewing sahti was to connect with my cultural background — my ancestors traditions — and to make something I hoped would be incredibly different from anything I’ve made before. Getting it even 80% right would feel like a triumph.

There were several key ingredients that would be very difficult for me to find here in the United States:

• Sahtimallas (a special blend of base malts for making sahti)
• Kaljamallas (a dark toasted rye malt)
• Juniper branches (juniperus communis or juniperus scopulorum)
• Suomen Hiiva baker’s yeast

I needed to figure out which items were going to be worth going after, and which to leave for another attempt in the future.

I was able to get Viking Sahti malt and Tuoppi Kaljamallas online (through MoreBeer and Suomikauppa), though I paid a fair amount on shipping. The Finnish baker’s yeast proved impossible for me to find, so instead I decided to split my batch into three different fermenters and test out a variety of brewing yeasts in its place. See which one I liked best.

For the juniper branches, ultimately I couldn’t find any juniper on public land where it was acceptable for me to forage. So I decided to purchase my own juniper tree from a local nursery and plant it in my backyard! If I ended up liking sahti, I’d have enough juniper for years to come. If I didn’t… well, at least I replanted a tree.

On the equipment side, ideally I would use a kuurna, which is a wooden lauter tun traditionally lined with straw and juniper branches to create a false bottom. But my brewing system is an Anvil Foundry 6.5-gal electric kettle, which limits my sparging abilities.

I considered putting a bunch of juniper branches in the deadspace between my malt pipe and the outlet valve, but I worried this would interfere too much with temperature control during the mash. So instead, I decided to follow some other Nordic traditions and create a juniper infusion for my strike water instead. The juniper could be removed during the mash, but I would retain some of its bitterness and aroma.

Then there was the question of the long mash time. My experience with “modern brewing techniques” tells me that mashing longer than 60 minutes shouldn’t have a noticeable impact on extract efficiency. What would a 5-hour mash really do to the beer? But a day spent brewing is a day I enjoy, so… why not? More opportunity to sit back, relax, and have a homebrew!

Brew Day’s Eve

One of my close friends recently got me into Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. One of the essays within talks about the concept of “The Honorable Harvest,” which outlines a covenant between earth and humans. Principles that guide us to respect and honor the land we gain sustenance from, that if written down, might look like this:

• Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. 
• Take only what you need and leave some for others.
• Use everything that you take.
• Share it, as the Earth has shared with you. 

This was on my mind as I stepped into the backyard and kneeled before the juniper tree I had planted the week before. The last thing I wanted to do was harm this tree I had put so much care into introducing to its new environment. Carefully, I trimmed a few of the lower branches, as well as a tree sucker I found near the base. I said thank you and returned to my garage to start preparing for tomorrow’s brew day.

I measured my strike water into the Foundry kettle, and heated the water to 170F. I then cut 100g of juniper branches to size, so they would just fit inside the kettle, and steeped them in the hot water for 3 hours.

The water transformed into a deep-amber liquid that smelled incredible. I was expecting it to smell very piney like Christmas, but the aroma was sweeter, like a candy I could only barely remember from childhood. Tasting the juniper-infused water, there was a sharp woody bitterness that lingered on my tongue like black tea.

I’m really not a morning person, but on this particular night, I was actually excited to wake up at 6am.