Sahti-national drink of Finns

[gerlan71]

Anyone tasted Sahti? (I guess it could be pronounced Sah tea)

Ain't no better drink, the original beer, missing link between Mesopotamian proto beers and modern ones, the drink beer guru Michael Jackson served at his birthday party.. The drink Kalevala heroes drank..

Sahti

Description:
Said to be one of the only primitive beers to survive in Western Europe, Sahti is a farmhouse ale with roots in Finland. First brewed by peasants in the 1500s, mashing (steeping of grains) went down in wooden barrels, and then that mash would be scooped into a hand-carved wooden trough (a kuurna) with a bed of juniper twigs that acted as a filter. The bung at the bottom of the kuurna would be pulled to allow the sweet wort (liquid infusion from the mash) to pass through the twig filter, followed by wort recirculation and a hot water sparge (rinsing of the grains), all of which created a juniper infusion of sorts.

Sahti is also referred to as being turbid, because the wort isn’t boiled after lautering (separation of spent grain and liquid), leaving loads of proteins behind, thus providing tremendous body. A low-flocculating Finnish baker’s yeast creates a cloudy unfiltered beer, with an abundance of sediment. Traditional Sahti is not typically hopped, so the task of balancing is left up to the juniper twigs, which impart an unusual resiny character and also act as a preservative. Some have compared Sahtis to German Hefeweizens, though we find them to be more akin to the Lambics of Belgium due to the exposure to wild yeast and bacteria, and its signature tartness.

beeradvocate.com/beer/style/148
more:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahti
www.brewingtechniques.com/library/styles/6_4style.html
www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000861.html

and some instructions for seasoned home brewers:

distantmirror.wordpress.com/2010/03/09/brewing-a-viking-era-ale/

www.posbeer.org/oppaat/sahti/equipment.php


northernbrewer.blogspot.com/2010/01/ahh.html
Kippis!

[Nordis]

i've tasted a few kinds, one home-made and two or three commercial brands. I don't know how how the guy makes his sahti, but it had a pretty nice juniper flavour so I suppose he filters it through the twigs or then he just adds some juniper to the mix. The commercial ones don't have any of that taste and very little if any hops, so they taste pretty sweet without any bitterness. Sahti is nice, but I really can't drink too many pints of it in a row

[nightwica]

Oh, now I understand the half of the Turisas song title, Sahti Waari.. But whats Waari ?

[Nordis]

Jan 31, 2011 16:01:56 GMT 2 nightwica said:

Oh, now I understand the half of the Turisas song title, Sahti Waari.. But whats Waari ?

Waari -> vaari -> old man, grandfather. "W" was often used in the place of "V" in the old written finnish For example, "Ukon wacka" is "Ukon vakka" in modern finnish.