Stone Boil

 Stone Brewing is an ancient form of brewing that is still practiced in some parts of Scandinavia.  It likely predates metalworking, as it provides a means of heating water without placing the water over the fire.  Putting a pot of water over a heat source is one of the most efficient ways to heat water for brewing, but it doesn't work if your only water containers are made of wood.  Instead, one heats stones in the fire and then places the stones in water.  The water never actually boils, but you don't need to boil water--quite--to brew with it.

Unfortunately, this brew did not go well for me; the beer became infected and was undrinkable.  Another attempt is coming soon!

GRAIN:  10# 2-row

GRUIT: Juniper Branch (approximately 3' of stem with berries and needles intact)

YEAST: 

WATER: 30 quarts

PROCESS:

1. Clean and sanitize EVERYTHING.  This is particularly challenging to maintain while working with firewood, but particularly important as nothing ever boils in this process.
2. Start a fire approximately 3 hours before you plan to begin heating water.  I recommend kiln-dried hardwoods (we used oak) as you will need a good bed of hot coals.  Once the fire is going well, add several rocks (fist-sized or larger) and give them time to heat up.
3. Add heated rocks to water to raise it to strike temperature (~160 F).  We found that one pound of rock heated one gallon of water by 20 degrees.
4. Add heated water to grain.
5. Add juniper branch and start 60-minute countdown timer.
6. Continue adding hot rocks to keep temperature ~150 F for 1 hour.
7. Strain the wort (it is definitely worthwhile to use a heavy-duty strainer insert, such as for seafood boils, inside your wort container; adding gruit and rocks into this strainer makes them easy to remove).  
8. Cool to 65 F.
9. Check initial gravity.
10. Pitch yeast, ferment 2+ weeks.
11. Check final gravity, calculate %ABV.
12. Keg, pressurize to 10 PSI.
13. Share and Enjoy!