brewers pitch home made?

[losthelm]

how would I go about making some in a period manner for use in today's world?

[William Verge]

What period?

[losthelm]

pre 1600 northern europe.

[Alcyoneus]

Is this to line leather drinking vessels, etc?

[losthelm]

uppers.

found only one site that stocks brewers pitch and wondered about making my own.

plaining to make one for compitition and several for friends.

maybe a few others for sale depends on how much I like sewing leather.

[Kel Rekuta]

uppers.

found only one site that stocks brewers pitch and wondered about making my own.

plaining to make one for compitition and several for friends.

maybe a few others for sale depends on how much I like sewing leather.

That's a new one on me. Could you share the resource that suggests uppers would be lined with brewer's pitch? I've heard of "blacking" uppers but that is more a wax, tallow and soot blend. Cobbler's pitch wax is a very dark, tarry substance hot rubbed on linen thread to help it with thread tension and proofing the thread holes. I can sell you a 1oz ball for $6 CAD. Different stuff from brewer's pitch.

I've recently bought a pail of JAS Townsend's brewer's pitch. The light colour might be a product of modern extraction methods. It might be due to the variety of pitch pine available in the US. As I've seen nothing other than descriptions of period pitch being black or very dark, I hesitate to claim modern brewer's pitch is the "right" stuff.

That said, I really like the stuff and feel perfectly safe using it in my drinking vessels. I can't imagine putting it in or on shoe uppers. YMMV.

[losthelm]

actualy a drinking mugs and bottles are exactly what I had in mind.

uppers was a slip of the tounge

what weight or volume did you get form townsend?

as far as I can tell they are the only ones on the net that stock the stuff.

[Kel Rekuta]

actualy a drinking mugs and bottles are exactly what I had in mind.

uppers was a slip of the tounge

what weight or volume did you get form townsend?

as far as I can tell they are the only ones on the net that stock the stuff.

I bought a five gallon pail which contains about 45 lbs. JAS Townsend is the only vendor of this product that I am aware of. Great folks to deal with!

There used to be a black wax or pitch based product available from Strahl and Pitsch (sp?) a very long time ago. I saw an empty bag of it at the cordwainer shop at the Royal Armouries. I tried to contact the company but they had discontinued the product years ago. I have a tiny sample of it. It isn't the same as cobbler's pitch BTW. Back to square one on that, I'm afraid.

[losthelm]

can it be made at home?

if so how?
I live in a rural area with lots of pine trees

if I understans it right just heating the sap from the trees and letting the turpintine cook off is all ther is to it. then probily pouring it out on a surface to cool break it up and package it for latter use.


failing that I guess purchasing it from townsend is the only other option.

[Kel Rekuta]

can it be made at home?

if so how?
I live in a rural area with lots of pine trees

if I understans it right just heating the sap from the trees and letting the turpintine cook off is all ther is to it. then probily pouring it out on a surface to cool break it up and package it for latter use.

failing that I guess purchasing it from townsend is the only other option.

Check out the library for the Foxfire series of "plain living" books from the seventies. Book# 4, pg252 "Making Tar" describes the process of extracting this product from "fat pine" for use as a sealant and lubricant around the farm. Just boiling down the sap would be a very time and fuel intensive process by comparison.

It is probably a lot more trouble than giving your credit card number to JAS Townsend to get a couple pounds.

Someday, I'd like to learn more about the historic product and its production method, but I'm willing to settle for this version because I know it is food grade. I suspect the product is refined for use in candies and baking applications. Not sure, but might be the same stuff a restaurant chain in Kentucky or Tennessee boils their trademark baked potatoes in.

If you want to discuss your bottel, jack or costrel project with me privately, I'd be very happy to trade notes. (after the Holidays, please)

Cheers!

[Thomas Powers]

The pitches used to line wine skins made the 'traditional" way in Spain and Greece, smell and taste of the pine tars they are made from---may take a decade or two to tone it down for use by folks without the liking for tarry wine...

I believe that modern "brewer's pitch" is an artificial item made to be food safe and so not producable starting with the traditional pine tar base.

Thomas

[Kel Rekuta]

The pitches used to line wine skins made the 'traditional" way in Spain and Greece, smell and taste of the pine tars they are made from---may take a decade or two to tone it down for use by folks without the liking for tarry wine...

I believe that modern "brewer's pitch" is an artificial item made to be food safe and so not producable starting with the traditional pine tar base.

Thomas

You might be thinking of the acrylic stuff Tandy sells. What I'm discussing is actually a refined vegetable resin. It has no smell or taste, presumably due to refinement. I also suspect that the source of this resin is a very different pine variety than the pitch pines of Europe.

Either that or JAS Townsend is deliberately misleading the public. I am unwilling to believe that. Like I said, more research is required before a useful answer is found. YMMV.

[losthelm]

as I spend my summers out at a summer camp
so leaving a metal pail or enaml pot full of the stuff on the fire would not be much of a problem.

I would think that the process would be very close to purifiing maple sugar.

will look in to the fox fire books common enuff to find throught interlibrary lone.

as far as having help is concerned I found this guy localy

http://www.geocities.com/trekkertim/WillShaw.html

he loves to teach and talk shop with anyone.

tryed some from one of his bottles still has a bit of a pine taste and purchases teh brewers pitch from townsend cuts the pitch with bees wax and helps out the flavor quite a bit about 3wax to 1 pitch is what he was using costome pieces can very from 100% wax to 100%pitch.

the wax leaves the bottle pliable cutting it with pitch makes it harder.

if done with straight pitch and there is a leak at some point it trying to patch the bottle with beas wax will not work for some reason it does not bond with the pitch layer and will flake off.

when using the mixture the wax bonds readily so repairs can be done by a novice with a little pacience.

[Kel Rekuta]

He's great! I must trip down and see him. It only a couple hours away.

As to the beeswax, I find it strongly conflicts both in taste and smell with my fine bitter ales. In addition, it has a low melting point. Combining beeswax with brewer's pitch requires a higher temperature than just melting wax and adding it to a pitched vessel.

I am quite surprised that you found the pitch "resiny" smelling and tasting. Both the recent and older batchs I've used are entirely without taste or smell IMO. Being a brewer, I can claim a fairly tuned sense of both. Oh, well, YMMV. I'll have to check it out when I visit him.

Thanks for the pointer to this fellow.

[losthelm]

if you want to try and get intuch with him and see if he is going to baronial investature next weekend.

will be the most royalty I have sceen at an aethealmearc event in quite a while.

5 sets from several kingdoms.

if you know any one in the hael you can probibly get a place to crash for the night and drink with the best of them the night before.

[Kel Rekuta]

if you want to try and get intuch with him and see if he is going to baronial investature next weekend.

will be the most royalty I have sceen at an aethealmearc event in quite a while.

5 sets from several kingdoms.

if you know any one in the hael you can probibly get a place to crash for the night and drink with the best of them the night before.

Thanks for the offer. I just had my annual SCA event last month.

I kinda thought I'd just make an appointment to visit him in the summer when I have more time to travel.

Cheers!