Comments on: Watermelon Wheat Recipe

By: Out Of Key Brewing » Blog Archive » Watermelon Wheat Followup

Out Of Key Brewing » Blog Archive » Watermelon Wheat Followup — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:37:41 +0000

[...] my original post on brewing a watermelon wheat, I have brewed the recipe several more times. What I have found is that the most important aspect [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 01:19:35 +0000

Campden has been know to retard yeast activity, so I’m not sure I would go that route. While contamination is possible when adding unpasteurized fruit there a couple things working against it.

1. Freezing the watermelon knocks the bacteria load down to virtually nothing.
2. Fermented beer is a pretty inhospitable environment for bacteria. By the time you are adding the watermelon the beer’s PH has dropped significantly and it is full of alcohol. Two things that bacteria are not crazy about.
3. Last, this is not a beer that is going to be aged. This is a beer that you will drink within a couple months (six months tops probably). Any strong brett based flavors take months to develop. In the off chance that contamination does occur, by the time those flavors are developing, this keg is going to be blowing CO2.

Just be sure to pitch the proper amount of yeast (erring on the side of too much), practice good sanitation, and drink it quickly.

Perhaps its just me, but Id say just don’t worry about it and brew just the beer. Ive brew over 40 gallons of this stuff over 4 distinct batches and have never had an issue with contamination.

Hope that helps.

If the beer was going to be contaminated it probably would have occured

By: Cody

Cody — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 18:46:38 +0000

Brian –

Any worries or problems with contamination from adding “unsanitized” watermelon into the fermenter? Have you thought about using Campden to sanitize the fruit?

Thanks….

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:16:02 +0000

I think that you would be surprised how easy it is to brew with real watermelon. It takes about 15 minutes to prepare the watermelon for freezing and the flavor you get is great.

I just re-brewed this recipe two weeks ago, and thus far the flavors are amazing.

By: Ales to Lagers

Ales to Lagers — Tue, 25 May 2010 22:14:27 +0000

I am thinking about making one but using the extract instead…hopefully it doesn’t give a medicine like flavor

By: Out Of Key Brewing » Blog Archive » Watermelon Wit

Out Of Key Brewing » Blog Archive » Watermelon Wit — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:47:11 +0000

[...] year I brewed up a watermelon wheat beer which turned out great. Being who I am, I cant leave well enough alone (well that plus I [...]

By: Todd

Todd — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:00:19 +0000

Cheers, Brian. I ended up hitting the chunks in the blender and then strained it through a fine strainer to get roughly 3 cups of “juice” into 5 gallons (that amount was based on some other recipes I’ve run across). This was about 1/3 of a reasonably sized melon. I went ahead with blending for two reasons – ease of insertion into the carboy and freezing/thawing time (which I usually do with fruit for beer, it’s just that I was in a bit of a rush to get this beer done and carbed for a party). I put in the juice once the yeast dropped and left it for about 4 days before kegging. There was some additional fermentation of the juice but not much from what I could tell. The beer is still carbing but on first taste it is a nice subtle watermelon flavor (somewhat Jolly Rancher-y to my surprise) that hits right in the middle and lingers slightly to the end. I think it’s probably the right amount and would expect that the flavors will meld a little with time. I might make another batch with a little more juice depending on how it ultimately finishes. Thanks for your advice!

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:33:53 +0000

Todd – You can probably count on another week to ten days of fermentation. I think that amount of time allow most of the sugars to ferment out plus for the beer to build on the watermelon aroma.

Regarding puree vs chunks. I think that pureeing it is probably not going to be necessary. Once you freeze and thaw the stuff the resulting fruit is pretty much a liquid. If anything take a sanitized potato masher to the melon once you have it carved out in a large bowl. The resulting mix will be anything but chunks. One other thing to consider is if you decide to puree it you will need to seed the entire thing. Trust me there will be plenty of watermelon flavor/aroma without pureeing it.

Thanks for reading! Its nice to know that I am not the only one reading it. Let me know how it turns out.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:06:50 +0000

Nice work on the recipe. How long was the extra fermentation due to the watermelon? I was thinking of pureeing the watermelon versus the chunks. Thanks for the blog, enjoy your posts.