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talkingmonkey · 08-01-2009, 04:46 AM

Feeling a little experimental. Anybody ever tried this? Wheat beer fermenting in watermelons and honeydew.

**Zen_Brew** · 08-01-2009, 04:55 AM

I really can't answer what increase you might have in the infection risk, but cudos for the originality. That is pretty cool looking.

You may become the expert on the infection risk of fermenting in fruit.

**Arneba28** · 08-01-2009, 04:56 AM

Um. Joke. Yes a infection risk. Very Strange if I say so myself. This will either be very cool or completely and totally horrid.
How did you clean out the inside of the watermellon and honeydew

talkingmonkey · 08-01-2009, 05:02 AM

Used a sanitized filet knife, cut, scraped, shook, dumped. Just wanted to see what happens, probably transfer in a week...if it makes it that long. Only $10 invested, just having some fun.

talkingmonkey · 08-02-2009, 03:55 AM

The yeast are doing their thing! There are a few leaks but the melon on the left is chugging right along!

Kaiser · 08-02-2009, 04:23 AM

That's f****ng ingenious. I love it. Looks like something I would try on a camping trip.

As for infection risk, the inside of the melon is pretty steril until you cut it. If it weren't so it would rot in the store. So it depends now well you were able to keep it that way when you gutted them.

I like the way it looks. Can you imagine an array of water melons all hooked up to a blow-off. Basically a Mellon-Union system similar to the Burton Union system.

Kai

Kai

talkingmonkey · 08-02-2009, 05:44 AM

Yeah that's what I was thinking, (inside of melon sterile). I sterilized the knife, but eventually it got ugly. I was using my finger to unclog while cleaning out the melons. Filled the Honeydew with extremely hot tap water and shook to remove seeds. I tried to leave about half of the meat in the watermelons and all in the honeydew, hoping the yeast will devour all the sugars in the fruit. (I was inspired by the drunk monkeys video on Discovery.) We'll see how it turns out.

Big10Seaner · 08-02-2009, 06:44 AM

Looks like a great experiment to me!

talkingmonkey · 08-05-2009, 03:42 AM

After a long night of bottling, (and opening bottles), I accidentaly pushed the stopper through on one of the watermelons. I loosely covered the hole with Saranwrap! This is turning into an experiment to see what all I can do wrong before getting an infection. I'm going to be a little nervous taking the first sip of this brew...Side note: Gonna be really tough to replicate.

talkingmonkey · 08-08-2009, 03:24 AM

Success! Definitely got an infection. Pretty amazing looking, beer looked ok transferring, but smell made me gag a little. This stuff showed up in 1 day. I still think this could be done, but you'd have to be a lot more careful than I was! What do you think? Dump it or let it roll and see what happens.