Thoughts on my SWMBO Slayer Spinoff- Lemon Balm

Hey dudes-

I'm brewing up a modified version of BierMuncher's SWMBO slayer tonight and wanted to get some feedback. Here's my grainbill:

7# 2 Row
4# Red Wheat
.75# Flaked Oats
.50# C10
.25# CaraVienne

1.25oz Williamette @ 60m (28IBU)

WLP500 Trappist Yeast

I increased the hops slightly to balance out my added grain (wanted to boost the abv slightly but keep the balance)

I was also thinking of adding either coriander or lemon balm to the end of the boil, or both. I'm thinking with the fruity esters the WLP500 throws off, a subtle lemon aroma/flavor could compliment this recipe nicely. However, *subtle* is the key word and I'm hoping some people can share their findings/experience in brewing with lemon balm. Is .25oz at flameout good? too much?

I'd like the yeast to do most of the flavor contribution so I'm just hesitant to add a lot, I dont want a PineSol beer!

Thanks!

My question specifically is regarding to lemon balm

If you're shooting for subtle, I would avoid actual citrus in it, as lemon can easily overwhelm the flavors of the yeast. Coriander is much lighter, but can be hard to detect (perhaps that's a plus ).

If you want to add light citrus, you might consider adding a really small dry hop of amarillo or centennial for a couple days. I think that might be lighter than actual citrus.

smagee said:

If you're shooting for subtle, I would avoid actual citrus in it, as lemon can easily overwhelm the flavors of the yeast. Coriander is much lighter, but can be hard to detect (perhaps that's a plus ).

If you want to add light citrus, you might consider adding a really small dry hop of amarillo or centennial for a couple days. I think that might be lighter than actual citrus.

Click to expand...

Thanks for that! I just got through brewing and I ended up going with:

.20oz Dried Lemon Balm @ 10 min
.25oz Coriander @ 5 min
.25oz Sweet Orange Peel @ 1 min

My thinking was this: I've heard that the lemon balm taste boils off pretty quickly, so I added it at 10 hoping to drive off some of the bitter lemon that can come from lemon balm. I then boiled coriander for 5 minutes hoping to get the aroma and some of the sweetness out of it. Adding orange peel at one minute was mostly for the aroma, and some sweetness that could possibly offset any bitterness extracted from the lemon balm. I'm not going to dry hop this at all, though I thought about adding Sorachi Ace as a dry hop. I'm fermenting with WLP500, so that should kick off a good amount of fruity esters and (hopefully) meld well with the citrus aromas from the lemon/coriander/orange peel combo.

I'm chilling the wort now. Will post a fermentation update soon.

H

Sounds good; I like the idea of adding the lemon earlier to limit its harshness. I did the same thing with a ginger addition a while back that turned out well. Are you planning on letting the adjuncts continue in the primary, or are you removing after the boil?

smagee said:

Sounds good; I like the idea of adding the lemon earlier to limit its harshness. I did the same thing with a ginger addition a while back that turned out well. Are you planning on letting the adjuncts continue in the primary, or are you removing after the boil?

Click to expand...

I filtered what I could out when I auto-siphoned from my kettle to fermentor. Some of the lemon balm may have made it in but I think I got most of the coriander husks and orange peel bits out. I pitched a 1.5L starter (about 1.060 OG) into the wort at 2:00 a.m. last night (yea, I know.. on a WORK night too..) and had airlock activity this morning (7:00 a.m, goodness I need to sleep more). I'm going to let this bad boy ramp up in temp naturally and try to get a good fruity bouquet. I'll bottle them up into Belgian 750s and let them condition for a few weeks before cracking one to sample. Being that its a Blonde and a tad lower abv (should come in around 7%) I think it'll be ready to drink sooner than your average Belgian- though I'm sure it will get better with age, naturally.

Glad to have that brew out of the way. Last night seemed like it would never end.. oh and now I'm a zombie.

Curious as to how this turned out? How was the lemon balm?
--LexusChris