Fruit Beer Watermelon Wheat

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Glad to hear. I did almost exactly this to the T. I will be bottling end of this weekend and will report back with pics and taste results. Looking forward to the :ban: flavor

I dont think youll be disapointed. Mine turned out to be 5.6% and there is barley a trace of alcohol in it. It is dangerously drinkable.
 
I had an American Wheat that was finished in primary, and was thinking I'd like to make it more Summer friendly. Like maybe some orange, or lemon zest. While searching I found this thread and thought why not watermelon?
So last night I racked to secondary with 6+ cups of watermelon juice. Looks just like OP's pictures, and is just getting started with 2nd ferment. I had added booster sugar to the kit, so my pre melon alcohol content was about 6.5 and smelled and tasted a little fusel, (I tasted the hydrometer sample) hopefully the watermelon will not make it worse.

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I made a close version of this. Ended up with almost 6gal using gyle to prime for bottling. 4cups of watermelon juice wasn't nearly enough. I can't taste it at all. Its a decent enough wheat though. Next time I will blast it with strawberries instead ;)
 
So my verdict is in.... Version 5 is the best so far. I actually did this as 2.5 gallons of beer with 4 cups of juice, so I updated my webpage to be 8 cups of juice for 5 gallons. I edited my previous v.5 post here.

Pic...Golden wheat beer with just a hint of pink:

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So my verdict is in.... Version 5 is the best so far. I actually did this as 2.5 gallons of beer with 4 cups of juice, so I updated my webpage to be 8 cups of juice for 5 gallons. I edited my previous v.5 post here.

Pic...Golden wheat beer with just a hint of pink:

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I tasted this yesterday; I agree... it is a winner!
 
So at the v5 volume of juice, is the watermelon still a subtle, background flavor or does this make it more of a dominant flavor?
 
HopRodGR said:
So at the v5 volume of juice, is the watermelon still a subtle, background flavor or does this make it more of a dominant flavor?

Hard to say... I don't really know what you consider a "hot" wing, you know? There's definitely no mistaking it for a watermelon beer. I think a lot of that is the shot of extract I add too... that adds a lot of aroma which I think enhances the perceived flavor.... if that makes sense.

Make no mistake.... this beer is definity a pantydropper.
 
DD ....I brewed v.4 with 8 cups of watermelon juice. ....fantastic!!!!! Well done! I will take this over Hell or High Water.
Taking a growler of it to a friends house tomorrow before a fishing trip...I will report back.


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DD. Thanks for the recipe!

I did tweak it though and use WL300 and fermented at about 67-68F. Which produced a super Banana flavor (way more than I was expecting). I racked on ~8 cups of watermelon juice. Great beer, just more banana than watermelon to be honest.

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So, two buddies and I spilt a growler, both love it. We then stopped at Michael's Harborside in Newburyport before we went out fishing for a pint. They had Hooker's Watermelon on tap, all of us agreed DD's was better. Hooker's tasted almost like a Jolly Rancher.
 
About to brew this today, but used yeasties that I had on hand. Has anyone tried this with Hefe IV WL380?? I have it going on my stirplate right now.

From the description that yeast puts off a lot of clove, with minimal banana.... Should still be good, right?
 
OK, I've read through over 200 posts and haven't seen this suggested or discussed:

Have any of you keggers tried cold crashing the fruit-free wheat beer, racking the cold beer to the keg and then adding the juice directly to the keg? The cold temperature will pretty much prevent any secondary fermentation of the fruit. I understand that this is a fine beer, secondary fermentation be damned, but I used this cold keg technique with a strawberry wheat beer last year and it was amazing. The beer smelled like a basket of fresh berries.

Right now I happen to have 10 gallons of wheat beer (fruit-free at this point) sitting in their primary fermentors. I'm going to hit them with fruit. Watermelon is a candidate. I'm thinking of going the chilled/unfermented fruit route. Thoughts?
 
j1laskey said:
Summa summa summa time...

Fantastic pic! Will probably end up making another batch of this soon.... Been requested for an annual Oktoberfest party, of all things!
 
Just added 8 cups (I want it to shine!!) to the base I did 2 weeks ago. My recipe was close, but not exact:

5# US-2-row
4# Wheat Malt
8oz Carapils
8oz Flaked Wheat
2oz Aromatic Malt

UK Northern Brewer [13IBUs]

American Hefe Yeast WLP320

8 Cups +/- fresh watermelon

Smells and looks awesome - cant wait to try it! Much thanks!!!
 
Man all I have to say is WOOT!

I did a very mildly altered version of your V5 and I am amazed at how good it is. I tried a bottle (Im impatient) only 1.5 weeks after botteling and it still blew my socks off. Mine did not end up as "redish" as yours did (intentional on my part) but it was def pinkish in the 2ndary. Wife commented on it and I was worried about it being to watermelony. She tried some of it as well and was VERY happy with it. She thought it was similar in taste to 21st Amendments brew, but to me mine tastes 10x more natural watermelony if that makes any sense. The 21st amendment beer is good, but to me its just a hint of watermelon at the end. Mine tastes like a mild to moderate watermelon beer, not just an aftertaste. I will be entering this into a local homebrew competition. It will be my 1st competition, so here is hoping I pick a good bottle to give them lol!

Thanks for such an amazing recipe though. I plan on making another batch of it here soon before the watermelons totally disappear!
 
FYI Don't enter this beer in any AHA competition judged by BJCP judges. I entered this exact recipe in a contest very recently and it received low marks and a lot of stupid commentary that made me scratch my head.

Drunk Judge #1

"extremely subtle watermelon flavor present"
"overall I was left wishing for more watermelon flavor, I was expecting a lot more from this beer"

Drunk Judge #2

"watermelon flavor is present, but not what I was expecting"
"increase your malt and body of beer to balance flavor"

Also, both geniuses mistook the watermelon aroma for sweet esters

I guess I must have mistakenly entered this into the "smirnoff ice" contest.......
 
Just pulled a sample from the keg. Not quite fully carbed but wow this is gonna be good in another week or two. 8 cups in mine, perfect watermelon aroma and flavor. Color isn't ead there though, just looks like a normal american wheat if not a tad darker.
 
Just checking in.... Tapped my latest batch on Sunday. Let's call it.... v 5.1. It's the recipe from v.5 except with NO watermelon extract. 8 cups of juice, no extract.

It's the best yet. Now I've locked it in!

PS.... 8 cups does actually equal a half gallon. So..... be careful when racking your beer on top of it in a 5 gallon carboy. Spilled a little until I realized what was up and salvaged the excess in a 1 gallon bucket. After secondary, I blended back and split in two 3g kegs.
 
Hey Ryan,
Congrats on getting this beer featured in the December issue of BYO in the Reader Profile column! Just got the issue in the mail and as it just so happens I happen to be sipping on one now. I squeezed one last batch in before the end of summer. Everyone I know that's tried it loves it. :mug:
 
Sorry to bump this old thread but after reading through each yesterday I immediately ran to my LHBS and grabbed the ingredients.
Can not wait to try it. Thanks for the thread!
 
I just bought ingredients last night as well to give it a go. Only difference is ill be using Munich wheat beer yeast.
 
OK, I've read through over 200 posts and haven't seen this suggested or discussed:

Have any of you keggers tried cold crashing the fruit-free wheat beer, racking the cold beer to the keg and then adding the juice directly to the keg? The cold temperature will pretty much prevent any secondary fermentation of the fruit. I understand that this is a fine beer, secondary fermentation be damned, but I used this cold keg technique with a strawberry wheat beer last year and it was amazing. The beer smelled like a basket of fresh berries.

Right now I happen to have 10 gallons of wheat beer (fruit-free at this point) sitting in their primary fermentors. I'm going to hit them with fruit. Watermelon is a candidate. I'm thinking of going the chilled/unfermented fruit route. Thoughts?

Just wondering if you ever gave this a shot with the watermelon.
Would you suggest lowering the amount of fresh watermelon juice?

As I think about the process it kinda seems to me that you might end up with more of a 'beer with watermelon in it' than a 'watermelon flavored beer'. But I am very much a newbie and I wouldn't know. Just curious.
 
Just wondering if you ever gave this a shot with the watermelon.
Would you suggest lowering the amount of fresh watermelon juice?

As I think about the process it kinda seems to me that you might end up with more of a 'beer with watermelon in it' than a 'watermelon flavored beer'. But I am very much a newbie and I wouldn't know. Just curious.

I used 8 cups of fresh watermelon juice and it was puuurrrfect. As soon as watermelons come back into season this is definitely going to be brewed again!
 
I used 8 cups of fresh watermelon juice and it was puuurrrfect. As soon as watermelons come back into season this is definitely going to be brewed again!

So you went from primary to keg+fresh juice? Did you use any extract?
 
So you went from primary to keg+fresh juice? Did you use any extract?

I do all grain. If I remember correctly (need to check my notes) I used the original all grain recipe posted by the OP and added 8 cups that I got from blending the meat of the watermelon and straining through some cheesecloth to the secondary. This will restart fermentation, so I wouldn't do it in the keg.
 
No I was asking if you used the extract as in the watermelon extract.
I was also asking bigbeergeek about adding fully fermented beer to the keg with fresh juice as opposed to adding to secondary.

I have the latest recipe (v5.1 I believe) in the primary right now. But after reading bigbeergeeks post I am intrigued.
 
Just wondering if you ever gave this a shot with the watermelon.
Would you suggest lowering the amount of fresh watermelon juice?

As I think about the process it kinda seems to me that you might end up with more of a 'beer with watermelon in it' than a 'watermelon flavored beer'. But I am very much a newbie and I wouldn't know. Just curious.

I didn't go with watermelon, I went strawberry again with wonderful results. I'm probably going to do some version of this beer this year -- people are clearly enjoying it. I'd use the same amount of juice... why not?
 
Thanks for the reply BBB. I will be giving this a shot with the watermelon recipe.
How long are you staying in primary before cold crashing?
Even though I am going the watermelon route, I'm curious for future recipes. How are you getting the juice from the strawberries?
 
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