Fruit Beer Watermelon Wheat

Yakima 728
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I accidentally doubled the amount of watermelon I should have added , going to dry hop it to try and balance it out before i keg it, hopefully I can keep it from being too sweet!
 
speedoguy said:
I accidentally doubled the amount of watermelon I should have added , going to dry hop it to try and balance it out before i keg it, hopefully I can keep it from being too sweet!
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Shouldn't be that overwhelming as long as you don't add any extract. It May be a bit more sweet then just a hint of watermelon flavor.
 
NativeSun said:
Shouldn't be that overwhelming as long as you don't add any extract. It May be a bit more sweet then just a hint of watermelon flavor.
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I didnt use any extract, I threw in a half ounce of hops, Im kegging tomorrow, so that little time on the hops shouldnt overpower it. hopefully It will bring it back to balanced. Were tailgating this saturday, so I gotta keg tomorrow :off:
 
So pissed - just finished reading pretty much all 37 pages of this thread to discover that I'll most likely be dumping a 5 gallon batch of my Belgian Watermelon Wit due to the fact that I found this thread AFTER processing my watermelon in what I thought was a good idea. I brewed my Belgian Wit 2 weeks ago and let it sit in primary for 14 days. I bought a seedless watermelon and processed it using a fine nylon bag and just squeezed the heck out of it. I ended up with a TON of juice, so I figured I'd reduce it by throwing it on the stove. I brought it to a low boil for 45 minutes (didn't think much of the not so great aroma - huge mistake #1) and then transferred it to my secondary along with the beer. It took off right away and started fermenting again (it still is), and I even tried the sample I took for gravity and it tasted ok. Smell was pretty nice. My beer's OG was 1.064. After 2 weeks in primary it was 1.010 and then with the added watermelon juice it was 1.014. Maybe it was just wishful thinking.

I'm so bummed, but this is how we learn, I guess. Or at least it's how I do. Expensive mistakes... I'm tempted to dump it now and stop wasting time and start over before watermelons fall out of season again.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance...
 
banks412 said:
So pissed - just finished reading pretty much all 37 pages of this thread to discover that I'll most likely be dumping a 5 gallon batch of my Belgian Watermelon Wit due to the fact that I found this thread AFTER processing my watermelon in what I thought was a good idea. I brewed my Belgian Wit 2 weeks ago and let it sit in primary for 14 days. I bought a seedless watermelon and processed it using a fine nylon bag and just squeezed the heck out of it. I ended up with a TON of juice, so I figured I'd reduce it by throwing it on the stove. I brought it to a low boil for 45 minutes (didn't think much of the not so great aroma - huge mistake #1) and then transferred it to my secondary along with the beer.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance...
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Mistakes are part of the brewing process. Next time, juice the watermelon or whatever you do to get the 6-8 cups of juice. Pour it in the secondary fermentor and rack the wort on top of it. The room temp juice will make the wort start to ferment again (as it did with mine..it actually overflowed out of the airlock). Let that sit for another 10 days ad read the gravity till it gets 1.014ish. Bottle and wait

Good luck
Hope I answered your question!

I'd also finish the brew and see how it comes out..you've went this far. Might as well see it through
 
Yeah, you're right. I'll finish it off and bottle it unless it just smells and/or tastes terrible on bottling day. I will say the aroma from the airlock seems to smell pretty nice though.

Any advice you guys on how long to leave it in secondary? Guess I'll just watch it and check the gravity again in two weeks...

Thanks again...
 
banks412 said:
Yeah, you're right. I'll finish it off and bottle it unless it just smells and/or tastes terrible on bottling day. I will say the aroma from the airlock seems to smell pretty nice though.

Any advice you guys on how long to leave it in secondary? Guess I'll just watch it and check the gravity again in two weeks...

Thanks again...
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I left mine in for 8 days and bottled it. And mine tasted Amazing!!! The longer in the secondary can't hurt tho..I've seen people have in for 2 weeks
 
it's about time to add the watermelon juice to my batch. I'm torn between adding directly to the primary and racking onto the juice in secondary.

Anybody added the juice straight to the primary? Did you stir or swirl the fermenter at all?

Seems like racking onto the juice would mix it better but I don't usually secondary. Any thoughts?
 
jtratcliff said:
it's about time to add the watermelon juice to my batch. I'm torn between adding directly to the primary and racking onto the juice in secondary.

Anybody added the juice straight to the primary? Did you stir or swirl the fermenter at all?

Seems like racking onto the juice would mix it better but I don't usually secondary. Any thoughts?
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Never did it. I can see how it would probably work if you don't have a secondary. But if you have a bottling bucket I would prob try to rack it on the juice in their and then transfer back to the primary .

If you do have a secondary I'd do it the way it's supposed to be done bc the outcome is f'in amazing!!
 
Made this todayand didn't see how to put in bottles. When bottling what sugar/water mixture would i use when putting in bottles?

Looks great so far!
 
smagic14 said:
Made this todayand didn't see how to put in bottles. When bottling what sugar/water mixture would i use when putting in bottles?

Looks great so far!
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Dextrose..DONT USE REGULAR SUGAR!!! Go to your local brew store or go online and sign up to Midwest brewers or northern brewers. They have all things for beer makers!! Regular water is what you wanna use.. Boiled 2-3 cups then added the priming sugar..let that boil for 10 mins. Then let it cool to 85-90 degrees. Put it in the bottling bucket first then put the beer over it and bottle!
 
NativeSun said:
Dextrose..DONT USE REGULAR SUGAR!!!
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naaah... Regular table sugar is fine for bottling if you don't have corn sugar handy.

see here for instance:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/table-sugar-vs-corn-235164/

OP, Google for "priming sugar calculator" and you'll find several places where they'll tell you the required weight of whatever priming sugar you choose to use in whatever volume of beer you have for whatever the level of carbonation desired.
 
jtratcliff said:
it's about time to add the watermelon juice to my batch. I'm torn between adding directly to the primary and racking onto the juice in secondary.

Anybody added the juice straight to the primary? Did you stir or swirl the fermenter at all?

Seems like racking onto the juice would mix it better but I don't usually secondary. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I've actually brewed two 5 gal batches of this. Each time I got about 7 cups of watermelon juice and dumped it right into primary. Left it in there for about a week each time, then bottled. Both came out awesome.
 
sazerac6 said:
I've actually brewed two 5 gal batches of this. Each time I got about 7 cups of watermelon juice and dumped it right into primary. Left it in there for about a week each time, then bottled. Both came out awesome.
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D'oh! NativeSun just had me convinced to pull out my better bottle and sanitize for racking to secondary... Now sazera6 is appealing to my inherent laziness with his success in adding straight to the primary...

What to do? What to do?

I think I'm gonna follow my laziness and add to primary :D

I'll report back how it turns out.
 
jtratcliff said:
D'oh! NativeSun just had me convinced to pull out my better bottle and sanitize for racking to secondary... Now sazera6 is appealing to my inherent laziness with his success in adding straight to the primary...

What to do? What to do?

I think I'm gonna follow my laziness and add to primary :D

I'll report back how it turns out.
Click to expand...

LOL this is why I love home brewing. Everyone has their own style and somehow it still comes together to taste great! Now I've learned two things this week in this thread.

1) you CAN use regular sugar to prime for bottling.

2) you CAN just throw the flavoring into the primary and give it a stir/swish to act as a secondary transfer!!
 
Pulled off my first couple pints of this last night, got lots and lots of compliments, I think this one is going to go really fast. Wish I would have brewed a batch of this prior to summer so I could have stock piled a few kegs of it!
 
Well, I changed my mind again. Was all set to add watermelon juice directly to the primary, then I decided I wanted to harvest the yeast. Thought it might be better if I got it before the watermelon.

So I added 8 cups of juice to a 6 gal Better Bottle and racked on top. Glad I added a blowoff tube :eek:

So I can't add to list of people successfully adding the juice directly to primary.
 
How about adding the juice to the mash? I didn't search through all the pages here, it may have been talked about, but I used the watermelon juice as my water. Went to Aldi's and got some HUGE 25lb melons, juiced em up, collected almost 4 gallons of watermelon water. Left them in the fridge overnight to settle out, then ran it through a strainer before heating it up. All said its probably about 50/50 water/melon water. Could definitely smell and taste the melon before I pitched the yeast, but not overpowering at all. I just hope its not all lost in the fermentation.
 
jdirienzi said:
How about adding the juice to the mash? I didn't search through all the pages here, it may have been talked about, but I used the watermelon juice as my water. Went to Aldi's and got some HUGE 25lb melons, juiced em up, collected almost 4 gallons of watermelon water. Left them in the fridge overnight to settle out, then ran it through a strainer before heating it up. All said its probably about 50/50 water/melon water. Could definitely smell and taste the melon before I pitched the yeast, but not overpowering at all. I just hope its not all lost in the fermentation.
Click to expand...

Interested in seeing how that turns out..keep me posted!!
 
I've been following these posts for a while now and finally brewed a batch a few weeks ago. I'm adding the watermelon juice today and have decided to add it straight to the primary. We'll see how it turns out.

Thanks everyone! Great thread!
 
Watermelon wheat kegged tapped, finished and the store bought keg of honey blonde is still 2/3 full, needless to say, it was a hit!

ForumRunner_20130728_164305.jpg
 
Brewed this beer 2 weeks ago then racked over the watermelon juice. Today I took a gravity reading to see if I can bottle it and it was way too low = 1.004, also I tried a sample and it was very tart. Is my beer ruined? It didn't look like it was infected with bacteria but maybe some wild yeast got in it? :confused:
 
Made this and it was a big hit, although the watermelon flavor is very faint and my personal preference was the beer was too light tasting to fill the gap left by the light watermelon flavor. Anyone else find the beer to be almost light beer tasting?
 
i added the juice to the primary(after main fermentation) but i also added a dram of lorann watermelon extract at kegging...dont add the lorann extract
 
Such a hit at the co-ed baby shower/ bbq we had the other day. Girls loved it, guys loved it... great beer. Upped the watermelon to 10 cups and it is still flavourful after 6 weeks in the keg.

20130915_152306.jpg
 
jdirienzi said:
How about adding the juice to the mash? I didn't search through all the pages here, it may have been talked about, but I used the watermelon juice as my water. Went to Aldi's and got some HUGE 25lb melons, juiced em up, collected almost 4 gallons of watermelon water. Left them in the fridge overnight to settle out, then ran it through a strainer before heating it up. All said its probably about 50/50 water/melon water. Could definitely smell and taste the melon before I pitched the yeast, but not overpowering at all. I just hope its not all lost in the fermentation.
Click to expand...

BasicBrewing guys made a watermelon wheat by using watermelon juice instead of water in the mash and adding it to the secondary. It fermented really low and they really didn't like it.

http://youtu.be/abeg3z3g-UY
 
I brewed this up last week for the first time. I opted to throw the watermelon juice in the primary after the vigerous fermentation slowed down as i dont normally do a secondary for wheat beers. Hefeweizen yeast amazes me everytime with how fast and intense the fermentation starts. Definatly have a blow off tube ready when making this one.
 
What temperature did people mash at? I'm assuming 154/155, given the FG, but after 40 pages of comments I didn't see any discussion on this point. May have missed it of course :drunk:
 
Brewing this today for a trip we are taking to Florida in April. Should be delicious sipping by the pool. Now to track down some watermelons in February

Sent from my SGH-T699 using Home Brew mobile app

1393104213929.jpg
 
Just opened my first few bottles of this after conditioning in the bottle for three weeks. It has a very peppery taste/smell anyone else experienced this? The only thing i did different from original posted recipe is that i added the watermelon juice on day 5 of fermentation instead of right away.

Sent from my SGH-I317M using Home Brew mobile app
 

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