Specialty Fruit Beer Sherie's summer shandy

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unionrdr

Homebrewer, author & air gun collector
HBT Supporter
Joined
Feb 19, 2011
Messages
39,136
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Location
Sheffield
Recipe Type
Extract
Yeast
7g cooper\'s ale yeast
Yeast Starter
re-hydrated
Batch Size (Gallons)
6G
Original Gravity
1.042
Final Gravity
1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes)
30
Color
pale yellow/gold
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
32 days
Additional Fermentation
4weeks,5 days in bottles
Tasting Notes
If you\'ve had Leinenkugel\'s summer shandy,you\'ll like this. just fresher.
1) can Cooper's OS Lager
1lb bag Munton's plain DME
1lb bag Munton's plain wheat DME
1oz US Golding @ 20
1oz Willamette @ 12
total volume 5.75 gallons
Cooper's 15g ale yeast re-hydrated
OG-1.042
FG-1.011
Boil 2.5-3 gallons water,add 1lb bags of plain regular DME & the wheat DME,stir to totaly mix clumps in. She got a big hot break,I guess from the wheat DME addition. Just keep stirring till it goes down,about 3 minutes. sock up the 2 hops in separate bags. add the 1oz US Golding @ 20 minutes to go. Add the 1oz Willamette @ 12 minutes left in the boil. **These hop additions could be added loose for better edge to hop flavors.**
At flame out,remove from heat & stir in the cooper's OS lager can till no more LME can be scraped off the bottom of the BK. Cover & let steep 10-15 minutes while sanitizing fermenter,& preparing for ice bath.
Place covered BK in the sink,keeping sink plugged. Fill empty space around kettle with cold water,letting it sit a couple minutes till water gets warm. Drain,then fill empty space in sink around kettle to the top with ice,then top off that with cold tap water. Place floating thermometer in BK,keeping covered. It should cool down to 75F in about 20-30 minutes.
Swish sanitizer around fermenter 1 more time,then drain. Place fine mesh strainer over opening. The hop sacks shound be removed & squeezed out over strainer. ** Loose hops would fill strainer. Use sanitized spoon to stir/fold out liquid through strainer & dump strainer in plastic trash bag. ** Then pour the chilled wort through strainer if using hop sacks. This removes particulate matter,& aerates it real well. Dito with top off water to 5.75 gallons. The yeast should be re-hydrated in 2C cooled/boiled water for 20-30 minutes at 70-75F.
Stir wort & top off water roughly for 5 minutes straight. Take hydrometer sample,then stir & pitch re-hydrated yeast,seal & attach blow off tube. we pitched on 10/20,hit FG on 11/21. bottled with 2C boiled/cooled water with 4.7oz dextrose,& 12 packets of Trulemon crystal. That's what gives it the shandy's flavor. Bottled for 4 weeks,5 days,then into the fridge 1 week. But 2 weeks fridge time is def better. Got bubbly tornado in glass at that point. +**+ I'll skip the Truelemon from now on. Not enough flavor. But rather 2-3 ounces of lemon zest in a muslin hop sack15 minutes left in the boil. Or use Truelemon in conjunction with the zest. Lemon flavor needs more zip.+**+
**This pic was taken at night,so it'll look darker than it is by about 2x's. Gunna get some day pics; http://
Here's a pic of the True lemon box; http://i563.photobucket.com/albums/ss71/unionrdr/lemoncrstl.jpg
 
Gotta see a picture of this one please. Have a friend who's wife drinks this (Leinenkugel's summer shandy) ALL summer long. Would love to make some for her. :mug:
 
We're gunna drink some more of this one & my burton ale tonight. I'll get some pics of this one & the Burton ale tonight. We had put more in the fridge last Saturday. We'll se how they look & post tomorrow if the pics come out good. Thanks for commenting.:tank:
 
The direct link won't work for some reason. so I loaded the img code instead. The pic was shot at night,so it's a lil dark. I've also noticed this ale gets to be a light orange color after 5 weeks or so,. It had a straw gold color with a slight amber blush on Christmas?...
 
I hope you like it. As was posted in the recipe,I used True lemon crystalized juice. it's in a yellow box with green lettering. I'll see if I can get the pic uploaded. They have True lime,& True orange crystal too.
And I got the conditioning time wrong. It was 5 weeks at Christmas when color was still straw gold with amber blush. So it's like 7 weeks,4 days when I noticed the color darkened to a light orange. Maybe the lemon crystal reacting with the hops over time?
***I finally got the links to work again. When you post the link to your reply post,it lists "http://" twice in 2 places. You have to go to both places in the link,& take out one "http://". the link will then function normally.
**Oddly enough,not all the bottles turned light orange. Many are still that straw gold/touch of amber color. Guess I gotta replace the wing capper with the bench version. May not have gotten the caps on squarely?...
 
Just talked to a distributor at Bundy's Beverage today,& he said the Lienenkugel's summer shandy has gotten so popular,they're dropping the fireside nut brown & at least one other to bring out a total of 5 summer shandy's. One will have cherry in it. So this recipe will prove even more popular for warm weather brews. We'll have another batch coming soon...
 
Unionrdr,
Would you mind itemizing this recipe?
Here's what I think I need:
1lb regular DME
1lb Wheat DME
1 can coopers lager at flameout?
What yeast?

I tried a shandy recipe with a brewers best Weisenbier kit and I think it's too Hefe Weisen-ish, so instead of guessing again want to use your recipe.

That seems like an awful long time to ferment though?
 
Sorry mate,thought I did. But it's in there now,with a change or two in the body of instructions. I gotta change the volume too. v-Version 2 -v
Anyway,version #2 was brewed at a total volume of 5.5 gallons,for an OG of 1.050. We're also cutting the 12 packets of Trulemon down to 10 packets,that'll equal 5TBSP of fresh juice. It should let the floraly hops match up better. That batch #2 is settling out now,3/14/12. We also re-hydrated the 15g Cooper's ale yeast packet in 1.5C of boiled/cooled water instead of 2C. These are the only changes to version 2 from the original listed above.
 
Ok,FG as of 3/31 was 1.014. primed with 10 Trulemon packets,& 5oz of priming sugar by measurement from tastybrew.com priming calculator. That gives 2.52V co2. I think the style was American pale ale. Boiled 2C of water,then added Trulemon crystal & dextrose. Covered to cool while I got sanitized bottling bucket ready to rack.
Ale was very clear,only slightly hazy. It smelled wonderfull going into bottles,& gold with amber blush sort of color. I got 55 bottles out of the 5.5 gallon batch. About 4.8%ABV,so a good summer session ale.
 
First of all, I'm a beginning brewer so if I ask any stupid ?s I'm sorry....


If you're not bottling and going to keg, does not using the priming sugars change the overall taste of this recipe?
Since I would be expediting the carb-ing process, would this help retain some of the golden color?
Is dehydrated yeast a must?

Thanks!
 
subscribed -- made this yesterday and its already through the vigoris fermentation. Almost no airlock activity but what looks like krausen on the top. Hope I did'nt screw this up. Really simple and the sample was ok, a bit bitter but thats to be expected I think. :rockin:
 
@lance-The color should be the same regardless of carbonation method. It all depends on using the ingredients in the method described. Not to mention good brewing/conditioning temps.
@heeler-It can ferment pretty fast. I've had a few get through initial fermentation in a day with re-hydrated yeast. The Cooper's 15g ale yeast packet re-hydrated is good. After it slows or stops bubbling,it's just slowing down for the long haul down to FG. No worries. And young beers like this will have a bit bitter,unbalanced taste as it's still pretty young. That's what the hops will taste like at this point. It'll get good when the beer is carbonated & conditioned 4 weeks or so.
Sorry I took some time to responde,haven't been well the last couple months. This aging thing is really starting to suck. Good luck with the brews guys. Get it right,& it's a good beer,even in the shade in summer.
 
Just brewed this last saturday night. Will report back with results. Plan to keg and have ready for 4th of July party (July 7th). One question, why the reduction in lemon packets? I see you went from 12 to 10 now. Was it just too much lemon?

Cheers
 
No,just wanted to see if the hops would give more flavor with less lemon. The 12 packets give a lemon herb tea sort of flavor. Which is good,but I thought less lemon might give more complexity. Gotta put some in the fridge & see. The 12 packets is closest to the original by taste tests so far.
 
So I followed this recipe ALMOST to the T....I didn't use the full 15g of yeast since the beer/malt kit only came with a 7g yeast pack but I decided to do a yeast starter (even though I read not to) and I'm having a crazy fermentation going on. I've only seen it get like this when I did a really high ABV and super hoppy IPA. SO far it looks great but we'll see when it turns out.....

shandy fermenting.jpg
 
oh and it's much lighter then the pic shows......I didn't have a way to filter it so I'm going to do it when I transfer to secondary. I'm really excited for this to turn out as well as a large group of people here in my drinking circle!

Thanks for the info on doing this!
 
No,just wanted to see if the hops would give more flavor with less lemon. The 12 packets give a lemon herb tea sort of flavor. Which is good,but I thought less lemon might give more complexity. Gotta put some in the fridge & see. The 12 packets is closest to the original by taste tests so far.

Thanks much Uniondr for the clarification. Getting ready to keg this next week. :mug:
 
Congrats man,looks great so far. Def a vigorous ferment you've got going there. It should be clearing nicely in the 4th week or so. Mine always does,or slightly misty. By the time it's in bottles 3-7 days,it should get really clear. Keg should be the same.
 
sfrisby said:
What section of the grocery are you finding the True Lemon? I can't find that stuff anywhere.

It's next to the sweetener in the baking isle of my grocery store (Giant Eagle)
 
Yup,same here. GE by the sweet-n-low & such. They may not have all 3,but there's trulime & truorange as well.
 
Just kegged this last night. OG and FG were pretty spot on as well. I think my FG was 1.012 instead of 1.011. Base beer tasted great even before the lemon was added. Can't wait til this is all carbed up and ready to go. Thanks Uniondr!!
 
Your welcome. It may turn out orange amber,which is darker than leinenkugel's,but the taste is pretty close. It's great on a warm day. Just put 8 more of V2 in the fridge a couple hours ago myself. Cheers!
 
Hate to say it but not a lot of lemon flavor...I followed the recipe to the "T" except I used Cluster hops because that is what Leinenkugel's uses. I don't know if by kegging it the lemon drops out of suspension so I lose it after the first few pours or what?? So with bottling you don't lose any lemon flavor I guess?

Had high hopes for this one, not sure what I'm going to do? I bought a 6 pack of Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy to do a taste comparison.....hopefully that will give me the insight on what to do??? I have a party coming up on July 7th so I'll need to "fix" it soon.

Cheers
 
Maybe a dumb question, but what is "Cooper's OS Lager" - never seen this in the HBS? Im guessing by the instructions its LME. Is it wheat DME? Pils DME? Something else?
 
Guy at LHBS said its probably a pre hopped LME. I went with a standard wheat LME. Just finished pitching yeast on this batch! Fairly straight forward:

30 minute, 4 gallon boil
1 lb Wheat DME @30
.5 oz East Kent Goldings @ 15
1oz Sweet Orange Peel @ 5
.5 oz Citra @3
6 lbs Wheat LME @ flame out
Chill, top off with 1 gal cold distilled water
Safale US-05
OG: 1.050
Going to wait 4 weeks or so, then mix up the priming sugar and 12 packets of the Tru Lemon, rack to bottling bucket and bottle!
 
It's a can of Cooper's OS= "Original Series" LME (Liquid Malt Extract) pre hopped with bittering only. DME= Dried Malt Extract,I use plain DME's in my boils for hop additions. And it'll say on the bag if it's plain,not to mention wheat or regular barley DME. Dried malt extract doesn't darken as easily as LME does. And never boil pre-hopped LME's,or the hop profile boils away.
I went down to 2 less trulemon packets to get more hop flavor,but the full amount listed in the priming solution mixed with the hop flavors. It tasted like a lemon herb tea in the beer. You can def add more to taste for more lemon flavor. I was trying to maintain some balance with the other flavors.
But it could well be that it works better in bottles. Never kegged before,but I can't imagine why there'd be a difference.
 
I'm about to bottle a sweet tea lemonade shandy, and my plan was to use sweet tea vodka and lemon extract. Do you have experience with lemon extract or would you suggest I get some True Lemon packets?
 
As I remember reading on the German beer institue site,the originator was low on some light colored beer served in the summer at his inn. But he did have a lot of this lemon soda popular over there,so he mixed the two. I thought the Cooper's Original Series lager came pretty close. Just have to try adding zest with the trulemon next time.
I also have a light hybrid lager partial mash recipe I've been perfecting that might just work well for this.
 
The wedding beer, Sweet Tea Lemonade Shandy, was a huge hit. At bottling (5.5gal batch) I added a full 6.5gr packet of unsweetened Kool Aid Lemonade mix, 2 cups of sweet tea vodka, and two capfuls of lemon extract. I will definitely make this beer again.
 
I'm going to have to try my light hybrid lager recipe with Truelemon & a couple ounces of lemon zest next time. Maybe with sorachie ace & saaz.
 
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