Cucumber Passion Fruit Ale

[mgw5832]

Anyone have experience using cucumber? I've already started this batch, but looking for a little feedback. Basically I want to create a light, crisp, slightly fruity summer beer. Something that will really quench my thirst after a day of playing frisbee. Anyway, the lightly hopped ale is fermenting now, and I'll add the cucumber flavor and passion fruit extract later. For the passion fruit, I'm going to use Rainbow brand soda flavor. The cucumber was a little trickier. I remembered a mushroom beer recipe from Radical Brewing that called for soaking mushrooms in vodka for a week or so. I'm trying that same thing with the cucumber. I'm not sure if it's the best way to make an extract, but it's worth a try. If it doesn't work, I might just dryhop some sliced cucumber in the secondary. Any comments are welcome. Thanks!

 

[The Blow Leprechaun]

Cucumber is a lot of water. Extracting its flavor in vodka is a probably a good way to go, I might even suggest getting some Hendricks gin and using that as your flavor extraction medium - it's created with cucumber, and already has a pronounced cucumber flavor in it. Plus it's a fantastic gin.

 

[nothdsw]

Hmmm.. I wonder.... I've been to restaurants that served water with a little slice of cucumber floating in it. Definitely imparted the taste, and was very light and refreshing. I don't have enough experience to advise on getting the flavor into the beer, but perhaps serving with a slice of cucumber... it'd be unique, to say the least! Better than an orange slice in Blue Moon, IMO.

 

[Crayfish]

How did this turn out? I was eating a cucumber salad last night when I thought hmmmm.

Anyone else ever make cucumber beer?

 

[matthewjamesstone]

Our first batch was quite strange. Mostly because we added the cucumber during the last 5 minutes of the boil. It ended up tasting like great grandma's cooked slaw or something. Cooked veggie taste, not so good. This time around we made an extract with vodka. The cuke vodka tastes delicious, but I'm having a hard time finding how much to add to the batch (5gal). Anybody have any insight?

 

[ericd]

Just add it to taste after fermentation.

 

[robtotten]

How did this turn out?

 

[mgw5832]

I know it's been a while since my original post, and the beer is now long gone, but here are some notes on the beer.

1)The passion fruit extract overpowered the cucumber. I used slightly less than the amount recommended by the manufacturer, but it was still too much.
2)The cucumber flavor was slight, and not just because of the overwhelming passion fruit flavor, but because I don't think I added enough. I made an extract with vodka, about 1 cup of vodka, and eventhough it tasted great, it wasn't enough to flavor the beer. I ended up just "dryhopping" about two pounds of sliced cucumber in the secondary. Maybe 5 or even 10 pounds of crushed cucumber would have been better.
3)My first sip of the beer made me think of cough syrup. I think this was the fault of the artifical passion fruit flavor. I will now avoid artifical flavors at all costs. I recently found a Passion Fruit juice in the ethnic isle of my grocery store. I think its made in Mexico. Eventhough its only 20 or 30% juice, it doesn't contain any artificial flavors.
4)Overall the beer was drinkable and, dare I say, even enjoyable despite its shortcomings. I'd definitely have to make some improvements though before I made this again.

Thanks!

 

[HollisBrewCo]

maybe drying the cucumber somehow would allow you to get more of the cucumber flavor. My thinking that by removing the water from the cucumber the flavor would be more pronounced in the beer