DeMerchant
Well-Known Member
So, on August 22, 2020 I decided to take a walk in the woods with my dog Hunter. We went to a park in Grand Valley, Ontario (an hour and half or so outside Toronto) called the Luther Marsh Wildlife Management Area. We were plodding along on our hike for about an hour (about the time I planned to turn around and head back to civilization) when I came to a beautiful marsh area. As I walked down the logging trail across the marsh I happened upon a beautiful bush of bright red rose hips! I couldn’t help myself but avail myself of the opportunity to forage such a great bounty (not that I had much of an idea at all of how to really use rose hips), so I put down my backpack and went to work picking. I’ve included a picture of the bush in the photos.
After 10 minutes or so I had a pretty much filled an empty dog poop bag full of the hips. I was happy with the harvest, although I hoped to find a similar bush or two as I figured I still probably needed more to do much with. Much to my joy, I did stumble across two other bushes (the second bush had the only remaining wild rose, which is pictured) that produced a similar amount of fruit! Satisfied (and with my partner back at the campground finally emerging from her slumber) I decided to head back.
Back at the campground I did a little reading just to be sure I wasn’t going to poison myself, but reasonably satisfied I tried one of the hips and it was certainly delicious. It was as sweet as it was tart, perhaps like a sweeter and softer raspberry flavor.
I did a little more reading on the MTF wiki, which sent me back to a post by Jesse Carlson here on Facebook along with Bjarte Nataas suggestion to halve the hips and remove the seeds. When I returned home I set out to process the fruit. My process was more less:
I have a 15gal demijohn of lambic-style that I have been maintaining for a few years as a solera, pulling 10gal out a year (1/2 I drink straight, 1/2 I put onto fruit… I’ve done cherries and raspberries thus far). I also have a 30gal plastic barrel full of Flanders Red style that I usually do the same with. I’m thinking that 1.5kg of rose hips wont be enough to really get goof flavor in both beers (and of course, the Flanders-style needs more fruit to come through) so I will probably use all 1.5kg in 5gal the lambic-style and I might try dried rose hips in the Flanders-style.
If anyone has comments/experience on the sufficiency of 1.5kg of processed rose hips in 5gal of lambic I would appreciate it!
My thought on the entire experience is I would NOT suggest halving a deseeding the hips. I’m sure from a flavor perspective it’s probably the best, so if you don’t mind spending a TON of time processing then go nuts. If I was going to do it again I’d suggest boiling and mashing the hips to extract the juice as if you were making rose hip jelly and use that juice in my beer. A side my side of the two methods would of course be the gold standard but given the suffering of deseeding the hips I can’t say I’d ever do that myself again! Maybe I’d just halve the hips and deal with the beer loss.
I’ll try to remember to update this post once my beer is complete and ready to be tasted to let everyone know my experience and help contribute to our collective body of knowledge! If you find this post in a year or so feel free to give me a poke!
After 10 minutes or so I had a pretty much filled an empty dog poop bag full of the hips. I was happy with the harvest, although I hoped to find a similar bush or two as I figured I still probably needed more to do much with. Much to my joy, I did stumble across two other bushes (the second bush had the only remaining wild rose, which is pictured) that produced a similar amount of fruit! Satisfied (and with my partner back at the campground finally emerging from her slumber) I decided to head back.
Back at the campground I did a little reading just to be sure I wasn’t going to poison myself, but reasonably satisfied I tried one of the hips and it was certainly delicious. It was as sweet as it was tart, perhaps like a sweeter and softer raspberry flavor.
I did a little more reading on the MTF wiki, which sent me back to a post by Jesse Carlson here on Facebook along with Bjarte Nataas suggestion to halve the hips and remove the seeds. When I returned home I set out to process the fruit. My process was more less:
- I rinsed the hips and remove all stems and leaves (see photo 3).
- I filled a big bowl (see photo 4) and at this point I was very excited about the process.
- I began to halve and deseed the hips and quickly realized this was going to be a royal PITA. Luckily, I solicited the willing help of my partner, and we set out to process the bunch while relaxing in front of the TV. It took us about 15 combined hours to make our way through the entire bowl.
- After deseeding we ended up with about 1.5kg of rose hip ‘flesh’.
- I vacuum bagged the fruit with some vodka and have now frozen the rose hips.
I have a 15gal demijohn of lambic-style that I have been maintaining for a few years as a solera, pulling 10gal out a year (1/2 I drink straight, 1/2 I put onto fruit… I’ve done cherries and raspberries thus far). I also have a 30gal plastic barrel full of Flanders Red style that I usually do the same with. I’m thinking that 1.5kg of rose hips wont be enough to really get goof flavor in both beers (and of course, the Flanders-style needs more fruit to come through) so I will probably use all 1.5kg in 5gal the lambic-style and I might try dried rose hips in the Flanders-style.
If anyone has comments/experience on the sufficiency of 1.5kg of processed rose hips in 5gal of lambic I would appreciate it!
My thought on the entire experience is I would NOT suggest halving a deseeding the hips. I’m sure from a flavor perspective it’s probably the best, so if you don’t mind spending a TON of time processing then go nuts. If I was going to do it again I’d suggest boiling and mashing the hips to extract the juice as if you were making rose hip jelly and use that juice in my beer. A side my side of the two methods would of course be the gold standard but given the suffering of deseeding the hips I can’t say I’d ever do that myself again! Maybe I’d just halve the hips and deal with the beer loss.
I’ll try to remember to update this post once my beer is complete and ready to be tasted to let everyone know my experience and help contribute to our collective body of knowledge! If you find this post in a year or so feel free to give me a poke!
