Nettle Beer experiment

[gefraldoperez]

I'm still very new to beer brewing and this is my first post, so be gentle! The forum is an amazing source of inspiration and help, so I thought I'd finally post. I love experimenting even when making beer with a kit but I have limited resources and time.

Last summer I read about nettle beer, which seemed interesting and having a hell of a lot of nettles around where I live, was already a great start. But I noticed all the recipes where actually for what constituted as a nettle wine as there wasn't any grains in the brew. So with the little knowledge I have of brewing and taking here and there from existing ones, I set about writing up a recipe. The result was actually rather nice. A light ale which was earthy, fruity, malty, semi-sweet and quite refreshing on a summers day. It was also strong. About 8%. It was best chilled and was a little too fizzy for an ale as I must have added too much sugar to the bottles.

Then I lost the recipe.

This year I wanted to do the same so had to try and figure out what I did. Remember, I'm a newbie so my methods may not be 'correct', but the last batch worked out okay and was very drinkable! I even had the nod of approval from a friend who lives and breaths real ale.

So here goes:
1kg of stinging nettle tops
750gms Amber Malt
15gms root ginger
2x lemons juice
Additional sugar to bring it up to 1050 OG.

Last time I added Challenger hops, but this time I'm leaving them out as I just wanted the nettle flavour to come through.

I boiled up the nettles in 5litres of water, malt and ginger for 25 minutes. It stinks. Really stinks. My wife complained. Then I strained off the nettles into the fermenting bucket, added the lemon juice and brought the quantity up to about 11ltrs. I then added some brewing sugar to bring up the OG to 1050. I'd saved the live yeast from my previous brew of a rather tasty dark Christmas ale, so gave that a kick back to life and dumped it into the bucket.

Day 1: It stinks. Almost enough to make you want to dump the lot and give up.

Day 2: After 48hrs of the yeast doing its bit, it actually smells rather pleasant. It's a nice, sweet, earthy, garden smell. Reminds me of wet cut grass.

Day 3: The yeast is obviously not unhappy with the job it has to do as it's bubbling away nicely.

Day 4: It's still going!

That's it for now. If anyone is interested, I'll post again when things have calmed down and I bottle the brew. I had planned to bottle half and keg some, but the batch is so small it's hardly worth it.

Onwards and upwards.

 

[gefraldoperez]

It's now been about a month and a half since my first post and a lot has happened since then.

It took about 2 weeks for the fermentation to finish and ended up smelling quite nice in the end. Final gravity was 1.009. There were a few leaves floating around (a note for next time to use a sieve or fine mesh bag) when it came to syphoning off, so I went from the fermentation bucket into a second bucket. I added some priming sugar and then syphoned off into the bottles. The liquor was quite cloudy and so needed several weeks to calm down.

So now it's been about a month in the bottle I thought it time to give it a try. Last time I tried this I discovered the beer tasted better and suited the style, chilled. So a couple of hours in the fridge and I took the plunge.

Off popped the cork and there was a little 'fizz'. I poured it out and this is what I got:

Proudly presented in my now somewhat vintage 'War or The Worlds Woking Beer Festival' pint glass.

It's crystal clear, pale amber colour and has a light sparkle to it. The taste is exactly as I remembered it from the batch last year. It's like nothing else! It's initial taste of a very light ale gives way to a sudden flood of the nettles coming through. There's fresh cut grass, citrus, fruity and a light hoppy after - strange considering there are no hops in there. It works great chilled, especially with the unusually hot evenings we are currently having in the UK, is refreshing and really easy to drink and at just over 5% it won't knock your socks off!

In summary, I think I would like to have more of the malt flavours coming through and maybe a little more of the citrus, but overall it's been a success and one that I would recommend anyone having a go at. It's been an experiment and unfortunately one that will have to wait another year to try again as the nettle are now past their best.

On to the next experiment......

 

[vgmohag]

Sweet! Congrats on the successful brew. A friend sent me a recipe for nettle pesto but I haven't tried it yet.