The Most Thanksgiving Beer Ever (Turkey Beer)

[Travestian]

So Turkey day is come and gone, how did this beer turn out?

The OP might not be responding. The turkey probably did him in...

 

[chri5]

So Turkey day is come and gone, how did this beer turn out?

I was just wondering about this last night...

 

[BeerGrylls]

Crickets..

 

[Cottonmouth]

Hope he's ok.

 

[Gran0amigo]

Hey All,
Thank you for your interest in how it turned out, the brew day went well and we had a lot of fun. My brother in law, who has never brewed before, was with us and he ended up loving it so much he bought equipment the next day, another convert for the noble cause.

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures and I am planning to post results when it is all said and done, its been a busy couple of weeks but I should be able to check on the fermentations this weekend.

The initial results were promising though, the control wort tasted phenomenal, and the white meat wort tasted great too but lacked significant character pre-fermentation, the super-turkey variation was actually by far the most interesting pre-fermentation (sulfuric, salty, spicy) and I am interested to see if it came out ok.

Ill post more about the whole process and results with pictures when I get a free moment, thank you for continued interest.

 

[Gran0amigo]

So a quick update,

I was finally home this evening and had a chance to check on the beers, I didn't have much time to spare so i skipped straight to the 3rd variation of the turkey beer (full turkey carcass).

Ill talk more about this in the full version of the overall results but in short IT IS INCREDIBLE!!!! The brown ale character is just right, hints of nut and caramel with just a little spicy/fruity hop character, the cranberry is a really nice accent as well, brings the balance of the beer back in the right direction. Finally, the turkey, it actually came out tasting much like a rauchbier, its very smokey with a load of spicy, salty, caramelized flavors in the mix. This is just the fermented beer, I am really excited to see how it tastes in a bottle said and done, but the initial tasting was better than anything i could have hoped for.

I have talked with a friend who owns a popular local beer store who has agreed to let me bring in my creation for a taste panel, I will inform you of their unfiltered responses to the beer so you don't just have to trust my opinion. As it stands now though, this is definitely something I will try again and (pending final results) highly recommend you try once for yourself.

I look forward to posting the final versions soon, thanks for you interest

 

[Miller4]

Any updates or pictures?

Sent from my VS980 4G using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Gran0amigo]

Sorry for the delay, I will post pictures and results as soon as possible, I have been traveling in Colorado for the past week and have a hectic Christmas schedule ahead... so it may be just a little while longer but I look forward to adding more soon.

 

[Gran0amigo]

Well, Im waiting on a delayed flight so I have a few minutes to update a little bit on this thread.

Here are some photos from start to finish of the entire process. We prepared a turkey brine as described in the first post, brined the turkey, smoked it over alder chips and finished it in the oven. The sweet potatoes were also prepared as previously described and added as a puree in the last 5. The cranberry sauce was prepared and strained and added with the sweet potato.

The first variation was a section of white meat taken from the finished bird and added in a grain bag to the last 5.

The second variation was the carved carcass of the turkey added to a stovetop pot and boiled for 5 mins with 1 gallon of wort from the boil kettle.

for both variations I did 50 mins of boiling in the main pot and then stole 4 and 1 gallons of wort respectively into separate pots to add the turkey and finish the boil.

The un-turkeyed beer was chilled with the plate chiller, the 4 gallons with the immersion chiller and the 1 gallon was placed in the refrigerator inside a 1 gallon fermentor to chill and separate.

The first two were pitched the day of and a portion of yeast from the starter preserved.

The third variation chilled and the fat and proteins were allowed to separate to the top and bottom respectively. The wort was siphoned off into a clean fermentor [from the middle of the clean wort level] ready to ferment and the protein and fat left behind in the previous fermentor.

I have tasted the alpha drop samples and they look promising, the third variation is bottle conditioning and the others are soon to follow. I will post more about the results with pictures when I have had a chance to sample the finished beer and pole others on their opinions.

I had some problems posting the photos so heres a link to the imgur where they can be found, the captions should be in the same order as the photos.

http://imgur.com/a/HQf67#0

A healthy young bird to get things started (16 lbs)


Brine for turkey awaiting the bird addition


Alderwood chips to smoke the bird


Sweet potatoes ready to cook


The master grill/smoker... the Green Egg


Preparing the wort for turkey addition


A few previous successes to aid in the process [Hop Bursted IPA, coffee oatmeal stout, pumpkin nut brown ale]


Preparing the Cranberry Sauce addition


Delicious turkey ready for carving


Turkey Addition [Variation #1] white meat and skin


Turkey Addition [Variation #2] carved carcass in 1 gallon of wort


Adding the Sweet Potato


Chilled and separated wort [24 hours later]


Clean wort siphoned from the middle of the separated wort [ready to ferment]


if you have any questions about the brew day process please feel free to comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks for following along,

 

[prohl84]

Totally jealous of your green egg sir! Nice pics- glad you say your samples are better than palatable; you are an inspiration to us all- at least those interested in creating some fowl beer.

 

[Tomcat0304]

Totally jealous of your green egg sir! Nice pics- glad you say your samples are better than palatable; you are an inspiration to us all- at least those interested in creating some fowl beer.

I see what you did there!

 

[RoughandReadyRanch]

I want to see this in the glass! Enough with tease lets see some skin!

 

[Gran0amigo]

The green egg is fantastic, one of those few items worth every dollar spent on it

I will be cracking open some bottles this week sometime to get an idea of the finished product, it was bottled on the 13th so just want to give it the proper 2 weeks minimum to condition before I get into it.

Thanks for following along, more results to come soon

 

[BeerGrylls]

Hello sir, so any follow-up notes? Or did this beer kill you?

 

[feinbera]

'Twas a murder most fowl.

 

[CarbonTom]

This popped up on the new posts feed, and I have to know how it came out. I was in awe, horror, and disgust at first. Then when your final brew day plan was said, intrigued...Now I just have to know!

 

[Travestian]

I had a feeling this thread would come alive again...

 

[JKaranka]

What was the attenuation like? There are all those goodies from the turkey in there to feed the yeast...

 

[BeerGrylls]

This was OP's last post since last December. I get the feeling we might be left in suspense.

 

[JKaranka]

I wonder if he had turkey beer around Xmas...

 

[CarbonTom]

But....we need to know

 

[Juno_Malone]

OP please...

 

[BeerGrylls]

OP please...

LOL. Tombstone says.. "Don't do it man. Turkey beer is for the birds."

 

[BeerGrylls]

OP please...

LOL. Tombstone says.. "Don't do it man. Turkey beer is for the birds."