Brewed 11 gallons of this on 8/29/2014, split into two 6.5G carboys. Brewed for a bachelorette party my SWMBO was throwing in OBX, North Carolina. I did half with watermelon and half with strawberry. Here are my notes in case someone finds it beneficial.
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Brewday (8/29/2014)
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Mashed in temp was 152, after 60 minutes had dropped to 150. Recirculated the last 15 minutes of mash to compact grain bed.
Forgot 5.2 PH stabilizer in mash.
After (3) batch sparges the boil kettle volume at 14.7 gallons .
60 minute boil with no issues.
Recirculated boiling wort through CFC/Reverse IC (old IC inline for beer in bucket of ice water AFTER CFC) last 5 minutes of boil to sanitize (after washing with Oxiclean/Rinsing/Flushing with Starsan).
Wort was chilled to 78 in single pass through CFC/Reverse IC (84F hose water temp), split between two 6.5 gallon carboys. First carboy filled to 5.5 gallons, second carboy filled to 5.25 gallons (after tipping boil kettle, some trub material in second carboy to get to 5.25), attributing volume loss due to over aggressive boiling and a windy day. Oddly, not a lot of cold break visible in carboys, last brew looked like egg drop soup in carboy.
Carboys went into chest freezer set to 32F to drop temps, approx 6 hours later both carboys at 65F, pitched a stepped starter of WLP320 evening between carboys after shaking vigorously for 2 minutes each.
Brewday + 10 days (9/9/2014)
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Monitored status of fermentation over the last 10 days, blowoff activity stopped around day 4, krausen finally fell on day 9.
Gravity sample read at 1.011.
Sanitized/cut/mashed large basketball sized watermelon, pouring juice into bottom of a 5 gallon carboy and racking 5 gallons of beer on top. Mostly juice, some pulp got into carboy as well. About 10 cups (last batch had used 8 cups, but wanted a bit more watermelon flavor) of juice was in carboy. Moved back into 65F chest freezer, renewed blowoff tube activity present after 1 hour.
Also pushed 4lbs of frozen/thawed/frozen/thawed strawberries into mouth of a 5 gallon carboy and racked 5 gallons of beer on top. Strawberries very hard to get into carboy, lots of handling/breaking/slightly worried about infection. Had purchased 8lbs of strawberries but hands were too cold to do another 4lbs. Also assuming that frozen berries dropping the temp of beer is the reason for lack of CO2 activity the following morning, though what appears to be a new (red from berries) krausen is forming.
Brewday + 14 days (9/13/2014)
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Blowoff activity ceased and needed fermentation chamber space, exchanged blow offs for airlocks and moved carboys into bathroom closet (73F ambient) to age till time to keg.
Brewday + 24 days (9/22/2014)
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Moved both carboys from closet to rack to keg. Fruit in both carboys, especially the strawberries had turned white (not very pleasant to look at).
Gravity reading on watermelon was 1.007, strawberry was 1.010.
Both beers were excellent. Strawberry version had a tart strawberry taste up front with a wheat beer finish. Watermelon had a wheat beer taste up front with a watermelon finish (interesting it was backwards). The fruit in each beer was present, pleasant, and not overpowering. Watermelon taste was stronger than previous batch, will definitely be using 10 cups from now on, and possibly adding some pulp as well (which made it in carboy this time by accident). The pulp was probably a lot of the extra taste, it did not make a bitter watermelon flavor like eating the rind, but it did give it hints of a flavor similar to the melon meat closer to the rind.
Put kegs on gas at 12.5 PSI.
Brewday + 28 days (9/26/2014)
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Both kegs (along with a keg of hard cider) took the planned trip down to OBX, North Carolina for a bachelorette party.
Both beers received excellent comments from the girls, with the strawberry being the clear favorite.
Strawberry beer did not make it home, the watermelon came home, but kicked after 3 pints. Half of the hard cider keg made it home.
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Bottom line is the SWMBO and myself really enjoy this beer. It is great with strawberries too, but I'm partial to the original. I brewed two batches of it this summer (2014), and am sad now that melons are no longer available to me. Will definitely be brewing more of this beer in 2015.
Here is a picture of the watermelon.
