Fruit Beer watermelon wheat

[worth]

Just racked this one to the secondary with the melon. Can't wait to try it. Should be timed perfectly for the fourth of July, which was the goal.

 

[ben the brewman]

Its a great beer for the 4th of July for sure. Thats about when i get my first batch of this stuff going too.

 

[ben the brewman]

Well I made 10 gallons this weekend. The first five will be watermelon and the other five will be passion fruit mango. Not sure of the exact ratios yet but ill get it soon.

 

[nutty_gnome]

I did a watermelon wheat 'ben the brewman' style last year. It was great, see my replys in this thread.

I decided to go a differnet route this year because I would have to wait till about now to get a decent watermelon. Instead, I followed the suggestion in this thread here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f75/watermelon-ale-167129/
and my version (see thread) has been bottled for a week now. It is pretty good so far! Also, this one appears to be able to pour with a head on it, something the natural Watermelon version wouldn't. Check it out!

 

[selvajasonr]

Was gonna give this a try. I screwed up when ordering the yeast. I have the S05 yeast. Will this work?

 

[arock]

Brewed this yesterday morning - happily bubbling away in the primary now. Followed the original recipe, but pitched Wyeast 3068. I ordered the watermelon jolly ranchers to use for priming - will report back when it's ready for tasting in mid-August.

 

[ben the brewman]

Im not sure about the us05 yeast it should work just fine, the last batch i made i did it with us05 and it turned out just fine.

 

[ben the brewman]

Brewed this yesterday morning - happily bubbling away in the primary now. Followed the original recipe, but pitched Wyeast 3068. I ordered the watermelon jolly ranchers to use for priming - will report back when it's ready for tasting in mid-August.

The 3068 gives it a good flavor that goes pretty good with the watermelon. Be careful with the jolly ranchers it takes 1 to prime a 22oz bottle.

 

[Drunkdtank]

I was gonna use the s05 yeast too, just because that is what I have on hand. Any tips to insure that this does not come out too tangy?

 

[arock]

The 3068 gives it a good flavor that goes pretty good with the watermelon. Be careful with the jolly ranchers it takes 1 to prime a 22oz bottle.

Thanks - I am going to bulk-melt enough jolly ranchers in water to mix with the entire batch. If the math is right, 26 or 27 jolly ranchers should be enough for the 5 gallons. Has anyone tried this bulk method, or has it only been 1 per 22oz bottle?

 

[ben the brewman]

I was going to do it the next time i made it with watermelon but havnt got around to it yet. Let me know how it works for you.

 

[nutty_gnome]

I should think that the process after heating would be the same as adding a water/corn sugar mix to beer pre-botttling. However, I would try to be as gentle as possible while melting the jolly ranchers and ensure that I didn't boil the heck out of them so that the flavor changes.

Were I to do this I would do a test run and FIRST boil the water to sanitize. While boiling I would unwrap the candy and spray liberally with starsan. Then I would add the wet candy at flameout to the boiling water and let it cool with no ice bath. I would check to see that they dissolved fully over that period and figure out if I needed to stir the mix to help out the process. Maybe that would be enough to dissolve the candy yet not over heat the flavorings.

Or am I overthinking it?

 

[arock]

Sounds like a decent process - I like the idea of boiling the water separately and adding the candy at flameout. My understanding is that a jolly rancher will melt in water above 119 degrees, but I have not done a practice run. I bought the 160-count package of jolly ranchers so I could do a test run ahead of time - they just arrived yesterday. I will certainly report back my findings.

I don't think you are overthinking it at all - we obsess over the process details ahead of time so we can RDWHAHB later.

 

[nutty_gnome]

Here's an interesting question... Why aren't we aren't we adding 2 pounds of watermelon jolly ranchers at the end of the boil in a standard wheat recipe and counting that as a fementable sugar and then fermenting as usual? Has anyone done that?

 

[arock]

OK, I did a test run with the jolly ranchers. Boiled some water and added 5 candies at flameout. They kind of melted into one large mass sitting on the bottom of the pan. I grabbed a metal spoon and put the tip into the mass, then kind of rubbed it around the bottom of the pan. This worked pretty well to accelerate the dissolving process, which completed in about 10 minutes.

With 25+ jolly ranchers, the "melted mass" might be unwieldy. I wonder if crushing the candy before adding to the water and stirring right away would work better. Another experiment for another day ...

 

[ben the brewman]

Here's an interesting question... Why aren't we aren't we adding 2 pounds of watermelon jolly ranchers at the end of the boil in a standard wheat recipe and counting that as a fementable sugar and then fermenting as usual? Has anyone done that?

I have thought about it but i have never tried it before. I like it and dont see why it wouldnt work except that there would be some aroma lost due to fermentation.

 

[nutty_gnome]

Ben, I wonder if the aroma lost would be the 'bright candy' smell or the 'watermelon' smell?

 

[ben the brewman]

I have no idea. I know you loose a lot of aromas through fermentation but i dont know about artificial aromas like that in candy.

 

[ben the brewman]

The beer that i added the passion fruit and mango to was awesome. I will be making it again soon too.

 

[arock]

I bottled mine today. Ended up doing a hybrid of corn sugar and the watermelon jolly ranchers. I did 100 grams of corn sugar and 15 jolly ranchers (= 55 grams of sugar), for just under 5.5 ounces of total priming sugars. I double-bagged the jolly ranchers in ziploc bags and crushed them with a hammer, and then added them to the boiling mixture of water and corn sugar. The jolly ranchers were fully dissolved in about 90 seconds, and so I turned off the burner at that point.

Hopefully this will turn out well - will report back in a few weeks.

 

[SwampassJ]

My mom has 2 little watermelons growing out back on the vine. I might just have to confiscate them.

 

[ben the brewman]

Sounds good man. Did you use any watermelon juice in the fermenter or just the jolly ranchers.

 

[ben the brewman]

My mom has 2 little watermelons growing out back on the vine. I might just have to confiscate them.

Just make sure they are good and ripe before you pick them.

 

[arock]

Update - just had the first bottle of my batch after 10 days of carbing up. Turned out great - the carbonation is incredible already. The watermelon flavor is perfect - noticeable but not overpowering.

Ben - I did 5 cups of watermelon juice in the secondary, and then the carbonation procedure I described with the jolly ranchers.

 

[ben the brewman]

Awesome man thanks for the update. Its looking like this is a pretty solid recipe.

 

[ben the brewman]

Its about time to start up the wheat beers again. Its a bit early for watermelon but the passion fruit is sounding pretty good.

 

[iamatuna]

I havnt read everything here in this thread but has anyone ever tried bottling with watermelon juice instead of using it in the 2ndary....or both ?

cheers

 

[Agrice]

I like this recipe and am planning on brewing it as soon as I bottle and rack my current batches. I am interested in adding some basil to it. Basil and watermelon make an awesome, refreshing combination, but being fairly new to home brewing I don't know how to go about adding them. I think I can sanitize them and add them to secondary kind of like a dry hop. Any thoughts?

 

[ben the brewman]

I like this recipe and am planning on brewing it as soon as I bottle and rack my current batches. I am interested in adding some basil to it. Basil and watermelon make an awesome, refreshing combination, but being fairly new to home brewing I don't know how to go about adding them. I think I can sanitize them and add them to secondary kind of like a dry hop. Any thoughts?

I have never heard that but it sounds very interesting. I would use fresh basil and wash it and sanatize it and it just like a dry hop in the secondary.

 

[ben the brewman]

I havnt read everything here in this thread but has anyone ever tried bottling with watermelon juice instead of using it in the 2ndary....or both ?

cheers

I wouldn't recommend it because i have noticed that it does ferment in the carboy and i think it would be hard to judge how much to use for bottling.