Williams Brewing Watermelon Ale

[Philip_T]

I was wondering if anyone has tried this kit from Williams Brewing?
I currently have it wrapping up and will be bottling this weekend and was wondering if I should be adding the whole 4 oz. of watermelon flavoring...or if that would be overkill. I was looking for nice easy drinking summer brew, but don't want anything to sickly sweet or tart.

Anyone with any experience with this kit, or watermelon flavoring in general?

 

[Oldsock]

Add it to taste. You can either do measured blends to figure out the right rate, or add it slowly tasting as you go.

 

[GTO_Guy]

I just finished a watermelon wheat and i pulped up 3/4 of a seedless watermelon. perfect amount of flavor from the fruit.

 

[LynnHomeBrewer]

I got a similar kit from my brew shop here in Mass... it came with the Brewers Best 4 oz. bottle of artificial flavoring. I can smell it through the sealed bottle and bag it came in.

I was wondering same thing. Directions say to use 4 oz. Per 5 gallon batch. I myself don't like to follow directions. Gonna add few ounces of fresh watermelon at end of boil and ferment with few more oz. of fresh watermelon (for 3 days) going to use 2 oz. of artifial flavoring when I bottle it. It also came with Coopers brewing yeast (Australian), I bought liquid yeast from White Labs (WLP001 California Ale yeast). I always tweak kits to put my own spin on things.

Long reply short... use half of the bottle if your worrying about to much watermelon flavoring. Test it out to see if its to your liking. If not enough flavor you can always garnish your brew with slice of watermelon in it

 

[Philip_T]

Thanks for the reply's. I think I'm going to toss in an ounce tonight when I take a reading from the fermentor, then add 2 oz. at bottling and taste it to see if that's too much and add the rest if I need it. I've heard that sometimes the watermelon can be over powering at first, but mellows after a few weeks.

 

[LynnHomeBrewer]

How it go? Update when you've tried adding the flavoring

 

[Philip_T]

Well, I wasn't able to put any in the secondary before bottling day due to scheduling, so I just ended up putting about 3 out of the 4 ounces in the bottling bucket. I took it to the point where I thought it was a tad bit strong since I've heard the flavoring mellows a bit after 2 to 3 weeks. IMO, the whole 4 ounces in the bottling bucket may have been a bit too much for my taste buds. YMMV. I'll post back with an update in a couple weeks. Right now it's a bit green.

 

[Philip_T]

Update:

After 2 1/2 weeks in the bottle, it's still pretty green with artificial watermelon flavoring. Gonna give it a couple more weeks....and probably just use real watermelon next time even though it will be a lot more work. The extract doesn't even really taste like watermelon yet.