A combination of slowly-dissipating lethargy and bad weather has been keeping me inside recently. Which has been bad for my ever-increasing waistline but good for my brewing - I get bored easily so need to keep doing things to keep myself busy, and beer is a gift that keeps on giving.
Last week I made a strong wheat beer, and after bottling off a few bottles this weekend to see what it would be like 'neat' I added a gallon of watermelon juice to the secondary.
How do you get a gallon of watermelon juice? With a blender, a sieve and lots of watermelon of course...fortunately sold over here at 69 cents per kg for seedless...
It does lead to a bit of a messy kitchen
but mopping it all up gives me something to do for the rest of the day. And of course is something that I feel is essential and not something I'm made to do because I made a mess. Honest.
What's the point? Well I'm hoping that the watermelon will add a fruity depth of flavour to the beer. Plus of course dumping a load more sugar gives the yeast something else to munch on, which will produce a stronger brew.
Unfortunately the temperatures up here are a bit high for good fermentation. Too high a temperature can lead to over-active yeast and the production of different types of alcohol molecule which can add strong flavours to the beer. So I have to use evaporative cooling (also known as 'a damp towel') to keep the beer as cool as possible. It's not ideal, but there's not much else I can do as installing aircon is a bit over the top for the garage. I'd want to put it in the flat first.
I also made an IPA a couple of weeks ago with so much hops in it that it wouldn't pass through the siphon tube. I've bottled about a quarter of this but you can see the three remaining demijohns awaiting bottling under the table. Not sure if I went over the top on this one - it tasted overly resiny during the bottling, so I think I'll need to let it sit for a few months to allow the hops to mellow out. That will also give me time to empty a few of my existing bottles...
Let's hope the rain keeps up.
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