A Bangin' Boxing Day Beetroot Brew

We were in two minds whether to stay at home or head down to the coast on Boxing Day, but the weather intervened and heavy rain in the morning kept us inside the house. Not so much because we were afraid of getting wet, more that once it had cleared the humidity was finally broken  and the flat was at a cool and comfortable 25 degrees or so. I even got the odd shiver laying on the couch as the wind below through - it was wonderful. And there was plenty to keep me entertained as Boxing Day in Australia is traditionally about two sporting events - the Boxing Day Test and the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. I'm not a cricket tragic but I take an interest, so I like watching both whilst I'm doing something else as well. It all added up to the perfect time to get another brew on.

The beetroot beer has just been bottled and it tastes surprisingly good. Very hoppy though - more of a beetroot IPA - so I decided I'd give it another go on a larger scale, back off the hops and use saison yeast to try to pull the fruity flavours out a bit more. Plus I had a saison already in the fermentor, so I could rack that off and pitch directly onto the old yeast cake. Less cleaning - hurrah!

This is the earlier beer

 This time around I'm brewing a 25l batch so my recipe was -

• 5 beetroots (I got 8 for $3!)
• 1kg pale malt extract
• 1kg raw sugar
• 1lg brown sugar
• 50g Amarillo hops (60 mins)
• 20g Cascade hops (30 mins)
• 20g Amarillo hops (5 mins)
• Saison yeast

Boil the sugars and bittering hops up first , and then add the chopped beetroot halfway through (ie with the Cascade hops).

I added a fair bit of filtered water to the fermentor before adding in the strained & cooled wort, then topped up to 25 l. Not sure if you can see it but the fermentor has a funky purple tone to it.

This next day the garage smelled strangely vegetable-y and the airlock was bubbling like crazy, so the yeast has taken well. This is last year's saison yeast which I used a few times and then kept in the fridge over winter, although I think after this brew I'm going to need to splash out on a new pack...