Using Homemade Flavor Extract?

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by bradcochran1234, Jun 11, 2014.

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  1. bradcochran1234

    bradcochran1234 Initiate (0) Jan 22, 2011 Georgia

    I've been reading up on people creating their own flavoring extracts. Most of which are fruit or nut extracts and I've heard great success stories. Everyone that I have heard of is letting the fruit/nut etc. sit in vodka for a 3-6 week period and then adding the extract in at racking.
    My questions are... 1.) Will this not completely screw up your FG? 2.) Do these beers come out tasting boozy at all?

    I've always wanted to create a watermelon ale and I think creating my extract might be a good way to go. I just was looking for some feedback from people who have tried this method before.
    FYI this would be an AG 5.5 gallon batch.
     
  2. FATC1TY

    FATC1TY Pooh-Bah (2,564) Feb 12, 2012 Georgia
    Pooh-Bah

    A tincture will be quite concentrated, so normally unless you are really adding a ton of it, you won't get a boozy mess with it.

    It won't mess up your FG really. You are adding a negligible amount of alcohol to the finished beer usually. Unless you add fruits, and allow the sugars to be fermented out, you won't see any changes, ideally.

    Watermelon would be something you could probably brew, and add whole cut up watermelon to your fermenter.

    Or better yet, juice some watermelon and add a ton of watermelon juice to the whole shootin' match and let it ferment out. Know that it will dry the beer a little more, so adjust with your mash temps and yeast strain accordingly.
     
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  3. InVinoVeritas

    InVinoVeritas Initiate (0) Apr 16, 2012 Wisconsin

    I just got done reading the section on this within Radical Brewing. Interesting tip to add, Randy suggests taking the extract and taste testing it in a shot glass. So you’ll need a pretty accurate measurement device for the extract, thinking like a 5 ml children’s syringe with smaller graduations in between. Pull your shot glass amount from your beer. Then added desired amount of extract to taste. After that it’s a simple scale of the measured volume of extract compared to the 1oz shot glass amount of beer. Hope that helps and is clear.
     
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  4. bradcochran1234

    bradcochran1234 Initiate (0) Jan 22, 2011 Georgia

    I was thinking about doing the "juice" method. I wanted to achieve a more fruity "Hell or High Watermelon" if you will. Less rind taste and more melon taste. Would you suggest doing both the juice in the batch and racking with extract?
     
  5. FATC1TY

    FATC1TY Pooh-Bah (2,564) Feb 12, 2012 Georgia
    Pooh-Bah


    It would be worth a shot if you wanted something really punchy. You could also do juice, and then even add some of the meat of the melon to the primary/secondary or wherever you so choose to add the fruit.
     
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  6. flagmantho

    flagmantho Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,674) Feb 19, 2009 Washington
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Another possibility is to handle it the way the Germans do their Berliner Weissbiers: make yourself some watermelon syrup and then just add a dash of it to your base beer right before you drink it.

    I made a raspberry shrub that I would add to a session saison that tasted surprisingly good.
     
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  7. bradcochran1234

    bradcochran1234 Initiate (0) Jan 22, 2011 Georgia

    thanks for all the feed back, it was very helpful!
     
  8. kjyost

    kjyost Initiate (0) May 4, 2008 Canada (MB)

    DO NOT ADD THE MEAT!!!! I ran a test batch once with meat added and with the sugar fermented out it was a rindey awful mess.

    I keg and juice a watermelon, adding it to a wheat beer an least once a year. When I bottle and let it ferment out it loses most of what we consider to be a watermelon flavour as it has lost all its sweetness.
     
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  9. FATC1TY

    FATC1TY Pooh-Bah (2,564) Feb 12, 2012 Georgia
    Pooh-Bah

    In the most recent BYO, there's a recipe for a Watermelon Ale from a brewery in CT.

    They have .5 gallons of pureed pulp from a watermelon. No rind, and said to scrape the meat out, puree it and add it after primary fermentation is ending/slowing down.

    So there's that idea from people who say it works as a seasonal beer of theirs.
     
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