Happy days! My new beer is done. This is a battle-tested recipe with lemons and ginger. This time I also had 10 g of fresh lemon balm in the seasoning infusion. This guy:

Works really great as a beer component, sharing to spotlight this herb with you all! There’s a Wikipedia page that describes the many aromatic compounds it imparts. It’s perennial (pic is from my garden), grows in a slightly invasive manner so you only need to plant very little to get enough for many brews. This was a warning :)

Another new twist was a helping of Weyermann spelt wheat malt. I expected the nutty spelt flavour from it, but the taste profile ended up so multi-faceted that I’ll need more tastings to pinpoint it :D All in all, a distinctive flavour to this beer. Fermented to bone dry very smoothly.

  • robsteranium@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Great idea! We’re overrun with Lemon Balm!

    How did you extract the flavour? Did you add it to the boil or make a vodka tincture or something?

    In fact I’d really be up for trying this out if you’d care to share your recipe?

    • tasankovasara@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Absolutely! On mobile so I’ll make this tight…

      Mash is 18 L water, 6,7 kg of mostly blond malts, including 1 kg of Weyermann Spelt and 1 kg of Simpsons Premium English Cara for a little sweetness. 60 min BIAB mashing with strike temp at 71,2 °C.

      Then there’s the infusion: 3 L water heated to boil, off the hob, in with ingredients and let sit with lid on. This had 2 large organic lemons sliced thin, one smallish ginger sliced thin, 10 g lemon balm leaves and growth tips, 30 g Simcoe and 30 g Amarillo hops (pellets). It had about an hour and half to infuse.

      One more thing was the yeast starter - 2 L water, 1 dL white sugar, 1 dL sugarcane syrup, pinch of yeast nutrient. Extra sugar there to feed the starter and offset the diluting effect of 5 L water added on top of the mashing.

      Boiled the wort for 50 min, added 60 g Challenger hops at 45 min to go. The 3 L infusion went into the boil at about 10 min to go, flame up to allow a little boiling for that too.

      One thing I might have changed in hindsight is a little less of the Amarillo and Simcoe in the infusion to leave more room for the lemony notes.

      Would be great to hear how it went if you try this :)