BJCP Style: 29C - Specialty Fruit Beer
Specialty Fruit is a fruit beer with an alternate sugar. For this one I'm doing molasses in the late boil and a berry blend after primary fermentation is mostly finished.
Full recipe is on BrewersFriend but here's the TL;DR
- 2022-5-17: Brewday
- Malts: Pilsner base, Black barley, c120
- Other fermentables: Molasses, berry blend (black/blue/straw)
- Hop: Nugget
- Yeast: Verdant (London III/Boddington's)
- OG: 14.2°P (pre fruit); FG 3.5°P; ABV 5.8%
- 2022-5-26 (+9): transferred to keg secondary
- 2022-5-29 (+13): tapped
Crystal 120 and Black barley on a pilsner (Weyermann) base 
Heated up for mash
Mash temp
Floor Manager Steve
Rolling boil...
Wort sample
OG higher than expected but still in range for the base American Stout style
Away we go..
2022-5-19 (+2): Berry mix going in
I decided to omit the strawberries. Not what I was going for and they would add extra bulk. Turned out the blackberries and blueberries were about what I had intended which was 1kg of berries.
Bringing to a boil
NINJA TIME
What was left after straining the seeds and other gunk: 1.1L of fruit puree
Brought the fermenter volume up to 26L
Really weird doing a refractometer reading on t h i c c c fruit goop but after tasting it's probably pretty close; I was surprised there was not a lot of sweetness, but hopefully the berries will add some nice flavor to the final product.
2022-5-26 (+9): FG check and transfer to keg secondary
Heated up for mash
Mash temp
Floor Manager Steve
Rolling boil...
Wort sample
OG higher than expected but still in range for the base American Stout style
Away we go..
2022-5-19 (+2): Berry mix going in
I decided to omit the strawberries. Not what I was going for and they would add extra bulk. Turned out the blackberries and blueberries were about what I had intended which was 1kg of berries.
Bringing to a boil
NINJA TIME
What was left after straining the seeds and other gunk: 1.1L of fruit puree
Brought the fermenter volume up to 26L
Really weird doing a refractometer reading on t h i c c c fruit goop but after tasting it's probably pretty close; I was surprised there was not a lot of sweetness, but hopefully the berries will add some nice flavor to the final product.
2022-5-26 (+9): FG check and transfer to keg secondary
2022-6-4 (+18): This seems to be ready. Maybe a bit more carbonation but it's tasting nice. The berry character is subtle but unmistakable. Molasses is also lingering in the background. Up front it's a standard American stout but dig deeper and some extra flavors are hiding.
