Heather Ale

[white.grant]

I used to take ergodryl for migrainous neuralgia, think I know your girlfriend

 

[The Village Idiot]

Jeez mate you could get a fortune for that on the club scene.... lol

 

[white.grant]

Just kegged the heather ale. Had a quick slurp on the hydrometer sample and the heather is a really interesting flavour and very hard to describe. Quite looking forward to it carbing up and hitting the fridge.

 

[1974Alby]

Mine's safely in the keg! Definitely needs a decent rest though having sampled the wort, it's quite bitter but the background flavor suggests it's going to be really nice - planning on leaving it a good while before trying :chug:

how is this beer tasting logman??? Im keen to put some of my heather in a brew this week and chasing some feedback on how much to add...200g or 30g....????

 

[Logman]

how is this beer tasting logman??? Im keen to put some of my heather in a brew this week and chasing some feedback on how much to add...200g or 30g....????

Haven't tried it yet - was getting itchy feet reading Grantw's post the other day though - 3 weeks now, should taste ok. Actually I gave it a shot of Co2 this morning and got a bit on my finger in the process, tasted great but hard to tell as it wasn't much. I've got about 1/3 of a keg of Porter to go, might drink that then put it on the tap then, probably another week or so.

What I'll do is put the Bronco faucet on it tomorrow and take a taste and let you know....

 

[bum]

Im keen to put some of my heather in a brew this week and chasing some feedback on how much to add...200g or 30g....????

Same. I'll be putting down a 70/- or 80/- next and hoping to see peoples' results before I commit to a recipe.

 

[brettprevans]

Brew a.double and split the boil. Or us it as 'hop tea', oradd some concrete and harden up fellas. Experiment. If it fails it just becones ur 4th pint of the night beer!!

From what I've seen its 100g per brew

 

[bum]

If it fails it just becones ur 4th pint of the night beer!!

If only I had such a luxury. My brewing (and drinking) pretty much only supports me having one ready-to-go batch at a time. If I bugger up a batch I'm looking at a bad 3/4 weeks.

From what I've seen its 100g per brew

I'll use this as my baseline while planning. Thanks for the heads up, was thinking maybe double that.

 

[brettprevans]

Orig recipe in thread is 3 cups. Ill check radical brewing tomorrow and post

 

[white.grant]

Mosher's recipe in radical brewing has 57gms or heather flowers and 7gms of meadowsweet.

 

[Yob]

Orig recipe in thread is 3 cups. Ill check radical brewing tomorrow and post

3 cups fresh or 1 to 2 dry

Mosher's recipe in radical brewing has 57gms or heather flowers and 7gms of meadowsweet.

57g doesnt sound like very much :unsure: does that roughly = a few cups? I still havnt collected my Heather as yet...

 

[Logman]

Just had a taste. Recapping, I put a cube of already made SA in the fridge, dropped to 4 degrees then boiled 5 litres or so with 100g for 10 minutes and then threw the lot in the fermenter. 'Dry heathered' with another 100 after 4 days . I'd say it's a bit much - next time I'll go with about 75 late addition to the kettle and no fermenter addition. Having said that I really only want a background 'what's that' type effect.

I think if it's left for 2-3 months more this brew will be great, at the moment it's slightly harsh/bitter I guess - and this has Candi Sugar in it so it's definitely added something to the taste....

Clear though, no haze or junk in the beer to speak of at all. Colour is super, not sure what the Heather contributes there.

 

[white.grant]

57g doesnt sound like very much :unsure: does that roughly = a few cups? I still havnt collected my Heather as yet...

My memory seems to say that the 50gms I used would have been close to 2 cups, it's quite voluminous and very light.

I think if it's left for 2-3 months more this brew will be great, at the moment it's slightly harsh/bitter I guess

I was getting a very definite though non hoplike floral flavour from the sample I tasted. Slight woodiness and floral softness to the aroma. I might take off a sample tonight and see if I can be more specific.

 

[Logman]

floral flavour

Mine tastes like chewing Heather so I guess it's floral h34r:

Not really that bad, just needs time...

 

[white.grant]

Just tasting my albeit flat and relatively warm heather ale now and it confirms my earlier impressions, light floral, slightly woody flavour and aroma, goes nicely with the malt and is drinking fine for something just out of the fermenter. It's soft and subtle so I'm thinking it could go up a notch or two, so might try 80-100ish grams in the next one alternatively I could dry heather it perhaps.

 

[bum]

Awesome feedback, guys. Very helpful.

How does it behave in the kettle? Does it seem to whirlpool alright or should I start thinking about employing some sort of kettle screen? My current thinking is 75-100g at flameout if it effects your answer.

 

[white.grant]

I used a hop bag to isolate the flowers as a I don't run a hop screen in my kettle and was not really sure if the flowers would get stuck in the taps or could go tannic in my cube if they got through.

The flowers are hydrophobic so I agitated the hop bag a bit with my kettle spoon to make sure they were getting saturated in the wort, so I reckon they would float more than not if you added them directly. I let the bag sit during the whirlpool and then removed the hop bag before draining. The flowers were quite moist when i pulled them out, but still had a lot of rigidity to them which I'm guessing was mostly stem, most of the pink flower was gone - which would be the volatile part.

Ross mentioned in the bb thread that they smell like curry powder when they hit the hot wort and I'm glad he did - it's quite weird actually - but it doesn't taste like that or smell like that when its cooled.

Hope that helps, it was my first experience with Heather (can't help but thinking of a gorgeous girl I went through High school with of the same name, and had absolutely NO experience with despite my best efforts) so I'm just feeling my way

 

[bum]

Hope that helps

Definitely food for thought. Will employ a bag and consider adding at 10 minutes - I wasn't aware of their hydrophopia and my flora counselling skills aren't quite what I'd like them to be so I'll have to give them some more time, I guess.

Cheers.

 

[Yob]

weighted down in the bag perhaps?

I hope to get one down in a few weeks so watching this with keen interest

:icon_cheers:

 

[bum]

weighted down in the bag perhaps?

Yeah, that was my initial thought after Grantw's post but then I thought it would mess with the whirlpool too much and I didn't like the idea of trying to fish out a 100C weight from the bag and float it at 0 min. I think simply floating a bag on top/occassional dunking for a bit longer may be the way I end up going.

Definitely keen to see everyone's experiences still though.