Monday, July 31, 2023

Brew Day: Simply the Zest (Fruit Beer)

So far in 2023 I haven't been brewing or writing a great deal. I did brew two batches for the summer; I need to write about that double brew day. 

Summer being my favorite beer season, I really should have brewed one more batch. Especially for late summer when store shelves start to fill with marzens and festbiers. 

Toward the end of July I happened upon a sale of Muntons malt extract. My supply of base malts has dwindled after being laid off, so the timing worked out well. I have three upcoming brews that needed English base malt. At $9.95 per can I can brew an extract batch for roughly the same price as buying base malt for an all grain batch at a homebrew shop.


While loading up, the Muntons Simply the Zest kit caught my eye. This would be a great way to sneak in one last brew for the summer! The weather this summer has not been conducive to a long, all grain brew day either with June being a washout, and July alternating between oppressive humidity and thunder storms. 

One area Muntons has put a lot of focus into was modernizing their range of canned extract kits and malt extracts. The Taproom Range of kits was launched within the past couple of years. It is a range of one-off kits designed to keep things fresh and offer homebrewers new styles to brew. 

I saw that the kit is designed to make a 3% radler akin to blending a 5-6% beer with lemonade. That was a little too lightweight for me. I wanted to make something closer to Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy which is 4.2% with a wheat beer base. 

I supplemented the kit with Wheat Malt Extract and dextrose. The idea was to bump up the ABV, but still have a beer that is light-bodied. BeerSmith estimated the FG at 1.009 which should be perfect. 

The kit came with the Muntons Premium Yeast, which unlike the regular yeast is designed to ferment an all-malt wort. It should work just fine in my 93% malt recipe. 

As I blended my ingredients the steam released a nice lemon aroma. I'll see how the beer tastes after a couple weeks. I can easily add some fresh lemon zest and juice if I think it needs more or a fresh lemon flavor.

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Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 1.28 gal
Post Boil Volume: 1.28 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.28 gal   
Bottling Volume: 5.03 gal
Estimated OG: 1.041 SG
Estimated Color: 3.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 12.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 0 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
6.0 oz           Corn Sugar (Dextrose) [Boil] (0.0 SRM)           Sugar         1          7.8 %         0.03 gal      
1 lbs 1.6 oz     Spraymalt DME - Wheat Malt [Whirlpool] (5.0 SRM) Dry Extract   2          23.1 %        0.08 gal      
3 lbs 4.8 oz     Simply The Zest [Whirlpool] (3.0 SRM)            Extract       3          69.1 %        0.25 gal      
1.0 pkg          Munton Fison Premium  (Munton-Fison #-)          Yeast         4          -             -             


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