Revisiting this recipe after a few years. Going with a slightly malty water profile to boost sweetness perception. Adding a bit more citric acid and getting the pH down to 5.2 to give it a bit more sharpness. The citric acid is not 5%, it's powdered so it should be 100% or very near it with some sort of anti-caking agent (cornstarch if anything).
Mixing the two recipes found in the thread.
Added some crystal 10-15L to mix (this is nice as it adds residual sweetness to the beer, which balances the watermelon flavor well.
Add watermelon juice in primary vessel post krausen.
To make watermelon juice. Put whole watermelon fruit into bleach solution to sanitize the outside. Starsan a chopping board, large bowl, knife, and brew bag. Chop up fruit to remove peel and add to bag in the bowl. Bleach/Starsan/iodophor your hands and squeeze the flesh through the bag into the bowl to get juice. Add 2 liters of juice (about 1/2 gallon) to 5 gallons (1 gallon total for two 5 gallon carboys).
This gives a strong watermelon flavor when using a seeded, fully ripe watermelon. If you like watermelon only a little bit, I would cut it by half. I like watermelon a lot so I wanted it front and center. This one goes over very well during the late summer.
From thread:
I decided to not use the watermelon extract that came with the kit and opted for real watermelon instead. I chose the Wyeast 1010 American Wheat yeast option.
Let the primary fermentation process go the full 2 weeks.
For secondary fermentation, I bought a seedless watermelon at the store and put all the watermelon meat into a ninja blender. I did not use any of the rind at all since my research indicated that using the rind may cause an undesirable flavor. I pureed all the watermelon and threw it in the bottom of my bottling bucket. I then racked the fermented beer on top of the watermelon puree. I also chose to NOT boil the puree before adding it to the bucket. I read that boiling watermelon could also cause some really nasty flavors and aromas.
Did everything turn very red??? YES. Did that go away??? YES! The sugars in the watermelon kicked off a secondary fermentation. I let the watermelon/beer mixture ferment for another 5 days. I probably could have gone 7, but did not want to run any risk of the fruit turning into a vinegar taste. On the 5th day, I kegged the beer and chilled it for 24 hours before force carbonating.
Every time I transferred the beer (primary to secondary, secondary to keg), I ran the beer through a sanitized colander. The result was SPECTACULAR. My neighbors and I did a blind taste test with my beer and some Hell or High Watermelon, and my beer blew away the competition. I was concerned that using the real fruit would make the beer too sweet or have an overpowering watermelon taste. Totally not the case at all. The watermelon flavor is subtle. It was described as a great wheat beer taste with a nice watermelon undertone. Now that the weather here in DC has hit the 80's and low 90's, this beer is a great drink on a hot day!
Could sub California Ale Yeast White Labs WLP001 for 1010
