Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Adding Blackberries to the Gypsy Curse DunkelKolsch


Today I through in 18oz of Blackberries into the DunkelKolsch as I transfered it into secondary. to those who don't know, the dunkelkolsch is a term that was created because the Kolsch I was brewing turned out pretty dark. So I was questioning in the first week wether to dump the batch or not, but I was persuaded not to by my beer tweet friends and decided to turn my lemons into lemonade. I embraced the darkness, or dunkel-ness. 

My original plan was to lager this guy for 3-4 months, so I would have a super dry crisp beer to enjoy with friends as the dreadful winter receded and  spring came upon us. Well F-it, Im still going full steam ahead, but now Im going to add a dark fruit to my dark Kolsch. Blackberries. and 18oz of them.

No fruit is really in season right now, but I was able to find a small sale on blackberries at the local grocery store. I brought them home and then I froze them. Why freeze fresh blackberries you ask? Well, from what I understand, its called exploding the cells. and short of actually mashing the berries, its the best way to prepare the fruit for flavor extraction.

So I cleaned the fruit and stuffed the bowl of them in my freezer overnight, and then I thawed them out the next morning in a bowl of vodka to sterilize them. After 2 weeks in primary, I didnt want an infection to slip in in the nooks of those little purple hand grenades.

I then threw in both vodka and blackberries and capped it off. The beer is currently at 61 degrees, but I will be bringing it down to 50 over the holidays and then lower through the winter.

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