Nettle Beer brewed and bottled (UPDATED)
16 Apr
UPDATED:
I opened up the first bottle of Nettle Beer last night, it’s very lively! It seems it was not fully fermented since it was desperate to come out of the bottle, luckily I managed to let some of the excess gas escape using my finger before pouring a perfect glass with no waste.
I took another hydrometer reading and it’s now down to 1.015 which means the alchohol content is 3.5%ABV. I reckon it could possibly ferment even more but I’m going to place the bottles somewhere cold to stop fermentation since I don’t want the bottles exploding!
The Nettle Beer is really nice, really pleased with it!
Over the Easter weekend I had my first attempt at brewing Nettle beer. The recipe itself is very straight forward, and picking the nettles was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
The recipe:
- 2 carrier bags of nettles. You should only pick the upper half of the nettle since the lower part can be bitter.
- 900kg of cane sugar
- Juice of a lemon
- Juice of an orange
- 30g cream of tartar
- A packet of yeast (I used dry baking yeast).
- Bring a large pan of water to the the boil and add your sugar, stir until it’s dissolved
- Add the nettles and fruit juices to the pan and boil for 10 mins. Switch the heat off and leave the nettles to steep in the wort for anything up to 4 hours.
- Add the wort to your fermenter and fill up to a total of 10 litres with cold water.
- Pitch your yeast, and place the fermenter somewhere warm. After 7 days, place the bottles somewhere cool.
So I bottled the nettle beer yesterday, from the recipes I’ve read there is apparently no need to add any extra fermentables for carbonation. The final OG was 1.020 1.015 meaning the nettle beer will be around 2.5%ABV 3.5%ABV, however I think this may increase a little since some more of the sugar will ferment in the bottle.
At this stage the nettle beer tastes like very nice lemonade, with a subtle dry hop flavour. It’s fairly sweet, and very refreshing. I always knew that this brew was not going to be a ‘beer’ as such, but it is a very nice drink. Because of the low ABV, I think this drink will be amazing with some vodka and ice.
I wonder if using a beer yeast will give me a lower final OG? I like the idea of keeping this drink as cheap as possible so I may just stick with baking yeast, perhaps I’ll use two sachets.
I think I’m going to make some more this weekend. The brew costs around £1.50 so it won’t sting my bank balance.
- Comments 6 Comments
- Categories Brew days, Homebrew
- Author William
Awesome! I think i’ll try this at the weekend.
Do it, it’s quite rewarding.
baking yeast eh? I would have thought this would also lend itself to a champagne yeast as well (similar to Turbo Cider recipes) – cant wait to try it!
You’re not wrong there, I reckon it could only but improve it.
you bringing some of this over tonight?
Yeah for sure. Gotta make some more as soon as I get the chance.