Ruby Tuesday

Classification: fruit beer, raspberry ale, extract

Source: Mitch Gelly (gelly@persoft.edu) Issue #947, 8/13/92

Color was absolutely phenomenal!! Ruby red and crystal clear. Not even chill haze. I was amazed at the clarity. Excellent raspberry nose and flavor, sort of like a raspberry wine. As the beer would sit in your glass, the raspberry aromatics would get stronger. Not sweet, kind of tart. Nice. On the down side, it was a little too raspberry for some, not enough beer character. Next time I will go for 9-10 pounds of extract.

I have a peach beer in the bottle a week now, based on the same recipe except using 12 pounds of peaches and pale malt instead of crystal. Excellent summertime beverages, the women (and I) love it.

Ingredients:

7 pounds, light malt extract syrup
7 pounds, fresh wild raspberries
1 pound, english crystal malt (had no lovibond rating on pkg, I'd guess ~40)
2/3 ounce, cascades whole hops (~3.5% alpha)
1 campden tablet
1 pack, Edme ale yeast (11.5g)
1/2 cup, corn sugar to prime

Procedure:

Brought 2--1/2 gallons water to boil with crystal malt in grain bag (removed grain bag when water was at 170 F). Added extract and brought to boil, boiled for 60 minutes. All of hops for 45 minutes.

Chilled wort to ~100 F and strained into carboy (prefilled with 2--1/2 gallons cold water). Rehydrated yeast in 90 F water for 15 minutes and pitched, topped off carboy with water, and mounted blowoff tube.

After two days of healthy ferment (~75 F) added fruit. Pureed raspber- ries with campden tablet, added to fresh carboy (better use a 6 or 7 gallon carboy if you got it, the fruit takes up space!), purged carboy with CO2, and racked beer into it. Swirled it around a little to mix it up (don't shake it up) and put blowoff tube back on. Let sit another week and bottle. I only used 1/2 cup corn sugar to prime, and it was plenty. Didn't take a final gravity.

Specifics:

O.G.: 1.040