Raspberry Belgian Ale sample
During the past week, I kegged both my Munich Dunkel (“Dunkel-Osteus“) as well as my raspberry Belgian ale. Let’s take a look at the details since brew day for each.
This pun-fully named beer in the Munich Dunkel style fermented at 54° for 17 days, before it was raised to 68° on February 28. On March 6, I cold crashed it to 33°, and let it sit for an additional 16 days before kegging on March 22. At this point, the final gravity was 1.016, for an abv of 4.5%. I set to carbonating immediately–the sample I pulled a few days later is really, really tasty. I’m liking this beer so far, and it should be pretty exceptional once it has conditioned for another week or two.
I brewed this beer on March 10, and added the raspberry puree on March 14. To make the puree, I added about 1 cup of vodka and 18 oz of frozen raspberries to a blender. Then, I blended them until they were nice and pureed, before tossing them into the fermenter. I figured the vodka (which I ran first) would kill anything nasty in the blender (or anything remaining on the berries). I let this mixture ferment for another 12 days; by this point, the raspberry seeds, etc., had dropped to the bottom and the beer had cleared pretty nicely.
I kegged the brew on March 26. Final gravity was 1.011, down from 1.039. This works out to an abv of 3.8%. The beer has a nice pale pink color and a beautiful raspberry aroma. The raspberries come through nicely on the flavor, too, although the beer as a whole could use a bit more tartness and body. I’ll see if that perception remains accurate after carbonation. I was tempted to throw in some lactic acid, but figured it would be best to carbonate first and test if that helps.
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