Thanks to our fans on Instagram, we have another outstanding recipe to share with you all. Vegetable beers are not all too common and finding one even at your local bottle shop may be difficult. When we were sorting through all of our recipe submissions, this one that used carrots and beets really stood out to us. Read on for a refreshing summer beer recipe that we guarantee you’ll want to brew more than once. 

Full Brew Day Video

We brewed this beer using Clawhammer Supply’s 10 gallon 120 volt BIAB system. Watch us use it in this video

Benchmarks

OG - 1.052

FG - 1.007

ABV - 5.38%

We took all of our gravity readings with the Anton Paar Easydens. This is a precision gravity/density testing unit that’s perfect for homebrewers. Follow this link and use the promo code Clawhammer-Supply to get 10% off.

Click on this image to buy an EasyDens with our discount code 

Water

We started this brew day with 7.23 gallons (27.4 liters) of Asheville City Water. We did not do any water chemistry adjustments.

Grains

The grain bill for this recipe is as follow

Pale Malt - 6 lbs (2.7 kg)

Wheat Malt - 4 lbs (1.8 kg)

We double crush our grain in a grinder before mashing in order to maximize efficiency 

Mash

We mashed at 150° F (65.5° C) for 60 minutes.

Mashing in

During the mash, we checked our pH and tried to adjust it into the range of 5.2 - 5.4 using lactic acid. Doing this helps us get 70% brewhouse efficiency. Be careful when adding lactic acid, it’s easy to add too much and make your pH too low.

Taking a pH reading

Hops

After our 60 minute mash, we removed the grains and turned the heat up to start a boil. At the top of our boil, we added a .5 ounce (14.2 grams) of Nelson Sauvin hops.

At the end of our 60-minute boil, we chilled the wort down to 170° F (76.7° C) for a whirlpool addition. We added 1.5 ounces (42.5 grams) of Nelson Sauvin hops and let these whirlpool for 10 minutes.

Adding our whirlpool hops to the hop basket

Yeast and Fermentation

After the whirlpool addition, we chilled our wort down to around 90° F (32.2° C) and pitched two packs of WLP518 Opshaug Kveik Ale Yeast from White Labs style="font-weight: 400;">.

The original recipe that was sent to us used Kveiking A44 yeast from Imperial. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find this at any of our local homebrew shops. We recommend you use it if you can.

This is the yeast the original recipe called for

After pitching the yeast we aerated our fermenter and let it ferment at room temp, around 70° F (21.1° C) for 3 days.

Beets & Carrots

After 3 days of fermentation, we prepared 2 pounds (.9 kg) of carrots and 1 pound (.5 kg) of beets by peeling them. We recommend you buy about 1 pound (.5 kg) more than what is called for to account for the weight lost from peeling.

Peeling a beet

All of our peeled carrots

After peeling our vegetables we put them through a food processor to quickly and evenly cut them up. The original recipe that was sent to us called for the vegetables to be blended, but we didn’t do this to avoid getting pulp in our finished beer. We don’t believe this impacted the flavor.

Running our veggies through a food processor

Once our veggies were cut up, we pasteurized them in hot water in order to sanitize them. Make sure your water is at least 170° F (77° C) and let your veggies sit for 5-10 minutes.

Pasteurizing our carrots and beets

After pasteurization, strain your veggies and put them in a sanitized mesh bag. Open up your fermenter and place your mesh bag filled with carrots and beets into the fermenter.

Putting our veggies into a sanitized mesh bag

Putting our veggies into the beer

After 3-4 more days remove your vegetables and bottle/keg, carbonate, and serve! We accidentally left our veggies in for about 10 days which ended up being a happy accident.

Tasting

We were very happy with how this beer turned out. Because we left our veggies in for 10 days (not intentional), our beer had a very strong beet flavor which we liked. It’s hard to say what the beer would have tasted like if the veggies were taken out after 3-4 days, but don’t be afraid to do as we did, especially if you’re a big fan of beets. With a low final gravity of 1.007 and an ABV of 5.38%, this beer had a very dry finish to it with little to no sweetness. After brewing this beer, we have a newfound appreciation for veggie beers and our Instagram audience! Make sure to follow us at @clawhammer_supply if you don’t already.                                                                                                                                                                                            If you like this recipe you should try                                                                      Strawberry Lemon Saison                                                                                       Melon & Lime Gose                                                                                                Candy Orange IPA