UPDATE Part 2:
The lemon basil wheat is in secondary conditioning. It has cleared well. When I took a sample for a gravity reading and to see where the flavors were at it tasted pretty good. The lemon was there in the background but I could not taste the basil at all. I have since soaked the zest of 4 lemons in 4 oz of vodka, I also soaked about 20-30 basil leaves in vodka as well. I let that sit for a few days and added some of the lemon and basil extracts and that will sit until next week at some point. I will then batch prime it and give it a taste and add more extract as appropriate to get the taste that I am hoping for. I am not expecting that this beer will win over everyone, but this was a really fun experiment and it seems that so far it has gone well. I will do a full tasting and let you know. Cheers!
UPDATE:
The Lemon Basil wheat has been brewed. This is the first time that I felt like I actually got everything done with ease! I steeped the grains for 45 min in 1.5 gallons of water on the stove while the other 4 gallons was heating up on the propane burner outside. I mixed in the extract and brought it to a boil and added the 1 oz of palisades hops. Boiled for 45 min, added the chiller and also added the zest of two lemons along with 20 or so basil leaves and let that boil for about 10 min and then added the aroma hops and steeped for another 10 or so. Chilled the wort down to 75, racked into a 6 gallon better bottle and pitched some US-05. Fermentation started about 12 hours later and I now have a nice 2 inch and growing krausen. A side note here is that I was intending to pitch a smack pack of Wyeast 1010 American Wheat, but after giving it more thought and consideration, I went with US-05. The 1010 is a voracious fermenter and I didn't feel like cleaning up a mess also I was concerned with the flavor profile. I know that 1010 is a really clean wheat yeast, but it does have a tendency to get sulfur and also can impart the faint wit flavor. I was thinking that I want the lemon and basil to come through but not be overpowering so I went for the clean and neutral US-05. I am planning on making an infusion with more lemon and basil via the vodka method and add some in secondary and also add some at bottling. I want to be careful to not over do it, bit I also want to be able to detect both flavors in the background. I hit my OG right on and tasted the hydgrometer sample and I didn't pick up the lemon or basil, but I think it was because the hops were so prominent. I will add the tasting to this post in about 3-5 weeks!
I have always loved to cook. There are many new food trends every summer. This summer it seems that it is all about infusions or herbs in drinks. This made me think, what about beer. Summer has inspired me to try something a little out of left field. I am going to be brewing a wheat summer ale with basil and lemon. If you have ever had basil lemonade then you know what I am shooting for. I am going to steep about 20-30 basil leaves at 5 min until the wort is cool. I am also going to add the zest of 1.5 lemons to that steep. Then in secondary I am going to add the same amount of basil and lemon after a nice soak in some vodka to kill anything that may give me trouble in secondary. There will be a full report of brew day/night and a full report on the tasting. Cheers to different beer!
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