Happy days! My new beer is done. This is a battle-tested recipe with lemons and ginger. This time I also had 10 g of fresh lemon balm in the seasoning infusion. This guy:
Works really great as a beer component, sharing to spotlight this herb with you all! There's a Wikipedia page that describes the many aromatic compounds it imparts. It's perennial (pic is from my garden), grows in a slightly invasive manner so you only need to plant very little to get enough for many brews. This was a warning :)
Another new twist was a helping of Weyermann spelt wheat malt. I expected the nutty spelt flavour from it, but the taste profile ended up so multi-faceted that I'll need more tastings to pinpoint it :D All in all, a distinctive flavour to this beer. Fermented to bone dry very smoothly.
Great idea! We're overrun with Lemon Balm!
How did you extract the flavour? Did you add it to the boil or make a vodka tincture or something?
In fact I'd really be up for trying this out if you'd care to share your recipe?
Absolutely! On mobile so I'll make this tight...
Mash is 18 L water, 6,7 kg of mostly blond malts, including 1 kg of Weyermann Spelt and 1 kg of Simpsons Premium English Cara for a little sweetness. 60 min BIAB mashing with strike temp at 71,2 °C.
Then there's the infusion: 3 L water heated to boil, off the hob, in with ingredients and let sit with lid on. This had 2 large organic lemons sliced thin, one smallish ginger sliced thin, 10 g lemon balm leaves and growth tips, 30 g Simcoe and 30 g Amarillo hops (pellets). It had about an hour and half to infuse.
One more thing was the yeast starter - 2 L water, 1 dL white sugar, 1 dL sugarcane syrup, pinch of yeast nutrient. Extra sugar there to feed the starter and offset the diluting effect of 5 L water added on top of the mashing.
Boiled the wort for 50 min, added 60 g Challenger hops at 45 min to go. The 3 L infusion went into the boil at about 10 min to go, flame up to allow a little boiling for that too.
One thing I might have changed in hindsight is a little less of the Amarillo and Simcoe in the infusion to leave more room for the lemony notes.
Would be great to hear how it went if you try this :)