Image Credit: And Here We Are…
I’ve done my fair share of home-brewing and wine-making, but admittedly, it was all pretty much your standard brew. Now, nettle beer is not what springs to mind when you think “craft beer”. But despite its weed status, wild nettles can apparently make a pretty decent brew! This adorable family first forages for nettles then makes a nettle brew. I find this inspirational and something I’d love to do as a family once my little is old enough to appreciate it. In the meantime, here is the process for making Nettles Beer, brought to you by blogger family And Here We Are:
Ingredients
750g nettle tops, 4 litres water, 450g brown sugar, Juice of two lemons, Homerown yeast culture, or a packet of beer yeast
In terms of supplies, there are a few basic items you should have. You can often find these on craigslist, and definitely at a brewing supply store, or you can order them on amazon. Keep in mind that you can re-use everything over and over again, once you have a few basics.
Fermentation bucket, Demijohns, Airlocks with rubber stoppers, Siphon hose, a funnel, Wine bottles (we usually just sanitize our old ones), corks, and a corker, OR swing-top bottles, Sterilization solution.
Instructions
Using gloves, wash the nettles thoroughly.
Put two pots of water on the stove to boil. The second pot should have a generous four liters of (preferably filtered) water. With tongs, quickly blanch the nettles in the first pot, then drop them into the second pot. Once all of the nettles are in the second pot, boil them for 20 minutes to make the wort.
Add the lemon juice and brown sugar to the wort, and let it cool. Pour into the (sterilized) fermentation bucket.
Let it sit in the fermentation bucket for 2-3 days, and then pour it into sterilized demijohns, leaving the sediment in the bottom of the bucket. Add the yeast or yeast culture, and top with airlocks.
Let the nettles beer sit in the demijohns in a place that’s not too cold and drafty. In 3-4 days, it’s time to “rack” the nettles beer, siphoning it into another sterilized demijohn, and again leaving the sediment behind.
About a week later, when it not longer tastes sweet to you, it’s time to decant into bottles. Using swing-top bottles is really important, as there needs to be a mechanism for letting gas escape. Use a siphon hose to fill them up, leaving a bout an inch of space at the top.
Let the bottles sit at room temperature for 2-3 days, and then try one, to see how the flavor and carbonation is doing. If it’s still sweet and under-carbonated, give it another day and test again. Once your Nettles Beer is where you’d like it, move them into the fridge, and enjoy!
