OK, so thanks to Aldi currently offering bags of Grapefruits at €0.49 each, I have spur of the moment decided to try my hand at Brew Dogs Elvis Juice. I have the recipe components winging their way to me for a brew this weekend (most expensive 49 cent I ever spent). Just really looking for tips, pointers, pitfalls, etc. from anyone who has tried this or similar. This will be my first ever brew with fruit, so grateful for any advice you can throw my way before the weekend. Cheers.
You sure it's grapefruit they use and not "c" or other citrus hops?
Not sure about elvis juice, but I know ballast point use only grapefruit peel (no pith) for sculpin grapefruit. So no juice!
Is there a clone recipe for elvis juice online? I'm guessing there wis on in the DIY dog download?
PH.
They were accepting payment for beer in grapefruit so I think it's pretty safe to assume they used it in the beer. https://www.brewdog.com/lowdown/blog/grapefruit-pay
Or a cunning ploy and more of their marketing BS
Yeah, this was in the DIY Dog download alright:
'Add grapefruit and orange peel into the boil and FV for extra citrus twist' and Brewer's Tip: 'Shave of the surface of the citrus peel to unlock the highly aromatic compounds into the beer. Avoid putting any white pith into the brew as it will create an intense and unpleasant bitterness.
I brewed a version earlier in the year. Turned out good.
I used the zest of 8 grapefruit and 6 oranges into the boil. Came to 77g in total.
Also zest and juice of 4 more gf and 2 oranges in secondary with the dry hops.
Theres gonna be a lot of stuff floating around in your beer so I'd highly recommend a good cold crash with gelatin to clear it out.
Really is a nice beer and will defo be brewing it again with a few tweeks.
Cheers nigel-c. Been meaning to do this one ever since the recipe was released, so when I saw grapefruits in Aldi, that was the decision made.
So purely zest in the boil, but zest and juice in secondary? Any special treatment before it goes in (like zest soaked in vodka), or just bung it in as is?
Keen to do this one justice, hence the questions.
If I remember right zest and juice in both.
For the secondary addition I boiled up the lot to sterilize it before adding it to the bucket.
Cheers again nigel_c! Sure we'll give it a go and see what happens :). Have to say, I'm really looking forward to brewing this one - even if I mess it up, at least the house should smell good for a couple of days :D.
No bother.
When I was brewing it I also used the leftovers to make a lovely jam. Proper little house wife some times I tells ya.
Jam might be pushing my abilities a bit, but good to know. If I'm organised enough, I just might try it.
I bought some of these grapefruits with it in mind to make something like Elvis Juice. But then I made smoothies instead. :-[
Update: So I bottled this one over Christmas and it had it's first public outing last night at the Garden County Brewers Meet. It turned out nothing like Elvis Juice to be honest, but I was still pretty pleased with the result and it was fairly well received (or at least I think it was) :P.
I chickened out a bit on the Grapefruit front and only added zest (no Juice) as I was afraid of it becoming too bitter. It's definitely a beer I'll do again though with a few tweaks, including adding the juice, and I highly recommend giving it a go if your tempted.
The biggest mistake I made was not cold crashing as nigel_c suggested - I totally underestimated how much debris was in there, so it's either a gentle pour from the bottle, or you end up with a Ten Dollar Shake (if you've had one, you'll know what I mean) in your glass.
All in all though, a worthwhile experiment which I will revisit and hopefully improve upon.
Good to hear it went well for you.
Was a nice beer, defo up the grapefruit next time. Loads of hops going on though - thumbs up!!
I kegged my version 3 days ago, wish I added more grapefruit too.
Can you chuck in more pasteurised at this point?
Quote from: fishjam45 on January 13, 2017, 09:43:08 PM
Was a nice beer, defo up the grapefruit next time. Loads of hops going on though - thumbs up!!
I kegged my version 3 days ago, wish I added more grapefruit too.
Can always add more juice. Fresh juice pasteurized or from you local friendly supermarket juice section. Add a small amount and taste. Repeat till you are happy.
Interesting. Too late for me as all mine is bottled, but fishjam45 can give it a go. I had a bottle of mine the other night though split into two glasses; one as is and one with a thumb of freshly squeezed grapefruit added. Both were lovely, so it could be worth considering more juice fishjam45 as advised above. Looking forward to trying yours anyway. ;)
Interesting ...
I could also "dry hop" more peel in the keg? Give the Fruit a good clean and starsan before zesting.
So I bought 5 red grapefruit today.
Peeled them and added skins to a muslin bag.
I juiced the 5 Fruit by hand and got 500ml juice, which I then pasteurised.
I pulled 2 x 100ml samples from the keg, addded 2.5mls of Juice to one of the samples and it tasted a lot more like Elvis Juice than the sample with no juice.
Did up my calculations of 2.5ml juice per 100ml beer and added the correct amount of juice to the keg.
The skins and and a few grams of cascade went in too.
I'll leave them there for 3 days and taste.
1st impressions? It works!!
Good stuff.
Had a beer in the Camden Exchange that's gone the otherway with very biting grapefruit bitterness, Connemara something. Think it would've been spot on if it had a bit more sweetness to balance it out. It was served from some non standard tap under the counter. Might've been run through a randal or something.
Hi Nigel,
I'm brewing this tomorrow, straight nicking your fruit additions.
However, I bottle and not keg.
Obviously there are implications for adding fruit juice to secondary, do you think just adding the whole juice addition to the boil would have similar results?
Just wanted to update this thread, having brewed a beer based on Nigel's fruit additions.
Worked out really well, I got some great feedback from all kinds of people I've given bottles to, even from a friend of mine who's into craft stout and won't go near hoppy, bitter beers, after trying this one he went out and bought a Magic Rock Grapefruit IPA for himself, so he's converted.
I entered it into the Smithwick's comp, so that will be judged next week.
Its not mentioned in the Brewdog homebrew recipe list but they do use grapefruit extract for the flavour. Bit of help for anyone trying out this recipe.
All fresh fruit in the batches I've made.
Has anyone tried Lucky Jack's Grapefruit Edition? I'm a big fan of the Elvis Juice, and Lucky Jack is a great example of the style in my opinion. Brewed in Norway, so could be first Norwegian beer I've had.
https://www.ratebeer.com/beer/lervig-lucky-jack-grapefruit-edition/400014/
Might be of interest..
https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/6am6zo/i_tried_a_new_way_to_get_citrus_flavor_in_my/