American Lemon Wheat Ale (Experiment)

I had hoped that my first beer brew would be a Winter Ale similar to that of Sam Adams.  However, I determined that my beer brewing skills were not up to snuff just yet.  It turns out that brewing beer isn't just a little bit more complicated than brewing wine, it's significantly more complicated.  So instead, I purchased an "American Wheat Ale" beer kit and decided to build from there.  I purchased the kit from Beer Nut and the staff helpfully modified the recipe in-the-store to accommodate my 6Gal primary and secondary fermenters.  All they really had to do was toss in some extra malt.

I also decided that brewing up a kit of beer was far too simple by itself, so I researched possible additions that would be cheap, easy, and beneficial to the brew.  After much scouring for ingredients, comparing prices, comparing possible benefits to both brew and brew drinker... I decided on lemon.  But not the kind of lemon you're thinking of.

I dislike fruity beers.  Don't get me wrong, a beer with a nice fruity aftertaste can be quite refreshing.  I dislike them because the fruit usually ends up overpowering, or covering up, the yeasty flavors I've learned to like in a beer.  Besides, lemons are highly acidic.  So I'm at a roadblock.  How do I add lemon to my beer, without using fruit, and still be cost effective, and beneficial to the brew?

The answer?  Lemongrass!  An interesting ingredient I had never heard of before, that is more commonly used in asian cooking.  It turns out that lemongrass is very cheap to purchase (I purchased a huge 1KG bag for $25 shipped, and have since found even cheaper sources).  Lemongrass has a nice aroma that reminds me of lemondrops.  Interestingly enough, a wikipedia search reveals that lemongrass also has some cancer fighting properties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemongrass#Anti-cancer_properties .  How nifty!  Drink more beer to fight cancer, a novel idea!  As one last interesting note, another name for lemongrass is Citronella.  So those citronella candles that smell nice and keep the bugs away?  Yep, that's right, lemongrass.

So now that I've revealed the workings of my first brew, here's the ingredient list including the kit, the modifications in-store, and my lemongrass additive:
2 Cans Wheat Extract
1/2 pound of dry Malt Extract. (The label was very uninformative, so the type of malt remains a mystery)
2 3oz Bags of Pellet Hops (I forgot which variety though.  I'll find out which variety they were and add that to the post later)
4 heaping Tablespoons of lemongrass.
1 Vial of White Labs Heffeweizen yeast.
priming sugar

Admittedly, I have no idea how much lemongrass I should add, or when to add it, or how long to keep it in the wort/fermenter/etc.  I decided that since I like the smell of lemongrass so much, I'd add it at the end of the boil with the aromatic hops.  That still left me wondering how much to add.  I still have no answer to that, and it's the reason I labeled this post as an experiment.  The brew is still in the primary fermenter, and my guess at this point is that 4 tablespoons of lemongrass won't even be noticeable in my 6Gal batch.  Reading some of the lemongrass tea recipes out there leads me to believe it could be closer to 1Cup/Gal.

If I can't detect any lemony scent or flavor in the final brew, I might have to significantly increase the amount of lemongrass I'm using, and/or leave it in the primary fermenter longer (I removed it along with the hops while transferring to the fermenter).  Lemongrass has mild astringent properties much like hops do, and also has a bittery green character to it, therefore, large amounts of lemongrass might actually displace the need for some or all of the hops.

The brew entered the primary fermenter at almost midnight Thursday night (8-05-2010).  As of this morning (8-08-2010), the airlock is still bubbling away, so I'll add an update in a week or so when primary fermentation is complete.