I’m looking for opinions on using watermelon in a Belgian style quad recipe. Do you think the flavor of the watermelon will be overwhelmed/muted ?
It will take a large load of watermelon. Email 21st amendment in sf and see how they make their “hell or high watermelon.”
Maybe in a big blonde, the thought of mellon on a dark belgian seems to clash in my mind.
+1. And I don’t think it’s assertive (or acidic ) enough to be very noticeable in a beer that big. I could be wrong.
I think you’ll need to use an extract to get this to work. Then you can dose it to taste before bottling/kegging.
Or you could just dry hop with El Dorado…
It takes a metric buttload of watermelon to even be noticeable in a light flavored beer. I think for a quad you’ll need a metric buttload squared.
I don’t know, the above mentioned Hell or High Watermelon has noticeable watermelon flavor and aroma and is made with watermelon juice rather than extract.
Yes…and as I recall Shawn from 21st Amendment said that it takes one hellava a lot of watermelon for their wheat beer.
yup,
As I understand it they started out actually doing the juicing there but soon decided to buy watermelon juice or puree.
Right, but there’s a huge difference between a light wheat beer, and a big Belgian with significant yeast and malt character. You may be right, but I don’t know how you’d pull it off in a quad. If you add it post-boil or post-ferment, then you’re going to dilute the beer down too far. If you use it for your brewing liquor I’d be afraid of boiling off all the aromatics from the juice.
Exactly!
+1. A wheat is almost a blank canvas for fruit, but I don’t think it would be very apparent in a quad. And IMO that could be a good thing - doesn’t sound like a good marriage. You never know. 
makes sense.