Tue Aug 16, 2011 10:14 am
Make sure your dried heather isn't old. If it's fresh, you get a nice floral aroma, and a light tartness in the ale. If the dried heather is old, or has a lot of green leaf parts mixed in (there will always be some green with the blossoms, tho), you can lose the floral and get a too tart astringent flavor and slight vegetable flavor/aroma-- not so good! The Fraoch website says they pour the cooled wort through some additional heather into the fermenter. I've tried this, and use about another cup of heather for that. And, I use hop bags for the heather. The flowers (and the little leaf bits) are very small and difficult to filter out. Even with the hop bags, I still had little flower bits in the finished beer. But! When I checked a bottle of Fraoch, it had the same thing going on! So, I quit worrying about that. And, go with the heather honey! Definitely worth it for the aroma blast you get when you pop the bottle open.
About the sweet gale, I'd use only a gram per 5 gal batch, it can be punguent and has tannins. That's about half the small bag it usually comes in. And, because of the warning that goes with the sweet gale, NOT serve your heather ale to a pregnant woman--although the herb is generally considered safe. Sweet gale is also known as bog myrtle and was often an ingredient in old gruit mixtures. If you want, you can sub in meadowsweet for the sweet gale.
Have fun!
Alewife
On mind: Saison
In primary:
Conditioning:
Ready to drink: APA; Dobby's Magic (Holiday Tripel); Sour Mash Farmhouse Ale; Bung Ho! Pale Ale; Masham Old Ale; Entredit (Belgian Dark Strong); Jester (Tripel)
