Limes

[JFB]

Has anyone had success brewing with limes?
My misses had a raspberry and lime crush beer the other day and it was epic!!
My raspberry beers come out well, so was thinking of adding peel and flesh to the beer.
Just not sure when and how many??

 

[crowcrow]

I'm not an expert brewer, but made an elderflower champagne last summer that called for orange and lemon juice.

In a fit of spontaneity I juiced them and then threw the flesh and peel into the bucket too (recipe only called for juice). I was also making a ginger beer at the same time and did the same to that.

Ruined both. Champagne is just about drinkable but no one requests a second glass. Myself included. It's OK with lemonade but that wasn't the idea for the brew.

I've since read to be very sparing and careful with the flesh and fresh peel as it adds a lot of bitterness very quickly.

 

[crowcrow]

I was trying to find the post that alerted me to the bitterness coming from the flesh and skin. I can't, but another thread here today told about oranges and suggests just the zest, so that might be a way to go?

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/oranges.75560/

 

[rats_eyes]

I made a mexican cerveza style lager last summer and added lime peel in secondary. I only added the green peel, tried to be careful to avoid the pithy bits. I chucked this peel into a tiny amount of vodka for a week or so and threw peel and vodka into the beer in secondary. I used 7 grams of peel in 19 litres according to my records (I'm guessing that was 2 or 3 limes worth), the lime flavour was not dominant but was certainly present enough.