Aug 25 2010

Kiwi Beer?

Last week at work we ended up with about 50 or so left over kiwis. (It’s for a project we’re working on, don’t ask – besides, we can’t tell yet anyways.) Needless to say, there was a surplus of leftover fruit. So I nabbed a bag and figured I would do what instinctively came first – try to ferment them into alcohol. So I made up a one gallon batch of beer wort (nothing special, just an ale) and added in 10 sliced up kiwis for the last 5 minutes of the boil, just enough time I figure to sterilize them. Then I let them steep for about an hour before removing them. I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I tasted a bit of the wort and it didn’t taste like kiwis, but it did have hints of the sourness. Because of the sugars in the fruit, the expected ABV on this bad boy is 15%. I didn’t have any yeast that could withstand that amount of alcohol at the time, so it should be more around the 12% mark. It’s been a day since I pitched the yeast, and I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an active fermentation before – bubbles like crazy. Very curious to how this will turn out.