Nettle Beer

I decided to make some nettle beer. As well as continuing the process of making good use out of the so-called bad plants in the garden, the idea of free booze is always appealing. Even more so when it means you aren’t paying taxes to fund the government’s latest ridiculous schemes or expenses claims.

I used this River Cottage recipe as a guide, but here is what I did:

Saturday 3rd May

I started by boiling 6 litres of water in a pan, which takes an awfully long time if you forget to put the lid on. Then I took it off the heat, added a load of nettles, stirred it, and left it to infuse and cool. After a couple of hours, I strained it through a muslin bag, squeezing all the liquid out of the nettles. Then I added 750g of white granulated sugar, 30g of cream of tartar and the juice of an orange and a lemon.

Then I let it cool further, almost to room temperature, before pouring in a 7g sachet of ‘easy-bake yeast’ – the kind you use in bread machines, for example. This was chosen not because it’s necessarily a good idea, but because we always have plenty of it lying around the house.

At this point, I got out the trusty hydrometer to measure the original gravity, which was 1.050. Then I stuck the pan in the airing cupboard and left it.

Wednesday 6th May

I measured the specific gravity again – 1.031. The point of all this gravity measuring business is a) so you know how much alcohol you’ve made, and b) so you know when it’s ready. Brewing (or rather, fermentation) in a nutshell – you start with sugar, and the yeast gradually eats it, spitting out ethanol (better known as booze) and carbon dioxide. The ‘specific gravity’ is just a measure of the density of the liquid, which is a rough way of figuring out how much sugar is dissolved in it. So, if you know how much sugar there was when you started, and how much is left when you finish, you know how much alcohol was made. Also, if you bottle the beer when the yeast is still producing loads of carbon dioxide, the bottles are likely to explode.

Saturday 9th May

I measured it again – 1.015. Still not ready. I’d expected it to be quicker than this, but our airing cupboard isn’t very warm.

Thursday 13th May

This time, the specific gravity was 1.001, meaning it had pretty much finished fermenting and was more than ready to bottle, so I syphoned the beer into the things in the picture. They’re 2 litre cider bottles that previously contained cheap but very good scrumpy. I’ve got lots of these because a) I’ve drunk a lot of it, b) they seem too good to throw away, and c) they don’t fit through the holes in the bottle bank anyway.

As a result of all the measuring, my rough calculations tell me the end product was around 6.4% ABV (alcohol by volume). I managed to restrain myself and left it in the bottles for a few days before tasting it. It tasted very good, almost too good in fact, which is why there isn’t any left now. Fortunately, a second batch is already brewing.