Seasonal Stinging Nettle Beer

The whole world has changed significantly since my last post. I hope you and your families are all staying safe, well and ideally in your homes.

My allotment gets a wealth of Stinging Nettles around this time of year, which are used in many traditional recipes, they can even be made into twine or woven into fabric. However, I wanted to make something seasonal that would take a couple of weeks to mature, but also be something that we could enjoy, even if we had to stay home a lot.

I have always fancied making Stinging Nettle Beer; it is a very simple recipe and anyone with the basic equipment can try it. You can safely tinker with both the amounts and method, according to your equipment and requirments. I found making this very satisfying and enjoyed the process so much that I did it all twice, and may do it again soon.

Equipment

• Gloves!
• Large carrier bag or similar
• Bucket
• Demijon, barrel or brewing bucket
• Suitable pressure safe bottles
  

Ingredients

• 1kg Stinging Nettles - approximately one large carrier bag stuffed to bursting.
• 400g - 1kg Sugar - the strength of the beer will depend on the amount you use, you could mke it weaker still, like ginger beer for kids
• 1 x Lemon juiced
• 1 x gallon of water (I used a demijon)
• 25 g Cream of Tartar
• Yeast
  

Method

1. Pick the stinging nettles (using gloves), collect only the tips, or top 6" of the plants and stuff them into your big carrier bag. Pack them down well, it takes about 30 minutes.
2. Boil the water and gradually add the nettles, they will eventually boil down and should all fit in. I used a large preserving pan, but you can adapt the amounts according to your needs and available equipment.
3. Let the nettles simmer for 15 minutes, then strain the liquid off. I used a collander over a bucket to achieve this and it worked very well.
4. Add the sugar, Lemon juice and Cream of Tartar to the liquid and stir untill all disolved.
5. Leave the liquid to cool to body temperature and sprinkle the yeast on top.
6. At this point I added the liquid to my demijon but you could also leave it in a bucket covered with a muslin cloth / tea towel.
7. Leave to ferment for a week
8. Siphon into bottles and leave for a further week.
9. Drink!
   

   

   My Improvised Standing Work From Home Station

Stay Safe and Keep Healthy