The Beer Shandy Sorbet.

By BobLongo

Ingredients

• The Beer Syrup
• 8 fluid oz filtered wheat beer
• 2 cups sugar
• The Rest
• The zest of one lemon Microplaned of course.
• The zest of one lime Again, Microplaned.
• 2 fluid oz lemon juice Fresh please (Approximately the juice of 2 small lemons).
• 2 fluid oz lime juice Fresh (Approximately the juice of 2 limes).
• 8 fluid oz filtered wheat beer (Yes, again.)

Details

Preparation time 240mins
Cooking time 360mins

Preparation

Step 1

The night before - Add 8oz of beer and 2 cups of sugar to a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir frequently and heat until the mix gets eruptively foamy (about 10 minutes from start to finish). Kill the heat, allow to cool for an hour, then refrigerate for at least 8 hours (or overnight).
When it's time to churn - Stir the lemon juice, lime juice, zests, and beer into your chilled beer syrup (your beer should be cold too, duh). Add the mess to your ice cream churn and freeze according to manufacturer's directions. It's likely that the finsihed product will be icy but not real set (think Icee/Slurpee/Snowball consistency). Move the results to an appropriately-sized lidded container and freeze at least 8 hours (or overnight) to hard-pack before serving.
Observation: There's nothing fast about making homemade sorbet. While the ingredients come together quickly, there's a lot of waiting for things to cool. Expect to eat whatever you're churning after a day and a half in the most situations.
This is my ice cream maker. It ain't fancy, but it's good for small batches (read: experimentation) and it works.
While we're on the topic of equipment: Although a good hand juicer isn't mandatory, the Microplane really is. There's no better way to collect zest from citrus (and I reckon if you're a habitual food blog reader, you know this already).
The crazy amounts of sugar combined with the alcohol mans your ice cream chiller is probably only gonna get you so far. Y'see, things like dissolved solids and alcohol actually work to lower the freezing point of a solution; but that's ok as ice crystals are forced to form more slowly which in turn makes for a smoother finished texture. It took me 45 minutes to churn to a consistency I was happy with, but letting the semi-finished product hard-pack in the freezer is needed lest you'd rather be sipping your sorbet thru a straw.
So, why hold half the beer back? Well, there are some sorbet recipes that use seltzer or sparkling mineral water. As anyone that's sucked on a Slurpee knows, The carbonation helps to lighten the texture of the finished product; and anyhow it'd be just plain silly not to employ the natural carbonation of the beer in this case.