Wheat Base

[wonkothsane]

This is my first attempt at a wheat beer, and I want to try to make something for the wife's taste, so will probably add some fruit to the secondary. She requests raspberry.

Any thoughts on this Recipe? I was thinking of swapping the Centinnial for Zythos.

Specs
Batch Size - 11.189 gal
Boil Size - 12.501 gal
Boil Time - 60.000 min
Efficiency - 80%
OG - 1.055
FG - 1.012
ABV - 5.3%
Bitterness - 22.4 IBU (Rager)

Fermentables
White Wheat Malt - 10.000 lb
Rice Hulls - 8.000 oz
IdaPils - 6.000 lb
Rahr - 2 Row - 4.000 lb

Hops
Centennial (9.7%) - 1.000 oz
Centennial (9.7%) - 0.500 oz

Yeast
WLP001 - California Ale Yeast (Slurry from 1.051 Amber ale)

Mash
Mash In 154.000F 60.000 min
B Sparge 162.000F 15.000 min
Final Batch 162.000F 10.000 min

[beermikester]

I made a raspberry wheat a couple of years ago, and ended up with great fruit flavor in the beer. My approach was to try to have as little of the fruit ferment as possible.

After my primary fermentation was completed, I racked into a keg and lowered the temperature to around 34 and let it sit for a few days. This put all the little yeasties to sleep.

I then added a little water to the berries and brought it to a boil. As it was boiling, I used a potato masher to crush the berries. After about 10 minutes, I had mostly juice, with a lot of seeds floating around.

I cooled the berry juice, and used a strainer to strain out the seeds. I put the seeds into a sanitized hop bag, and put the juice into the beer. I then added the bag of seeds to the beer to let it steep in there to get every last bit of berry flavor that I could.

Of course, all of this assumes you are kegging. If you are bottling, put the beer into a secondary, cool it, then add the juice and berry bag to the secondary. After a few days (to get that last bit of flavor from the seeds), go ahead and bottle as normal.

[wonkothsane]

Thanks Mike. I will probably Keg, then bottle from that.

Would allowing it to ferment in the Secondary, on the fruit remove most of the flavor, but add color?

I guess if the flavor is too low, I can always add more to the keg.

I'm more concerned with the viability of the Wheat base recipe. It looks like it will be drinkable to me, but as I said I've never made a wheat beer before.

[Konertjm]

I notice you are including rice hulls, which will definitely help with a stuck sparge, and that your wheat is 50% of the total malt bill.

For your first wheat beer, this is a good place to start.

The rice hulls are particularly important if you fly sparge.

IMO and IME they are not necessary if you batch sparge, but YMMV.
It also depends on the type of false bottom that you use.

[jackb]

That's a lot of hops for a fruit beer.

From http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue1.2/studach.html

I have discovered after repeated experimentation that acidity and bitterness do not mix. I prove this to myself with nearly every fruit beer I make or judge. In this case, the fruit acids were exaggerated by the hop bitterness. When using fruit, it is wise to cut way back on the amount of hops used (you need to cut back more than you think).

[jackb]

That's a lot of hops for a fruit beer.

From http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue1.2/studach.html

I have discovered after repeated experimentation that acidity and bitterness do not mix. I prove this to myself with nearly every fruit beer I make or judge. In this case, the fruit acids were exaggerated by the hop bitterness. When using fruit, it is wise to cut way back on the amount of hops used (you need to cut back more than you think).

[wonkothsane]

Too much hops for 10 Gallons even?

I could Cut back, no problem.

[wonkothsane]

The rice hulls are particularly important if you fly sparge.

IMO and IME they are not necessary if you batch sparge, but YMMV.
It also depends on the type of false bottom that you use.

I have plenty of them, so I've been using them.

I Batch sparge, and have a cpvc manifold in the Mash-Tun.

[jackb]

Too much hops for 10 Gallons even?

I could Cut back, no problem.

I didn't notice the batch size; I was going by the estimated 22 IBUs. For a fruit beer you probably want the bitterness in the same range as for a weissbier, 8-15 IBUs. Also, note that the BJCP IBUs for a fruit lambic are 0-10.

Check the club newsletter of June 2008 for a fruit-beer article by Tim Fahrner that has a lot of good tips. There is also a fruit-beer article in the April 2011 newsleetter.