12 replies to this topic

[Joe]

I'm not a fan of wheat beer, but my wife loves american wheat beers - not necessarily the german hefe's with the yeasty clovey taste, but more along the lines of clean, neutral wheat beers and usually with some fruit flavoring. Since she puts up with my silly hobbies (brewing is only one - and probably the least expensive!), I thought I'd surprise her with a nice, clean wheat beer. I have never brewed with fruit before. Would it be okay to take Ken's Main Street Wheat Recipe and add 3lb's of blackberry wheat? Again - going for the profile of something along the lines of a berryweiss (leinenkugel). I know they use loganberries and elderberries and probably dingelberries... but I think just sticking to blackberry should be fine. Here's Ken's recipe from his website: https://kenlenard.webs.com/recipes.htm (Hope you don't mind me posting this Ken!)

5 lbs Pale Malt 4.25 lbs White Wheat 10 oz Munich Malt 2 oz Honey Malt (mash temp 150-151°) 1 oz Hallertau pellets 4.6% for 60 minutes Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast OG: 1.054, FG: 1.012, IBU: 24, SRM: 5-6, ABV: 5.2%

I have a German Alt that is finished that I can repitch the yeast. Would I need to cut back on the hops or the Honey malt if I were to fruit the beer? Would 3lb's of blackberry puree be enough? I'm also thinking I will need to cut back on the base malt since the fruit puree will add more gravity (and she is a lightweight!). Any other suggestions? TIA Joe

[Big Nake]

Joe: When you say Blackberry wheat... I assume you mean using 3 lbs of blackberries, yes? I think this would make a nice beer. Another local homebrewer had wild raspberries growing in his backyard. He harvested 1½ pounds of them, froze them, thawed them, blended them, heated them to about 160° for 20 mins and added them to the secondary and then racked his porter (or stout?) on top of them. It came out AWESOME. When you freeze the fruit, the skin breaks, allowing the juices to flow. The only thing to remember is that fruit will introduce more fermentables and sometimes the continuing fermentation can dry out the beer. The dryness plus the fruit flavor can make the beer taste a bit like a wine or fruity champagne. So either add some extra unfermentables or maybe mash higher or use a high-floccing, low-attenuating yeast so you don't have this issue. I have 1½ pounds of fresh raspberries frozen right now and eventually I'm going to make a raspberry cream ale, raspberry blonde or raspberry wheat. I think the blackberries will be great and your wife will be very happy. Cheers.Ps. Joe, no problem posting that recipe... it's all good, Amigo.

[Joe]

Thanks Ken! I was going to order a can of blackberry puree - they come in 3lb cans and are already sanitized. I guess I could always buy some blackberries but they really aren't in season. So here's my modestly modified version to add in some additional unfermentables:4.5 lbs Pale Malt4.5 lbs White Wheat Malt10 oz Munich Malt12 oz Carared4 oz Honey Malt1 oz Hallertau pellets 4.6% for 60 minutesWyeast 1007 German Ale yeastSo basically I reduced the pale malt a bit, doubled the honey malt to 4 ounces, and added 12 ounces of Carared. I don't know if the Carared is completely out of place here - just trying to add some residual sweetness to counter balance the blackberries.

[Big Nake]

Thanks Ken! I was going to order a can of blackberry puree - they come in 3lb cans and are already sanitized. I guess I could always buy some blackberries but they really aren't in season. So here's my modestly modified version to add in some additional unfermentables: 4.5 lbs Pale Malt 4.5 lbs White Wheat Malt 10 oz Munich Malt 12 oz Carared 4 oz Honey Malt 1 oz Hallertau pellets 4.6% for 60 minutes Wyeast 1007 German Ale yeast So basically I reduced the pale malt a bit, doubled the honey malt to 4 ounces, and added 12 ounces of Carared. I don't know if the Carared is completely out of place here - just trying to add some residual sweetness to counter balance the blackberries.

I think it could work out pretty well. The 1007 is a low-floccer which I equate to a high-attenuater, but I think it should still be okay. I tried the Oregon fruit purees once (raspberry I think) and I added it to the secondary and racked the beer on top. I had to use my 6½ gallon glass primary as the secondary because of all the extra volume. The secondary fermentation kicked up and there was an inch of krauesen on top of the beer. It continued like that, slowly bubbling for what seemed like a month. Eventually, I sampled some of it and it was really, really dry & champagne-like. I'm sure I just mashed low or my recipe was wrong for the style or whatever. Some people actually add the fruit and then add something to the beer (sorbate something-or-other) which will kill the yeast. You could also get the beer and fruit mixed together and then crash-cool the beer so the yeast falls out and goes dormant. This may result in an overly sweet beer, but it seems like there has to be some sort of control over how the yeast metabolizes the natural sugars in the fruit. I hate to say I have tried this many time and failed, but it's true. Hey, on my last fruit beer (a strawberry blonde), I used unsweetened strawberry Kool-aid in the keg... I kid you not. Also, my grocery store has McCormick natural fruit extracts (many flavors) and I used some of that in a raspberry dunkel... came out nicely!

[Joe]

I'm a bottler, so crashing the yeast prior to complete fermentation is probably a bad idea for me. Do you think dryness came from the % of sugar contributed from fruit sugars? I could always scale back and use only half a can - which would be 1.5#. Or maybe I should just go the extract route. I really only want some of the flavor in there - not a wine/beer which is I guess what you would get if you added 3 pounds of fruit puree (I've read this is equivalent of contributing 1.029 to the specific gravity). I've read a lot of bad reviews about the brewing fruit extracts though. I think I may pick up some Mccormick extract and play with flavoring a beer to see what taste I get.

[Big Nake]

Joe: The McCormick raspberry is good, but I'm not sure which other flavors they have... CLICK and the strawberry is not that great and another brewer tried making a cherry wheat and said the cherry wasn't good either. But there are gourmet extract & flavoring suppliers online where you can find all kinds of fruit extracts. I have seen lemon, lime, cherry, raspberry, blackberry, coconut, watermelon, etc. and I think this could be the way to go. These things are usually all natural and easy to use. The extracts designed for homebrewing are usually crap, but it really depends on how you use them. If you put them in a cream ale where the fruit flavor would be up front, it's not good. If you add it to a stout or porter where the flavor is in the background, it's much better. On the McCormick stuff, I used a whole bottle (about an ounce) in a raspberry dunkel and it was nice. If you found an online place that sells blackberry fruit extract, the only issue would be to determine how much to use. Check THIS and also THIS. Both of those last links look like winners to me. Cheers.

[chadm75]

Oh no Ken! Another fruit beer thread....hahaha!Joe: Ken and I went round and round with ideas on how to make a fruit beer turn out good. Hell, I even contemplated adding Propel (flavored water) to the boil to get the flavor I was looking for. Like Ken, last year I made a Raspberry Wheat Ale that turned out so dry and tart it was like champagne. And I did exactly what Ken did, froze the raspberries, heated it to 160 degrees and added to the secondary. It too kicked up pretty good fermentation that caused the beer to dry out. But this is a timely thread for me because I'm getting ready to take another stab at it. I'm going to make a couple of changes, maybe mashing at 158 (instead of 152) and/or possibly adding a non-fermentable like lactose to sweeten and add body to the beer. The best example of a fruit beer I've had is the Wild Raspberry Ale from Great Divide brewing in Denver. It's a rudy red ale that is a perfect balance of malt and fruit. You might consider using WYeast 1010 American Wheat yeast that will give you a very nuetral finish but with all the characteristics of a wheat beer. Here's my recipe:OG: 1.051FG: 1.011SRM: 4IBU: 18ABV%: 5.24.5 lbs. - American 2-Row4.5 lbs. - White Wheat Malt1 lb. - Falked Wheat8 oz. - Lactose8 oz. - Rice Hulls (to prevent stuck sparge)3 lbs. - Oregon Raspberry Puree (secondary)1 oz. - Willamette (5.5%AAU) 60 mins.WYeast 1010 American WheatMash at 152Ferment at 68Enjoy!

[chadm75]

Oh no Ken! Another fruit beer thread....hahaha! Joe: Ken and I went round and round with ideas on how to make a fruit beer turn out good. Hell, I even contemplated adding Propel (flavored water) to the boil to get the flavor I was looking for. Like Ken, last year I made a Raspberry Wheat Ale that turned out so dry and tart it was like champagne. And I did exactly what Ken did, froze the raspberries, heated it to 160 degrees and added to the secondary. It too kicked up pretty good fermentation that caused the beer to dry out. But this is a timely thread for me because I'm getting ready to take another stab at it. I'm going to make a couple of changes, maybe mashing at 158 (instead of 152) and/or possibly adding a non-fermentable like lactose to sweeten and add body to the beer. The best example of a fruit beer I've had is the Wild Raspberry Ale from Great Divide brewing in Denver. It's a rudy red ale that is a perfect balance of malt and fruit. You might consider using WYeast 1010 American Wheat yeast that will give you a very nuetral finish but with all the characteristics of a wheat beer. Here's my recipe: OG: 1.051 FG: 1.011 SRM: 4 IBU: 18 ABV%: 5.2 4.5 lbs. - American 2-Row 4.5 lbs. - White Wheat Malt 1 lb. - Falked Wheat 8 oz. - Lactose 8 oz. - Rice Hulls (to prevent stuck sparge) 3 lbs. - Oregon Raspberry Puree (secondary) 1 oz. - Willamette (5.5%AAU) 60 mins. WYeast 1010 American Wheat Mash at 152 Ferment at 68 Enjoy!

You can also add some ground coriander and/or ground cinnamon...

[Big Nake]

Chad: Let me know how that comes out. I like the lactose idea (to a point...) and I also like the idea of adding more non-fermentables in the form of specialty grains and/or mashing a little higher. I have these raspberries frozen right now and plan to make a beer with them, but I really don't want to get to the planning stage until I have a set process. I don't need another 5 gallons of unbelievably dry, champagne-like fruit beer.

[nbbeerguy]

One of the home brewers in our club made a fantastic RB wheat beer if you want ill get the recipe on Saturday and post it probably the best RB wheat i've tasted

[Joe]

Sure I would be interested in the recipe. Specifically I'm interested in how he flavored with raspberry. I'm still not committed to any method but leaning towards adding some gourmet blackberry extract prior to bottling. Believe it or not it's still fermenting in the basement (week 3!). I haven't taken a hydro reading but it has a nice head and is still bubbling.

[nbbeerguy]

One of the home brewers in our club made a fantastic RB wheat beer if you want ill get the recipe on Saturday and post it probably the best RB wheat i've tasted

The guy didn't show up to the meeting But if you havn't brewed by the next time I see him Ill post the recipe

[CaptRon]

I have also heard about tossing fruit in to the boil kettle to prevent the secondary fermentation that will occur when tossing in to the secondary fermenter. How about that? Would you just not get very much fruit flavor by doing that?Also what about making it a BIG wheat like an Imperial Wheat where it is big enough in the alcohol to prevent the yeast from being able to ferment the additional sugar that is going to be coming from the fruit?