cbird01

Recipes 

My buddy brews this raspberry wheat and it gets rave reviews. I have a few questions about the process:

1) Being an extract recipe, what do they mean by sparging the grains?

It sounds like they are steeping the crystal in another pot, straining into the brew pot, then sending another gallon of hot water through the grains in the strainer. Could I just use a muslin bag in the brew pot, and pour the water through the grains while holding the grain bag over the brew pot?

2) This calls for 1 week primary, 3 week secondary, 3 weeks bottle condition. I want to be done in 6 weeks. Sounds like much of this is just for clearing and since it is a wheat, I don't mind cloudy. What do you think a reasonable time frame for secondary and bottling, if I am not concerned about clarity? (or is there another reason this beer should take this long?)

3) (related to #2) How about using a Hefe yeast? (WLP300/320/380) Would this shorten the time frame and end in a cloudier hefe type beer?

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Raspberry Wheat (Estes Park Clone)

Rocky snow white head over deep, straw colored beer. Zesty aroma with subtle raspberry notes. Moderate, light body, refreshing beer with a mild raspberry flavor and hint of wheat.

Type: Extract + Specialty grains
Yield: 5 gallons
OG: 1.043
FG: 1.011-1.012
SRM: 7
IBU: 20
ABV: 4.1%

9 oz. 40L Crystal Malt
3.75 lb. M&F Extra Light DME
1 lb. M&F Wheat DME
4 oz Malto Dextrin
¼ oz Northern Brewer (10%AA) (bittering)
1 oz Fuggles (Flavor)
1tsp. Irish Moss
½ oz Fuggles (Aroma)
Wyeast 1028 London Ale / 1056 American Ale
4 oz natural clear Raspberry Flavoring (clear maintains straw color)
1 ¼ cup Wheat DME (priming)

- Heat one gallon of water to 155F
- Add Crystal Malt
- Remove the pot from the heat and steep at 150F for 30 minutes. Strain the grain water into brew pot. Sparge grains with 1 gallon of 150F water.
- Bring pot to a boil, remove from heat and add DME, Malto Dextrin and ¼ oz Northern Brewer
- Add water to bring total volume to 2.5 gallons
- Boil for 30 minutes
- Add 1 oz Fuggles + Irish Moss then boil for 15 minutes
- Add ½ oz Fuggles then boil for 15 minutes
- Chill wort for 20 minutes then strain into primary fermenter
- Add cold water to obtain 5 gallons
- Pitch yeast when wort is below 80 F or follow yeast instructions
- Primary – 7 days
- Rack to secondary and add raspberry flavoring
- Bottle when fermentation is complete, target gravity is reached, beer has cleared (approx 3 weeks)
- Prime around 70 F for 3 weeks until carbonated
- Ready to drink when carbonated but will peak between 1-3 months

PS - Other methods:

Mini-Mash:
Mash 2 lb 2-row Pale Matl + specialty grains at 150F for 90 minutes, then follow recipe omitting 1.5 lb M&F Extra Light DME at beginning of boil.

All-Grain:
Mash 6.5 lb 2-row Pale Malt and specialty grains at 152F for 90 minutes. Add 2 HBU(20% less) of bittering hops for 60 minutes of boil, follow remainder of recipe.

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Castawayales

Recipes 

I make one every summer if I can keep my daughter away from the fruit.

Sparge means rinse in your context. By all means use a bag to steep and rinse through the bag.

Two weeks should be fine in the secondary. You will notice the little chunks of raspberry will take a while to sink. I use real raspberries by the way.

Guys will scream at this one. I use Irish Ale Yeast. I found that wheat ale yeast aromas fight with the raspberry aroma and smell like an over ripe fruit basket.

Barry

lackofstyl

Recipes 

You could also use WLP001.. its a nice clean yeast that will not interfear with any added flavors

cbird01

Recipes 

My buddy always uses an English Ale yeast for this recipe, so he is with you on that. I am going to use the extract for raspberry flavor, so since it is pretty subtle maybe i won't have the fruit basket problem. I am leaning towards using the WLP 320 American Hefe since it only has slight amount of banana/clove.

EDIT: I just looked at the WLP 380 Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast notes and I think this would fit this beer perfect. "Large clove and phenolic aroma and flavor, with minimal banana. Refreshing citrus and apricot notes. Crisp, drinkable hefeweizen"

Pedro-

Recipes 

I would assume the 1-3-3 schedule would be if you were using real fruit or puree vs extract for the fruit flavor.

The extra time in secondary would depend on the fermentation of the natural sugars in the fruit. I use the same schedule for my Peach Cream Ale (only I keg almost all of it and start drinking it after racking from secondary).

If you are simply using extract you wouldn't need to worry about extra fermentables and could just to a 1-2-3 for regular clearing and rounding of the flavors. If you do use real fruit or puree calculate how many extra points will be added by the fruit and wait for your FG to go down and fermentation to stop.

Something you will notice is with fruity wheats you have a bit of a battle. Fruit profiles seem to mellow and get better with a little age, but wheats are made to be consumed in short periods of time. I think I seen a write up in BYO or Zym with a timescale around 1-3 wks (Green) 4-8 wks (prime) 8-^ (deteriorating).

I notice with the Peach CA the peach profile gets better as the keg goes down and usually the best pint is the last. I tried to put a little age on one batch by brewing a couple batches at once and assumed since I had more than one keg it would last a little longer and I could age it a little. Boy was I wrong haha 10 gallons of beer went just as fast as the 5. Cheers!

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Ferm: 10 gal Apfelwein :)
Kegged: Wit, Blonde Ale, What Wheat?
Bottled: Apfelwein, Stout
Up Next: ESB, Honey Lager, CCA
Down the Hatch: A whole sh*t-ton!

SilverAnalyst

Recipes 

I wish I was in america. It's so hard to get good engredients here.

aliciavr6

Recipes 

Me and HWMNBO brewed this today. We had to use Crystal 60L and used hallertau hops instead, 1.5 oz at 30, .5 at 15. Also trying Safbrew WB-06. After reading all the reviews, probably should have stuck with 05. Will probably add frozen raspberries in secondary and halve the extract. Our OG was spot on with beersmiths estimate of 1.044

broncofish

Recipes 

I'm just wondering how yours turned out. Ive got a batch 1 week into the secondary.

aliciavr6

Recipes 

Ours is 1.5 weeks in secondary. The bf tried it, but I haven't. Its pink, and smells verrrry raspberryish. Used all extraxt and 4 bags of frozen berries

broncofish

Recipes 

How much of each?