Hoppy passionfruit wheat beer

Hi,

I would like to create a moderately hoppy american style wheat beer with passionfruit added to secondary fermentation. I want the beer to have a nice passionfruit hint, not anything overwhelming. I am not really sure how to balance the hops or which type of hops since I am adding the passionfruit.
It's summertime down under so would like to have a refreshing beer under 6% ABV.

Also, I have one constraint in that I have a can of BlackRock Whispering Wheat (3.5lbs) that I need to use. The can calls for 1 kg of brewing sugar added to the fermenter. Previously I have only brewed dry or liquid extracts with steeped grains and added hops during the boil. This can is already hopped (lightly I assume).

The hops I have on hand are centennial, amarillo, and willamette and the yeast I have is American Hefeweizen WLP 320.

Any recommendations for this as I am not too keen on the canned hopped extract. Can I substitute dry malt extract or other grains during the boil for the brewing sugar? What hops would pay with well with the style I am trying to create?

Thanks

I cannot be of much help with the passionfruit, but I've certainly doctored up pre hopped cans, and like you, have ditched the sugar for extract.

If you can get a wheat extract you may want to go that route so as to keep it more wheaty. But you can still use a light extract if you need to.

What I do is boil up the water you'll require and add the extract. Most pre hopped cans are light on the IBU's and so I add a 15-21 min flavor addition, as well as a 5-7 min aroma addition.

Once your boil is done and you've removed you hop bags (if you used them), you'll add in the can and stir well. Cool it down and add your yeast.

I've used that yeast for a couple of years. It's OK, but isn't a strong attenuator. I intend to replace it with Wyeast 1010.

Extracts don't have as much sugars as sugar so it'll require more to get the same ABV.

I have no idea what kind of hop profile that can has but I'd think the Willamette would likely better meld with it.

I am not familiar with passionfruit, and so maybe one of the other hops would better go with it.

Galaxy (native to Australia) and Nelson both are described as having passion fruit and citrus aromas. I'm not sure what you'll be left with using the actual fruit. Often times fruits and juices ferment out and leave less than desirable flavors.

Oh, and I'd say definitely go with an unhopped extract if you want to have total control over the hop profile and bitterness. DME or LME are both fine. I'd probably use at least a good portion wheat extract. Keep in mind they wheat extract isn't 100% wheat, it's a blend of wheat and barley (likely in the 30% range for the wheat).

rodwha said:

I cannot be of much help with the passionfruit, but I've certainly doctored up pre hopped cans, and like you, have ditched the sugar for extract.

If you can get a wheat extract you may want to go that route so as to keep it more wheaty. But you can still use a light extract if you need to.

What I do is boil up the water you'll require and add the extract. Most pre hopped cans are light on the IBU's and so I add a 15-21 min flavor addition, as well as a 5-7 min aroma addition.

Once your boil is done and you've removed you hop bags (if you used them), you'll add in the can and stir well. Cool it down and add your yeast.

I've used that yeast for a couple of years. It's OK, but isn't a strong attenuator. I intend to replace it with Wyeast 1010.

Extracts don't have as much sugars as sugar so it'll require more to get the same ABV.

Click to expand...

Thanks, how much wheat malt extract do you think I should add to replace the 1 Kg of brewers sugar. Also, to clarify, are you adding the extract in after the boil?

Mosaic and El Dorado hops are some I'd suggest!

I would agree with those suggesting using an unhopped extract. If you don't know what hops and how much is present in the extract, it will be difficult to know how other hops will blend and which will dominate.

My suggestions for hops which will give a passion fruit aroma/flavors in order of preference: Galaxy, El Dorado, Czech Sladeck, HBC-342, Huell Melon.

If you want to highlight the hop flavors and aromas, I would also recommend adding a majority of the hop bittering during the last 15 minutes of the boil, at flame out and whirlpooling for a good 15 to 20 minutes with the cover on after the boil.

For a true wheat beer I'd try to have 25-35% of your total grain bill be wheat. Basically, you can use the wheat extract exclusively with some steeped grains for color and flavor. If you don't want it so "wheaty" you can just use light or extra light extract as a portion of your recipe as well.

And agreed with the above suggestion of using late addition hops. In my last IPA (which was a huge success) I only had .25 ounces of hops at 60 and the rest came from lots of late additions (4 ounces at 10, 4 at 5, 4 at flameout, 4 dry hop). You don't need to go that crazy, but I made a hell of a hop bomb with this schedule. It was about 75 IBUs in total with the vast majority coming from the 10 and 5 minute additions.

About 1.3 kg of DME is equal to 1 lg of corn sugar. That is if you want to keep the gravity (ABV) about the same.

Briess' Bavarian Wheat extract is 65% wheat:

http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Products/Extracts.htm#BavarianWheat

If you will be adding your own hops you'd want to boil the DME. If you are looking to increase the actual bitterness you'd want to boil at least about 45-60 mins. But if you are just going with whatever amount of bitterness the kit has and adding some flavor/aroma then you'd want to boil accordingly (flavor 15-21 mins or just aroma 3-7 mins). You could also dry hop for some aroma.

I do mostly partial mashes, and prefer to use LME which I add at flameout. This keeps it from scorching on the bottom as it falls rapidly when adding it (burned it once), but also keeps it from darkening. I also use it as a part of my top off which requires less plain water.

Citra also has strong passion fruit like aromas.

Looking up that kit I found this:

Hops -Green Bullet, Pacific Gem

And it shows 16 IBU's (EBU's). To style it's 15-30 IBU's.

Mosaic
Mosaic
Mosaic

That is all