Orange Honey Wheat Attempt

Hey guys,
This is my first try and building my own recipe. Could you take a look at what I've put together so far. The base was a Boulevard Wheat clone, but I decided to change it up (possibly a lot).

Light Wheat – 3.5 lb
Briess 2-row Brewers Malt – 3.5 lb
Honey Malt - .5 lb
Flaked Red Wheat – 1.25

Sweet Orange Peel 1oz (15 minutes remaining)
Hops: Pellet Hops Magnum 1 oz (1 Hour)

Wyeast: Wyeast American Ale (1056) 125ml

I plan on an 11 qt single infusion mash for 60 minutes. Hops will go full boil.

Can anyone see improvements or major holes that I may have. I'm really going for a good Orange flavoring to it.

You are not going to get a "good orange flavor" from 1 oz of sweet orange peel. This is really only going to give you a good orange aroma, and won't add all that much to the flavor.

To get a good orange flavor, you are either going to need to use an orange extract at bottling or add some fresh orange peel shavings (about 2 oranges worth) during secondary fermentation.

Good to know. If I double up the Sweet Orange will that add flavor, or just aroma. I guess the question is does 15 minutes worth of boil take away all flavor and is "dry hopping" (I know it's not hops) orange peel the only way to add true flavor.

You know the "orange" flavor that you percieve in something like a ShockTop? That's the aroma and flavor of orange peel in the boil. There really technically isn't any orange flavor to speak of, but once you serve it with orange and put an orange on the bottle, some people will swear it tastes like orange. Once you've brewed a few wits, you can taste Shock Top and pick out that it tastes like coriander and wheat, and the citrus is in the nose.

Anyway, no matter how much dried orange peel you put in the boil, you aren't going to get much flavor, just that orangy citrus aroma.

Go buy 2 oranges at the grocery store for $1.50 and zest the rinds into your secondary with a potato peeler (or actually buy a zester would be better, they're about $5.00 at Target/Walmart). I personally would put the zest into a 1 gallon paint strainer bag ($1.99 at HD/Lowes) so I don't have to filter them out after fermentation. That'll give you a good orangy citrus taste in the final brew (do the dried orange peel in the boil as well for the aroma combo!).

GOT IT! I will go for the aroma, and decide during the secondary racking if I want actual taste or not.

Has anyone actually tried this style? I haven't, but it sounded like a good idea. I'm worried that the honey malt may not work out the way i'm thinking, or it's a weird combination, but I guess it's not that much to begin with.

First try at own recipe, sorry.

bottle using orange blossom honey...that is what I do. I thought it was my "secret" technique but it is pretty common...but definetly test your results in the secondary first before considering it, it will really only add aroma and not much flavor, but sometimes that is all that matters

Coranado uses a lot of honey in their orange avenue wit. Personally I don't like the honey in wheat beet because it thins the beer out a lot and I don't feel that it provides enough flavor or aroma for the trade off. If you do decide to use honey, I would suggest mashing at the highest temp you feel comfortable with. Good luck with your recipe.

Also I think the honey malt is fine in that beer.

Here is my final recipe I'll be using today.

Light Wheat – 3.5 lb
Briess 2-row Brewers Malt – 3.5 lb
Honey Malt - .5 lb
Flaked Red Wheat – 1.25

Pellet Hops Spalt 1oz (Full Boil)
Orange Peel -Sweet (45 minutes into boil)

Wyeast 1056

Single Infusion Mash 11 qts @ 156-154 (since i'm not using real honey do I need to do a higher mash?)

So as discussed in another thread my efficiency was horrible on this batch. I am looking at about a 2.8% ABV here. I read that I can add Honey to the secondary to bump up the ABV by about 1%. Since this is a Honey wheat that might not be too bad on an idea.

My question is this. How do I measure the effected difference, and how do I prepare the honey? I assume I need to boil it, or can I just add a few pounds of honey when I rack to secondary?

I've had efficiency problems with wheat also. I fixed them by grinding the wheat a bit tighter than barley. But you have to watch for stuck sparges. I throw a grain bag in my cooler mash tun when I do lots of wheat.

I've also added honey to secondary, worked great. You're supposed to hold it at 180 for an hour to kill any wild yeast or other stuff in there, but honestly I just mixed it with some hot water to thin it a bit and poured it in there. It worked fine.

[Edit] some good info here.

Thanks dbrewski. After you add it how do you then calculate your final ABV %? Do you take an immediate gravity reading after the addition and then the FG, or is the calculation more complicated.

Finally, how much should I add?

That was one thing I didn't worry about. I'm pretty sure you could estimate the added gravity, like sugar it almost entirely ferments. I would not add more than a half lb. Because it thins the taste. Good luck!

Ok. So after reading I've decided to not do any pasteurization of the honey , but may dilute it in 4 cups of hot water to make sure it disolves in the primary. I will add #2 of it directly to the Primary (It's been in primary for 5 days) tonight, give it a few more days and then rack to secondary.

My question still is how do I measure the adjusted gravity/abv. I started with 1.032

Do I take another reading as soon as I add the honey and then that is my new Starting SG?

That's why I didn't bother. I was only doing a half pound and figuring out how to calculate it after adding to secondary seemed a pain. For instance, you'd need to take a gravity reading before adding the honey to see how much had fermented out. That's part 1 of the gravity equation. Then you need to take a reading after you add the honey, and again when it is done fermenting, and that's part 2.

Meaning, the difference between start and adding honey will give you part of the reading, then the difference between the post-add honey and final gravity will give you the rest. This is the only way I can think of to accurately measure (vs. estimate) the added gravity/alcohol.

OK Thanks. I'll make sure to take a reading before I add the honey.

Here is what I have for readings after adding 2# of honey and 4 cups of water.

Honey with 4 cups of water was off the charts couldn't get a reading

OG = 1.033

SG Before Honey = 1.007
SG After Honey = 1.027

Does this make sense? Is there anyway I can predict what the FG should be?

Looks like you've added 20 gravity points (1.007 to 1.027). I'm going to guess it's the same as if you had 20 more to begin with, or a starting gravity of 1.053. When it finishes, use that in your calcs. You will hit around 5% alcohol. I have to say that much honey will strongly affect the flavor...technically it might not be beer by definition but who knows? Might be tasty.

Hmm. We'll see, I was going for a honey flavor anyways so it might turn out ok.

for those who are having trouble with their efficiency when mashing wheat, are you all adding rice hulls to your mash tun? i used to have efficiency issues with wheat, but once i started adding about .5 lbs of rice hulls, my efficiency increased significantly. something about the rice hulls prevent wheat dough balls from forming.

recipe sounds great though! the only thing i could suggest is adding .5 oz of orange with about 5 minutes left. this will give you a similar effect, and it'll also save you some oranges!

cheers

OK.

Can someone help with the final ABV and how I should calculate this. Here are the final results

OG = 1.033

SG Before Honey = 1.007
SG After Honey = 1.027

FG = 1.005

This is one way I saw to do it. Will this work?

1)take gravity right before adding honey = 1.006
2)take gravity right after adding honey = 1.027
3)calculate the difference and add that to original gravity = .020

Would this make my OG = 1.053?

I'm still at a loss on how to do this. Any help?

From what I understand you should add your gravity gain from your honey addition to your original gravity to find your adjusted original gravity. As for calculating your FG remember that that honey has a much higher potential to ferment out so you should go under your earlier reading 1.007

OK So my adjusted OG would then be 1.059 and my FG is still 1.005, which is lower than the before honey SG.

I thought you said your pre honey OG was 1.033 and then with your 20 pts of honey it would have ended up at 1.053. As for your FG as long as it is holding steady that makes sense that it should be finished close to that.

The OG after boil was 1.033. I let it ferment for a week down to 1.007 then added the #2 of hone which brought it back up to 1.027

Right, so you gained .020 from the honey, which added to your OG of 1.033 should be 1.053

OatStraw said:

OK.

Can someone help with the final ABV and how I should calculate this. Here are the final results

OG = 1.033

SG Before Honey = 1.007
SG After Honey = 1.027

FG = 1.005

This is one way I saw to do it. Will this work?

1)take gravity right before adding honey = 1.006
2)take gravity right after adding honey = 1.027
3)calculate the difference and add that to original gravity = .020

Would this make my OG = 1.053?

Click to expand...

Yes that was my original assumption. Thanks for verifying.