Brew House Prairie Wheat Beer with Orange Flavor

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Zoomer

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This will be my 2nd Brew House kit beer. 1st was an American Premium Lager and I also have a Festa Brew Cream Ale on the go. Both are in early stages of life so I have not tried either yet.

After spending quite some time with the search feature here I'd like to ask some questions. Please note that I am a Beginner at this. I'm looking for a Richards White kind of taste. Apparently a beer called Blue Moon is the same.

I want to make their Prairie Wheat and want to add some orange flavor. Being this is not a boil kit, when can I add orange and do I use zest and how much would I use? I read about heating the zest and I've also seen soaking in Vodka. Has anyone got some experience with what I can get away with here? Maybe adding to top up water?

Also, could I add some honey for flavor? Maybe during priming??

I've got the tweaker's bug I guess. After this I think I'll try my hand at the real thing.

Thanks and this is a great site you all have here. :mug:
 
I've added orange peel directly to the fermentor with good results. This was with the Brewhouse Prairie Wheat, too.
 
It was one of my first batches, so I didn't add much, 0.5 oz, or about the zest of 1 lemon. Yeah, I just checked my notes: it was lemon, not orange.

If I were to do it again, I would probably double the amount of zest.

If you want to play it super-safe, do the soaking in vodka. I wouldn't worry about it, though. Lemon zest doesn't strike me as particularly friendly toward micro-organisms.

Just don't heat it or soak it in water. The volatile oils will degrade under heat, and are not water soluble.
 
Also, don't put it in until primary fermentation is complete. The violent CO2 release in primary will blow off too much of the flavour.
 
Did you put the zest in a bag or did you just drop them in and settle to the bottom? Also, I know that using primary and secondary is up for discussion but for now I'm raking to a carboy so by the sounds of it, I should add to carboy
 
I think I just dropped it in. Bags are okay, too.

If you are using a single-step fermentation, just wait a couple of days until the krausen subsides, then put in the goodies.
 
Actually, now I remember that I did use a bag.

The advantage of a bag is that everything is neat and tidy. The disadvantages are that you have less surface area exposure of the flavouring material. When using a carboy only, you also have the problem of fishing out the bag.

Putting the material in freely avoids these problems, but you have to contend with floaties in your carboy which may be transferred to kegs and bottles at racking time. To solve this problem, I'm going to pick up a small screen from a head shop to fit over my racking can. The one thing you must absolutely avoid is having floaties in your kegs, because they can block your flow.
 
Good idea on those screens. I've got some of those. you could have the bag on a piece of mono filament so you can pull it back out. Just leaving it hanging out the top held by the bung. Think that's what I will do
 
Was wondering how this turned out.

I have made just 2 brewhouse kits so I'm not ready to do an AG and am going to do one more kit before I even move to extract.

I just picked up a Brewhouse prairie wheat kit and was trying to figure out how to hack it into a wit or Keith's White (Blue Moon etc.) style beer.

Most wit recipes I have seen call for the addition of orange peel and coriander. I was thinking of doing the kit normally and adding around an ounce of each orange peel and coriander in the secondary.

Also if I was gonna chuck the package yeast what type of liquid should I be looking to buy?
 
I never did add anything to my Wheat beer. I chickened out. It's ready for tasting and real good. I'm very happy with it and it's only going to get better. It tastes better all ready.
I just started a Honey Blond Ale today and at the spur of the moment, zested 3 oranges and soaked them in vodka for 1/2 hour and dumped the lot into the primary. We'll see what happens.
 
I just tried my 5-week-old wheat ale hack. I added an infusion of herbs (nettle, burdock, labrador tea, bog myrtle, yarrow), and dry-hopped it with same. I also added 4 liters of pale malt wort and no water. It's great! The herbs give it a really good stimulant effect, as opposed to hops which are soporific. This is going to be my house brew. I call it White Wendigo.
 
Hey guys, real beginner here and just about to start my first brew next week. It's also a Prairie Wheat Brew House.

Zoomer; without doing anything to the kit, how did you find your beer compared to Rickards White? I noticed you mentioned you were trying for something similar in your original post.

Has anyone had anymore experience adding orange zest since this thread? Intrigued by this but at the same time a little hesitant to do anything to my first attempt. But if I were to, any updated opinions?

Having a real hard time waiting til next week!
Thanks guys.
 
I pitched starter of 3068 in my Brewhouse Prairie Wheat kit with SG 1.064 and after just four days its down to 1.012, I sampled it last night and its tastes great! I got like 6.78% ABV if its done fermenting but it looks like its might get down couple more points. No banana flavors, very clean and smooth taste. I steeped 1# of wheat malt and 0.5# of munich malt in 4 liters of water and added just that instead of suggested 8.
Also dry hopped it with 0.5 oz of Cascade and dumped zest of 1 large orange previously soaked in vodka for couple hours. Will give it a week and then will keg. Should be amazing brew.
 
I pitched starter of 3068 in my Brewhouse Prairie Wheat kit with SG 1.064 and after just four days its down to 1.012, I sampled it last night and its tastes great! I got like 6.78% ABV if its done fermenting but it looks like its might get down couple more points. No banana flavors, very clean and smooth taste. I steeped 1# of wheat malt and 0.5# of munich malt in 4 liters of water and added just that instead of suggested 8.
Also dry hopped it with 0.5 oz of Cascade and dumped zest of 1 large orange previously soaked in vodka for couple hours. Will give it a week and then will keg. Should be amazing brew.

Thanks for the update!

Just tranferred my Brewhouse Prairie Wheat to the secondary. It's my first brew and didn't work out exactly like I thought.

I used the entire 8 liters and SG was 1.042.
I also used Wyeast 3068 but without the starter. On day 4 I couldn't keep my hands off it and checked the gravity. The big activity was done but I was only at 1.028. Left it for another 4 days and just transferred it today (day 8) and it is now down to 1.019. Not as low as I thought it would go but we'll see what a couple weeks in the secondary do. Hopefully it does something or I'm only looking at 3% :(

Could have left it but being my first time I wanted to follow the instructions.
 
Thanks for the update!

Just tranferred my Brewhouse Prairie Wheat to the secondary. It's my first brew and didn't work out exactly like I thought.

I used the entire 8 liters and SG was 1.042.
I also used Wyeast 3068 but without the starter. On day 4 I couldn't keep my hands off it and checked the gravity. The big activity was done but I was only at 1.028. Left it for another 4 days and just transferred it today (day 8) and it is now down to 1.019. Not as low as I thought it would go but we'll see what a couple weeks in the secondary do. Hopefully it does something or I'm only looking at 3% :(

Could have left it but being my first time I wanted to follow the instructions.

Instructions on these kits are garbage, simply because they are same no matter which kit you get, and so is the yeast. And thats a BS. There is a huge difference between fermenting hefe and pilsner for example. In fact my frst batch was a Brewhouse Pilsner and I'm a ******* followed instructions to the T. It didnt turned out that great. Thats why I'm hacking the kit and it tasted amazing on day 4. I did almost everything opposite of instructions. I will give it a full 2 weeks in primary, may be even 3, its almost too much for hefe but my beer is way too cloudy at the moment and I dont want to use gelatin because it will be crystal clear after, which is way out of style. Forget about secondaries, especially for a beers like that. Dont be afraid to experiment with diluting a kit with less water, dry-hopping, adding different steeping grains or use different yeast. Sometimes its good to screw up your first batch to realize that you need to change something.
I will update with pictures when its ready
 
If you are adding your own zest or peel would you add fresh or dried peel? The peel in my kit was dried, but fresh sounds better.
 
Instructions on these kits are garbage, simply because they are same no matter which kit you get, and so is the yeast. And thats a BS. There is a huge difference between fermenting hefe and pilsner for example. In fact my frst batch was a Brewhouse Pilsner and I'm a ******* followed instructions to the T. It didnt turned out that great. Thats why I'm hacking the kit and it tasted amazing on day 4. I did almost everything opposite of instructions. I will give it a full 2 weeks in primary, may be even 3, its almost too much for hefe but my beer is way too cloudy at the moment and I dont want to use gelatin because it will be crystal clear after, which is way out of style. Forget about secondaries, especially for a beers like that. Dont be afraid to experiment with diluting a kit with less water, dry-hopping, adding different steeping grains or use different yeast. Sometimes its good to screw up your first batch to realize that you need to change something.
I will update with pictures when its ready

Yeah, the more experience I'm having with this kit and the more I read on the boards, the more I realize the instructions are useless. As long as this first beer is drinkable I'll be happy. At least I'm getting a lot of experience out of it. Was thinking of picking up a Cream Ale Brewhouse kit tomorrow and give that a go. Will definitely use less water with it.
Thanks and looking forward to the pics.
 
just tasted the brewers best belgian wheat that we added orange zest to. wish we had added about twice the amount. we used the zest of 2 pretty good size oranges. soaked in just enough vodka to cover then drained and added to the secondary when we moved it from the primary.

it's got some orange flavor to it just not quite enough as i was hoping for.

as someone told me when i posted a question about adding zest - be sure not to get any of the white of the peel just the orange stuff.

good luck - interested to see how much you use and how it turns out.
 
If you are adding your own zest or peel would you add fresh or dried peel? The peel in my kit was dried, but fresh sounds better.

I soaked them in 100 ml of vodka for couple hours before adding. I added a zest from 1 fresh large orange but I can't comment how it turned out, my hefe still in primary. I dont want to have orange overpowering everything also so I started with a peel of just 1 orange. Try avoid that white (bitter) stuff and only cut top of it. Dryed stuff is ok, wit kits use that but I don't have enough experience to comment on that
 
I did a wit kit and the dried peel was not strong enough for my taste. In the future I think I would add the dried and maybe also one fresh peel, if I used a kit again.
 
I've done 2 batches of "orange wheat" that have turned out to be amazing.
Started with the prairie wheat and made some additions.

Zest and fruit of 4 navel oranges (had SWMBO remove all of the skin surrounding the actual fruit while I was sanitizing :mug:)
1 Tbsp. ground corriander.

Steeped the fruit, zest and corriander for 20 minutes in hot but not boiling water. Poured through a bag (into the primary) and squeezed out all the liquid, topped up to 23L.
Tied the bag and threw it into the wort and pitched the yeast around the bag (only keep the fruit in the primary for ~3-4 days)
Primary for 1 week, secondary for 2, bottle condition for 2.
My first batch of this I didn't rehydrate the yeast, the second batch I did. I got a much cloudier beer (which is actually what I was going for) by not rehydrating but they ended up tasting the same either way.

Both batches have been crowd favorites so much so I had to hide half a batch just for me :D
 
Reviving an old thread...

I am brewing this kit tonight, will use half of the indicated water, and will split the kit in two after about a month. Half will be the wheat beer only; half will have mango/orange juice added to it in a secondary for about another month, or until it settles down.

B
 
Reviving an old thread...

I am brewing this kit tonight, will use half of the indicated water, and will split the kit in two after about a month. Half will be the wheat beer only; half will have mango/orange juice added to it in a secondary for about another month, or until it settles down.

B

Have you looked into fermenting orange juice? From what I've read its the one juice you really do not want to add to beer or ferment as it turns a terrible flavor when fermented. If you do use orange juice be sure to let us know how it goes.
 
Veinman... thanks for the warning. I had not read that, but will do a lot more reading now. I was going to split the batch into two equal portions, but maybe I'll make one of them about a gallon and see where it takes me. The juice I'm going to add is Pres Choice Mango juice but it has orange juice in it so thought to try it. I shall report back with my results. And, if they're no good, I'll end up using actual mangoes - I want a beer with mango in it!

B
 
Veinman... thanks for the warning. I had not read that, but will do a lot more reading now. I was going to split the batch into two equal portions, but maybe I'll make one of them about a gallon and see where it takes me. The juice I'm going to add is Pres Choice Mango juice but it has orange juice in it so thought to try it. I shall report back with my results. And, if they're no good, I'll end up using actual mangoes - I want a beer with mango in it!

B

Sounds good and good luck. I've heard good things about mango beers whether the addition be whole, pureed or mango juice but I have not heard good things about orange juice once fermented.
 
somewhere in all the interweb of homebrew i read some one put in 1 1/2 oz of orange zest at the end of the boil and would have put in more for next time. LHBS sells sweet orange peel in 2 oz bag.

I'm going to put it in an American Pale
 
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