Lemon Wheat Tea Beer Recipe needed

Hey everybody

Up here in Ontario, one of our great local breweries, Mill Street, has released a lemon tea beer. Unlike some of the other big boy lemon beers, this one is just right, not to much but enough and damn refreshing in this super hot weather.

It gives the ingredients on the can but, being a newb, I need a little help formulating a recipe. For now it would have to be extract, I am in the process of going all grain just not yet.

The can says that it is a wheat beer with orange pekoe and earl grey teas with a lemon twist. 5% ABV

Ingredients listed in order are: malted wheat, barley, lemon puree, organic cane sugar, orange pekoe and earl grey tea, hops.

I figure you start with a simple wheat recipe with a some C hops, steep enough tea to make 5 gallons and add puree to 2nd.

Any ideas?

You'll want to start with a simple Hefe Recipe. I threw this together just now:

Type: Extract
Date: 8/30/2010
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Brewer:
Boil Size: 5.72 gal Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 60 min Equipment: My Equipment
Taste Rating(out of 50): 35.0 Brewhouse Efficiency: -
Taste Notes:

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 100.0 %
0.75 oz Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) Hops 16.1 IBU
0.75 oz Simcoe / Amarillo / Casacade (10 min) <--- Pick a hop to contribute to the citrus aroma/flavor



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.057 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.010 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.015 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.005 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.5 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 0.6 %
Bitterness: ? IBU Calories: 43 cal/pint
Est Color: 8.6 SRM

You'll want to get your hands on some bagged (or loose) Orange Pekoe and Early Gray and make a small scale steeped mixture to find the correct flavor, and add that ratio at the end of the boil. Something along the lines of a few bags of either. Consider adding some lemon zest at boil out as well.

The lemon will probably be the trickiest. It's pretty acidic so you'll want to add it post-fermentation, but I'm not sure when. I'm not very familiar with the use of lemon in beers.

Thanks for the suggestions. Your recipe seems fine.
I figure a couple bags of each tea tossed in at flameout and taste at bottling and add some more if wanted.
The lemon is the trickiest for sure. I have went through many lemon zest posts on this site but not sure which way to go. It is a very pronounced flavor but not like bud light lime which tastes like straight lemon juice

Usually zest adds more in the way of aroma than flavor in the batches I've done. It depends how much you're looking for. Since they use puree though it could be completely possible that they do something like filter the yeast and add the puree at bottling. I don't know if simply using zest would cut it. You could do something like this by stopping the yeast from fermenting anymore using Potassium Sorbate(??) and carbonating in the keg (assuming you have the equipment).

I would experiment with how much of the two types of tea to use, as they each contribute a different type of flavor as far as tea goes. You will probably want one more than the other. Then again, I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to that stuff.

I think I will try a little bit of both methods, zest near the end of boil (how much?) and puree in 2nd( how much).

I can't find puree of any kind up here so I gues I ll just wing it

You need to keep in mind though that the puree will contain sugar which the yeast will eat right up. You should decide whether you want the yeast to touch that or not. Also, since you'll be adding it next to bottling/kegging, add it to desired taste levels.

In terms of zest, 1.5 oz should suffice.

Hey PundyBrews, sorry to resurrect a year later, but just wondering if you ever brewed this? How did it turn out? As a fellow Mill Street lover, this is definitley on my to brew list.

I just put together a plain wheat beer the other day. After primary fermentation is done I plan on dry hopping with Sorachi Ace and then a couple of orange pekoe tea bags. Anyone see a problem with that? I am trying to make it taste similar to this Mill St Lemon Tea Beer.