Blue Balls Belgian Wit + Cranberry?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

bphelan

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
74
Reaction score
0
Location
Princeton
Members of my family are not big beer drinkers, however they all love Blue Moon. For Christmas I'd like to brew biermuncher's Blue Balls beligian wit but add cranberry flavor. I've read through a bunch of the cranberry wheat threads and looked at a few recipes.

I'm thinking about sparging with a half gallon or so less water and using cranberry juice (100%, no preservatives) to make up the rest of the boil volume. This would primarily be for color, and would probably add a bit of tartness. I would then add cranberry extract at bottling if needed to get to the cranberry flavor desired. I would compensate with a bit more base grain to account for the decreased efficiency due to a lower sparge volume.

Is this good idea? I was hoping to avoid using actual cranberries because I would like to avoid doing a secondary if possible.

Thanks!
 
My inexperienced hunch is that your juice in the boil will do nothing but harm for you. Just watched BBV's Melon Blood episode. The fructose causes a very thin beer. If you're willing to use a fruit extract, I'd say make a good wit base beer and then flavor to taste at bottling. That's how Magic Hat 9's apricot flavor was done on CYBI.
 
Back
Top