American Wheat Beer Summer Citrus Wheat

Thanks Twoheads, I went the local brew store last night and picked up a couple wheats to familiarize myself with the style (Widmer, flying dog, and Harpoon ufo). They indeed have the flavor I'm experiencing...I guess it's more of a tart sensation then a tang...make sense? My wife, who doesn't like beer (wine through and through), tasted all the offerings including your recipe and felt that the summer citrus was very much like the widmer....and yes she liked it. I'll be delivering the keg to my buddy this weekend, but it appears I'll be brewing up a batch for my wife now....I'm glad she found something she likes. Thanks for the recipe

Interesting, I'll have to check those beers out and do a comparison test. Glad the recipe has been well received!

Cheers!

I made this back in the summer because i wanted a quick grain to glass and a good summer quaffer. Well when i tried it after 2 or 3 weeks in the bottle it was very thin. The wife described it as 'watery'. I kept drinking it, but slowly and only on really hot days (of which there aren't many around here). This beer got better and better with age, surprisingly. The orange flavour has deepened and made the beer not so tart. I feel like the body has come a long way the past two months in the bottle as well. I now only have 2 bottles left and am sad to see it go. It makes a nice light dinner beer.

I would make it again, but probably mash a little higher.

Another funny thing is that my beer is crystal clear, which a) doesn't usually happen to my homebrew and b) isn't what i expected with the wheat in the grain bill.

I too have seen variations in the clarity and body of this beer. I chalk it up to different mash temps, variation in the boil, or variation in the yeast. I try to keep all of those factors constant but there is only so much you can do in a home brewery. Another thing to take a look at is water composition, as very hard or very soft water can affect the mash and therefore the body of the beer.

You';re right. It's hard to keep some things consistent in home brewing. I kind of like that though.

Water is an interesting one. I've got very very soft water here. The profile is really close to Pilsen, which doesn't help me out too much considering I usually want to make IPAs. I usually add 1-2 tsp of gypsum to the mash water to harden it up. I did so with this recipe too.

does someone have a conversion to extract for this? I saw it mentioned above but I think I need beersmith or promash to read that .xml file attached on the OP right?

sounds amazing. I was enjoying some belgan wheat beers the other night at a local tap house and I am stoked to try brewing some of my own. could maybe become my house beer...

Has anyone tried to convert this recipe to a partial mash? I pulled the grain out and replaced it with 5.75 lbs Wheat extract, 1 pound 2-row (grain) and 1 pound of American Wheat (grain). Everything else is the same. What do you think?

Brewing this tasty treat today, and just mashed in. I'll be taking naughty beer pron pictures as well.

Looking forward to brewing this one a lot this year. It was a fan favorite last summer

Brew day went off without a hitch...until I was chilling and I realized I forgot to add the orange peel (doh). I ended up throwing them in a couple cups of water boiled them for a few minutes and then poured it into the cooling pot. Also got to use the remaining snow to help chill!

This beer turned out to be a real pleaser. It's only spent 2 weeks in bottles, but they're starting to go faster than I'd like. The girl seems to love them. I was able to brew it with some locally grown white wheat from a guy who donated 20 lbs of it in return for a 6 pack. It was still pretty chilly here when I fermented, so I had no problem keeping the US-05 right around 65. Very clean profile and too damn easy to drink. Put together a label for the bottles I gave my girlfriend and thought I'd share. Props to you TwoHeads, I'll definitely be brewing this a lot this summer!

Just bought all the supplies for this one. This Will be my first brew. Just waiting for my brewing equipment to come in will report back with how it turns out.

What color did this turn out? I just brewed it and its a light amber color. Granted i brewed it while a little bit tipsy. I figured it would be a light color. I also messed up and forgot to put the rice hulls in it.....whoooops

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So what's the consensus on the yeast for this beer, Wyeast 1010 or S-05? Plan on making this one early this week. Thanks.

ElevenBrewCo said:

What color did this turn out? I just brewed it and its a light amber color. Granted i brewed it while a little bit tipsy. I figured it would be a light color. I also messed up and forgot to put the rice hulls in it.....whoooops

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I had mine back to back with a Blue Moon and a Boulevard Wheat, and it looked almost identical to both of them. Taste was definitely different, but I liked the citrus forward flavor.

brokenanchor said:

I had mine back to back with a Blue Moon and a Boulevard Wheat, and it looked almost identical to both of them. Taste was definitely different, but I liked the citrus forward flavor.

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Ah i see where i went wrong. I used american 2 row which gave it a darker color

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Really wanted to brew a citrusy wheat next, summer is around the corner after all! I think this will be the perfect recipe! I've been wanting to try Summit hops, so I was wondering how you think they'd work in this recipe?

After two weeks my secondary smells like apples....i tasteit before carb and it did taste a bit funny. I kegged it and letting it sit for a day. Is it still ok?

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Chose this recipe for my first all grain today. Went well. Only used .5 lb of rice hulls and no stuck sparge. Hit the numbers almost dead on, can't wait to try.

i plan on doing this in a couple weeks, thanks for posting!

Just kegged this after sitting in a primary for 2 weeks. I used S-05, Cascade and Ahtanum (first time ever using this hop) and the gravity sample tasted very nice. My OG was 1.043 and FG was 1.010 which brings it at 4.3% ABV. Should be a nice session beer. I primed the keg with corn sugar and will let it sit at room temp for a couple of weeks. I think this is going to be a nice one. Will report back in a couple of weeks.

Dude, Wy 1010 is a sulphur fart bomb! Caught me off gaurd (first wheat brew), and freaked out the roommates for sure.

Bmason- why would you prime your keg? I keg all my beers but force carb. I've never heard of priming a keg. Just currious

speedster00 said:

Bmason- why would you prime your keg? I keg all my beers but force carb. I've never heard of priming a keg. Just currious

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for a couple of reasons. one, i don't have a manifold (yet anyway) where I can share my CO2 tank. second, I prefer the carbonation that priming sugar gives you over CO2. priming kegs is not as uncommon as you think. to me it's a good option when you need to let your beers condition for a little while before drinking. If the beer has to wait to condition then you may as well let it carbonate also. just remember that if you prime your keg with corn sugar use half the amount of sugar that you would for bottling. not sure why that is but it seems to be the generally accepted idea.

bmason1623 said:

for a couple of reasons. one, i don't have a manifold (yet anyway) where I can share my CO2 tank. second, I prefer the carbonation that priming sugar gives you over CO2. priming kegs is not as uncommon as you think. to me it's a good option when you need to let your beers condition for a little while before drinking. If the beer has to wait to condition then you may as well let it carbonate also. just remember that if you prime your keg with corn sugar use half the amount of sugar that you would for bottling. not sure why that is but it seems to be the generally accepted idea.

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Thanks. How much priming sugar do you usually put in your keg?

speedster00 said:

Thanks. How much priming sugar do you usually put in your keg?

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I let beersmith calculate that for me. the general rule of thumb is to use HALF of the amount of priming sugar that you would if you were bottling. How much sugar to use for bottling depends on the total volume of beer you're priming at the carbonation level you're trying to achieve as well as temperature. I did a quick search for you and found this on HBT:

http://kotmf.com/tools/prime.php

My LHBS doesn't have any of the sweet orange peel, can I just use orange zest? How much should I use to be equivalent with .25 lbs of sweet orange peel?

Just mashed in on this recipe.. looking forward to pouring the first glass.

Just put 5 gallons of this in the fermenter about an hour ago. Smelled great as soon as the orange peel was added.

Likewise...

I was surprised at how dark the wort is on my batch. Probably sucked up a bit much trub. Also didn't bother taking any gravity readings at all... I'll be back in about a week's time to ask a question regarding a final gravity reading

Lost one of my stirring wand's tips in the carboy when I was aerating, so it'll be there for the next week!

http://www.homebrewit.com/aisle/p/4670Q

Mine was quite dark as well, much darker than expected for a wheat. OG was dead on. I'll be bottling this in the next few days, can't wait for a taste! Fermenting time was very short for this brew, but extremely vigorous for the first couple days. I used 0.5oz sweet orange peel instead of .25 of each bitter and sweet. Sure it will still be tasty!

Yes... vigorous ferment. Got a call from HWMBO yesterday while at work: "Your beer is exploding through the top of this big bottle."

Looking forward to this one.

Wanted to make a cranberry wheat ale. How do you think this would taste with cranberries added to it?

I was so impressed with this that I've just did a second batch today. This is the essence of what a summer beer should be.
I've made a couple of modifications for the sake of cheap and easy:
4lb wheat & 4lb pale malt, but my efficiencies have been good recently, so I've still been hitting 1.042+/-
I just zest one orange and two lemons and call it a day.
US-05 works well for me, definitely lets the citrus come through.
Even buying the Wheat malt from the LHBS keeps this recipe right around $10.

Agent- did you do a partial mash? What was your recipe?

No partial mash - All grain for this.
4 lb pale malt
4 lb wheat malt
Zest - 1 orange & 2 lemons
I add in the zest in the last 5 minutes of the boil.
I follow the original hop schedule and amounts, but I've been using mystery leaf hops from my folks (probably Cascade).

The citrus smell coming from the carboy is to die for.

This sounds great. bought all the ingredients a few days ago and just got the starter on it's way to brew this weekend. Can't wait!!

I made this recipe into a blueberry wheat by omitting the orange zest at brewing time and instead racking onto 2lbs of Maine wild blueberries for 5 days. I think I'm calling it my "Barney Beer" for the purple color it took on, and after one week it still needs some more carbing time but it seems like I have one tasty beer on my hands.

got this one in the fermenter today. hit the gravity dead on. cant wait!

This was an excellent recipe! I'm brewing it again this weekend. The first batch was brewed as the recipe stated, but I zested 2 lemons and 4 oranges instead of the bitter and sweet orange peel. Man, what a great flavor combination.

Saturday, I may substitute a grapefruit for the lemons. Haven't quite decided as everyone who drank this beer raved over it. I think I have a staple summer beer. Thank you TwoHeadsBrewing.

Eric