Taking a stab at a fruit wheat beer, help please

I recently took delivery of many of my belongings which had been in storage (military move) and among them was a brewer's best weizenbier extract kit that swmbo bought me. I have no idea what conditions the stuff was kept in but for the purpose of discussion lets assume 100 F for about 4 months.

Dry yeast packet was something crappy like munton's or something that I wouldn't have used even if it were fresh. Tossed.

Hops: 1.5oz of something low AA that I can't remember right now and it's out in the keezer. I'm assuming their bittering potential is fried at worst and unpredictable at best. Would they still be good for an aroma addition in something?

Fermentables: two 3.3 lb cans of wheat LME. This will be the basis for this recipe.

I ordered an oz of mittelfruh and a packet of WB-06 (safale bavarian wheat). My plan is to follow the hop schedule in Ed Wort's bavarian hefe(.75oz at 45min, .25oz at 15) but I'm debating now whether to use the WB-06 or US-05. I'm looking for this beer to be something SWMBO & co. will like, so think girly. I think that probably means US-05. On to the fruit.

I know a lot of people have had success with watermelon juice so I'm strongly considering that right now. Strawberry and peach also sound good although some have had mixed results with the strawberry, and of course raspberry is tried and true. To recap: looking for yeast/fruit pairing suggestions. Also, are those hops good for anything?

Personally, I'd prob throw the hops out. Or at least throw them in at the end of some random recipe.

A lot of people find WB-06 "watery". I find it decent for what you want. Is your beer going to be a wit? No? Then don't use WB-06. I used it in a wit and it tastes great, however it isn't the best wit yeast, and i wouldn't use it for anything else.

About the watermelon juice...sounds good, but for whatever reason it gives a lot of people diarrhea. Something to think about.

I used Safale 05 on my peach beer, along with honey malt. It was an enormous hit with SWMBO and everyone who tried it. Just make sure you add most of the LME late in the boil. I've found that most girls and BMC drinkers associate darker (caramelized) beer with something stronger.

phissionkorps said:

Personally, I'd prob throw the hops out. Or at least throw them in at the end of some random recipe.

A lot of people find WB-06 "watery". I find it decent for what you want. Is your beer going to be a wit? No? Then don't use WB-06. I used it in a wit and it tastes great, however it isn't the best wit yeast, and i wouldn't use it for anything else.

About the watermelon juice...sounds good, but for whatever reason it gives a lot of people diarrhea. Something to think about.

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They don't describe it as a belgian yeast. Northern brewer describes it as bavarian wheat yeast, but now that I read the fermentis pdf it just says "A specialty yeast selected for wheat beer fermentations. The yeast produces sublte estery and phenol flavour notes typical of wheat beers."

Yikes...I didn't see that about the watermelon, haha.

OK, new plan:

I'm going to use one 3lb can of peach puree in the primary, then add peach extract to taste in the keg.

Put your fruit in the secondary. The yeast activity during primary eats up all the flavor.

Fat Guy Brewing said:

Put your fruit in the secondary. The yeast activity during primary eats up all the flavor.

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Noted, but my plan was to add it after the active fermentation had stopped. As a general practice I don't secondary, but my beer stays in primary for 2 weeks at ferm temp then gets cold crashed for a week; do you really think it will make a big difference if I add it to the primary after most of the yeast is inactive vs racking and adding it? I'm open to the idea.

Dump the WB-06, it's crap... You may as well use the US-05, it will be just as "clean" as the 06 but without the crappy sour taste the 06 gives.

When you PMed me about this brew I was thinking you were using a good yeast.

FSR402 said:

Dump the WB-06, it's crap... You may as well use the US-05, it will be just as "clean" as the 06 but without the crappy sour taste the 06 gives.

When you PMed me about this brew I was thinking you were using a good yeast.

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That kinda sucks about the WB-06. I try to stick with dry yeast since I live in FL and I don't think other stuff does so well in transit here. Oh well.

Hey Coastarine;

I made a peach wheat this summer that was very popular. There was no actual fruit used, I just added peach extract from AHB at bottling time. Some say it tastes 'soapy' but no one who tasted mine mentioned it...and I specifically asked a few people to look for it. This was by far my quickest brew grain to glass...about three weeks total, even with bottle carbing. This was the most popular evar of my brews and it lasted exactly one party on July 4th.

If I had to go wheat extract I would add it late in the boil as mentioned earlier. I have since seen the peach extract at my LHBS store, so you may not need to order it online.

I'm not sure if using just extract would bother my taste buds or not, but I think using a can of puree and just supplementing with extract will do nicely and should hide any artificial flavor from those who might otherwise taste it.

I'll pick up the extract from LHBS, but the puree I'll get from NB. I'll be placing an order with them soon anyway. My LHBS's is good for equipment, but not as good on quality of ingredients.

A while ago I made my own puree by putting 60 ozs of raspberries in a blender then added it at flame out. The flavor was not real strong, almost in the background. Kind of disappointing for the cost. For my current raspberry, I put 48 ozs of pasteurized raspberries in the secondary. The samples I have taken have had more flavor than the prior batch and it has more red color to it, all using less raspberries. I haven't had a bottle yet, its still conditioning. The wait is killing me. I would wait until your fermentation settles down to add the fruit.

By the way, I don't know what commercial brands you have in FL, but I am shooting for something like a Leinenkugels Berry Weiss or Spanish Peaks Honey Raspberry, if that helps.

I think I've got my method and recipe pretty well planned. I'm going to pitch US-05, add a can of peach puree after fermentation settles down (I might even use a secondary...maybe) then keg with a few ounces of alcohol based peach flavoring that I bought at LHBS today. Should be a crowd pleaser.

I'd recommend the puree method. I made a mango wheat with about 6 lbs of mango puree because it's a relatively mild fruit. The flavor & aroma were great. Plenty of mango to go around. The beer even came out a little orange.

I heated the puree around pasteurization temps, added it to an ale pale, racked the beer on top and let it age about two weeks before putting it in the keg.

The only downside I had was that adding the mango destroyed any and all head retention on the beer. I mean full 1-2inch head down to nothing in under 20 seconds.

I'd be weary of using puree and extract in the same brew. Just make sure you taste the beer before adding the extract at kegging time. Otherwise sounds like a good plan to me.

I'll definitely be tasting it before adding any flavoring. The idea behind the flavoring is that I CAN add it to taste, whereas you can't really do that with puree or fresh fruit.

This beer turned out really good and really simple. 2 cans of wheat LME, an ounce of low AA hops for 60 mins, a can of puree in secondary, and a bottle of fruit flavor extract at bottling kegging. I'd recommend it to anyone. I used peach.

Next time I'll probably do it AG as that's really more my style and I just happened to have extract around for this one. Probably equal parts 2-row and white wheat malt and a half pound of crystal 10 or 20. Same fruit bill, but blueberry.

Do you have any problems with pieces of fruit in the beer or the clarity? I read another thread recently where someone said the puree stopped up the racking tube and the beer wasn't very clear pieces of puree got through.

By the way, I think there are tax implications to brewing 100+ gallons of homebrew.

You can use pectic enzyme to fix the clarity issue.

Fat Guy Brewing said:

Do you have any problems with pieces of fruit in the beer or the clarity? I read another thread recently where someone said the puree stopped up the racking tube and the beer wasn't very clear pieces of puree got through.

By the way, I think there are tax implications to brewing 100+ gallons of homebrew.

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It isn't clear at all, but I wasn't worried about it in this beer being extract anyway, wheat, and fruit. No problems racking off of the fruit, and any puree bits that might have made it into the keg got cleared on the first pint.

The law is 100 gallons if you're the only adult (21+) in the household. 200 if you are not.