tweaking a golden wheat recipie (need some advice)

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802VermontHomebrew

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Hey all,

I just picked up a Midwest Supplies "Golden Wheat Beer" 20 minute boil kit.

The recipie seems pretty straight forward as far as ingredients:

Fermentables- 4lbs Munton's Wheat hopped LME, 2 lbs. Wheat DME

Hops- 1 oz Tettnang

priming sugar, and dry yeast... The kit says purchase 2lbs clover honey to make it a "honey wheat" or buy 4 oz. fruit extract for a cherry wheat.

Well long story short I wanted to step my game up a little and think outside the box and make this more my own.... I am not at the level of all grain yet :) I have however done a partial mash before... But for this one I thought why not tweak a recipie and add some of my own ideas to it.... So here it is.... I will follow the 20 minute boil how the directions say to it... But I want to add:

-Dark Brown Sugar

-Apple Cider

In hopes to turn this beer into a "Cider Brown Wheat Beer" lol....

As for the brown sugar I got a 2 lb. bag of dark brown sugar and a 64 oz container of apple cider....

I guess my 2 questions are when should I add the brown sugar and the apple cider? My guess is do the brown sugar during the boil... but am unsure when to add the cider, should I wait till secondary to add that? Lastly is 64 oz too much cider? same goes for the brown sugar will I need the entire 2 lb. bag? Thanks guys!:mug:
 
I'm not sure what to tell you. Those 20 minute boil kits are designed to be simple and they even suggest a couple other options. "Tweaking" it would depend on your goals. What kind of flavor are you hoping to impart? Why cider, are you a fan of graff?

To me, fermenting cider and mixing it with hops and beer sounds awful. But if it sounds good to you, then you should do it. I don't know what else to say. Those kits are very limited, since they are designed for beginners, and to be quick and easy. When I want to "think outside the box", I don't buy the box first. :D
 
um....interesting....

The brown sugar will almost completely ferment out. But since it is dark brown you may get some molasses flavor out of it. Not sure how that would pair with a wheat beer, but go for it. Boil it, I'd say.

I don't know about cider, but apple juice has a gravity of around 1.050. So a half gallon of juice would add around 25 total gravity points to your batch. If you add this to an already 5 gallon batch, you're looking at a gravity boost of less than 5 points on your hydrometer (again this goes for apple juice, I don't know the gravity of your cider). You shouldn't have to boil the cider, but make sure it is pasteurized (no preservatives) and is unopened before you add it. Add it to either the primary or the secondary. Either way, you'll have to give the yeast time to ferment it out.
 
Do you really want a cidery brew?

The beer is almost 1.060 with the Malt extract. Adding 2 lbs of sugar will take it to almost 1.080. At 25% of the bill, there is too much sugar and it will be thin, strong, and unbalanced. Add no more than 0.5 lbs if any at all. Add it to the boil.

Cider. Cidery flavors are flaws in beers. 0.5 gallons probably will not give you much anyway, the apple flavor will probably ferment right out. If you must add it, add it to the secondary, or alternatively bottle using 2 to 2.5 pints of cider instead of priming sugar. Do not boil the cider.

I would suggest just making the beer per the instructions, and looking up Graff on this site as a possible next brew.
 
Yeah i agree with Calder, when I first started brewing I added all kinds of crap from the cupboards to my beer. Consequently, I made several batches of downright SH---Y beer, which I drank anyway of course. In some ways, learning by trial and error is quite valuable but you must accept the possibility of ruining some batches. If you want to get into being more creative and get away from following kits and pre-written recipes, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels. It gives parameters to follow rather than exact recipes and gives you plenty of room for creativity. On the other hand, if you just want to experiment, just go for it.
 
I considered telling him not to add the stuff. But, one thing that I've noticed in my short time on the particular forum is that a lot of people just don't listen to advice such as that. Generally, if it's a recipe that you've never made before, and you add multiple random adjuncts, then you won't know the root cause if it tastes that horse piss.
 
haha I am still sorta new This will be my 6th batch... I like cider, brown sugar and beer.... I figured wheat beer is a good base for a flavored beer since they make blueberry wheat, cherry wheat, blackberry wheat, etc... Why not have a cider wheat? I just figured the brown sugar would add a little something extra and I could just toss it in the boil.

About thinking outside the box I didnt mean litterally lol but good point :)
 
Bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. Add the brown sugar and hops. Boil for 10-15 minutes. Dump the Munton's into the fermenter during that time. After you kill the heat you can add the DME to the pot to sanitize and clean the Munton's can with the liquid from the pot. Pour that into the fermenter with the Munton's to dissolve. Top off to about 6 gallons. But before you get to the 5 gallon mark you can add the apple juice assuming it's the typical pasteurized kind in the 2 quart jugs. Overall I don't think the sugar or apple juice will have a huge impact so you're pretty safe if you don't get crazy with the quantities. I might cut the sugar to a pound and 2 quarts of apple juice should be fine.
 
The cider and brown sugar will make the beer really, really thin. I'd say use a small amount of molasses if you want that "brown sugar flavor" without all the extra fermentables.

I'd do apple juice or molasses, but I wouldn't do both.
 
The cider and brown sugar will make the beer really, really thin.

Less then you might think. I would expect with just using the extract you would get about a 72% ADF. So for a 5 gallon batch using the Munton's and 2 pounds of DME that would be an O.G. of about 1.045 with a finishing gravity of about 1.013. Bump that up to 6 gallons and add 2 quarts of apple juice and 1 pound of brown sugar you're looking at an O.G. of 1.049 with a final of 1.010, keeping in mind the sugar will add almost nothing to the final. Apple juice alone has a specific gravity of about 1.048 so that would be equal to about adding a half pound of sugar.

According to the guidelines for an Am. Wheat it has an O.G. of 1.040-55 and finishes around 1.008-13. That puts the ADF at 76-80%. Going from 1.049 down to 1.010 is 80%.
 
I basically said not to unless you want to make a crappy beer. However, if you want to find out for yourself, go for it. Make really good beer first and perfect your process, then play around with it. By then you'll know a little more about what to expect, hopefully.
 
Yeah, BUT. Cider will easily ferment below 1.000 so the beer will be very thin and "wine-y" tasting. It'll finish lower than 1.010, probably, and be very thin tasting and not very beer like.
 
+1 on that JonK.

I did that on a couple of my first brews. Stick with what you know will turn out well. Then alter it with other things you learn along the way. Chances are you picked that beer recipe because you liked the style/description. Adding more sugar to get higher alcohol will work, but it will make for a sh!tty beer when all is said and done.

I totally hear you and went ahead and did what you are talking about and the result was exactly as JonK said.

I say go ahead and add it in there just so you see what happens, but do it on a cheap beer recipe so you don't feel so bad if it goes south.
 
Yeah, BUT. Cider will easily ferment below 1.000 so the beer will be very thin and "wine-y" tasting. It'll finish lower than 1.010, probably, and be very thin tasting and not very beer like.

You can expect apple juice to drop from 1.048 to .998. In this recipe it only represents about 8% of the fermentables so that .002 points will effect the gravity by .00016.


There will still be plenty of dextrins from the malt extract for a real beer flavor but no doubt the sugar and juice with add a certain crispness.
 
You can expect apple juice to drop from 1.048 to .998.

I've often had apple juice (I make a ton of wines) finish at .990. I would be surprised if you could expect apple juice to reliably stop at .998, and I would like to see some statistics of that. That would be a very rare apple juice. In fact, every single one of my apple wines have finished at .990.

Anyway, we can agree to disagree. I'm not making this beer, so I don't have anything invested in it. I don't think it'll be good, I think it'll be thin, dry, cidery and not much in the way left of dextins to give it good body and mouthfeel. That's only my opinion, and it's probably not worth much at all.
 
Well I appreciate what everybody has had to say about my idea... I am not sure what I will do with it... I have been very happy with every batch I have made by sticking to the book.... But with this one the kit says you can make it into a cherry wheat or a honey wheat... Basically make it to what you want by adding other ingredients... I chose it because you could sort of "make it your own" this was just my attempt at making something different out of it and not keeping it (just a wheat) beer. It was only 24.99 so I wouldnt lose out a ton of money if it doesnt go GREAT... As long as I can drink it and have it taste semi decent I will be happy... I am just trying to do something new I guess.
 
Ok guys just an update....

I decided to NOT use the apple cider idea and stick to the dark brown sugar... I dont have any molasses but what about Vermonts Pure Maple Syrup? I have a pretty big jug of that? And just make the beer a maple wheat instead?
 
I've never heard of maple syrup giving a pronounced flavor so would say it's pretty safe. I'd say everything you've mentioned should be pretty safe and will mostly ferment out and dry the beer. That's not a bad thing in an extract beer because they almost always attenuate on the low side.
 
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