Can you add lemon to Hefe at kegging?

It seems like I heard somewhere that citris fruits can ruin a beer if you ferment with them.....is this true?

My hefe is fully fermented, and i'm going to keg it soon. Is it possible to squeeze some lemon into the beer before kegging, or maybe toss them in and let them mingle for a bit in the fermentor before kegging?

I know people do this with fruits like apricots, etc., but what about something with a higher PH like lemons? thanks,

Why not just add a slice of lemon to your glass of hefe? Hard to beat a fresh lemon slice.

Problem with adding fruit to the keg is that the fruit tends to get sucked into the dip tube. I managed to suck some cherries into my cherry wheat through the auto-siphon and have to hit the liquid side dip tube with a 30psi blast of CO2 every once and a while to clear out the pulp.

I always squeeze a slice of lemon into my hefe. Nothing better than that.

I'm just wondering how to spice up this batch. It was my first AG (done a couple since with great success, though), and I didn't hit my temps with any success. It's pretty dry (added some malto-dextrin) and less than optimal tasting.....that's all. Just looking for some flava'

Cpt Kirks.....congrats on your 1000th post on your next

I have seen Hefeweizen served by pouring most of the bottle into a glass, rolling the bottle back and forth between the hands to put the yeast into suspension, floating a slice of lemon on top of the brew in the glass, and pouring the remaining beer and yeast through the lemon slice.

I assume that this is a traditional German method, but I am quite a few generations removed from Germany. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

If you must add a lemon then it's better in the glass. This way if you don't feel like lemon one day you can pull a straight hefe out of the tap! This will also let you keep good head on the beer (as long as you don't add lemon). My 1/50th of a dollar.

jeffmeh said:

I assume that this is a traditional German method, but I am quite a few generations removed from Germany. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

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I'm pretty sure putting lemon or any fruit in a hefeweizen is frowned upon in Germany.

jeffmeh said:

I assume that this is a traditional German method, but I am quite a few generations removed from Germany. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can chime in.

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Yeah, I'm no German expert but I believe the lemon thing is all American. Their hefeweizen already has enough flavor

boooyaaaahhhhhh

OhioGrown said:

I'm pretty sure putting lemon or any fruit in a hefeweizen is frowned upon in Germany.

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It's not really frowned upon, it's just not the most common way to serve it. It's much more common to see lemon in kristallweizen (that's where the tradition of putting them into American wheats came from, according to the people at Widmer) but it's not all that uncommon to see kristals without or hefes with lemon according to the taste of the drinker.

Thankfully (from my POV) you won't get a lemon in your hefe over there unless you ask for it. Here in the US, it's often hard to get a hefe without fruit even when I explicitly order it that way; it's like a reflex for the bartender to reach for a lemon.

OhioGrown said:

I'm pretty sure putting lemon or any fruit in a hefeweizen is frowned upon in Germany.

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Yeah I think that is an american style heff thing.

A few sticks of Lemon Grass in the secondary for a couple of weeks makes a nice Hefe.

The first thing that came to my mind after reading this thread is that the acids in the lemon might do undesireable things to the beer. I'm no expert, just my two cents. Anyone have some better information in this regard?

stephelton said:

The first thing that came to my mind after reading this thread is that the acids in the lemon might do undesireable things to the beer. I'm no expert, just my two cents. Anyone have some better information in this regard?

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Yeah, it'll make it taste like lemon and citrus (not a good thing in a hefe, though better there than in a wit) among other things.

Save the lemons and oranges for American wheat beers.

Try lemon jest for the last 5 minutes of the boil. There's a citrus weizen recipe on this site that uses the zest of 4 oranges and 4 lemons. Ain't nothin' authentic about it, but it's delicious. My friends are bugging me to make it again. As mentioned, though, it's an American wheat. I'd tend to leave it out of a true hefe, but I, um, don't like German hefes. <ducks, runs>