Imperial Pomegranate Wit?

Ok, so I brewed an extract brew w/steeping wheat of a wit beer. Final gravity was 1.057. After fermentation with the 3944 Belgian Wit yeast, it took 4 weeks to drop down to 1.014. I then racked to secondary atop of 14 cups of Pomegranate Arils. This calculates, according to USDA, to about 333 grams of sugar, or about 3/4 lbs.

So I added my pomegranates worth of 3/4 lb sugar (mostly fructose right?) to my brew. Unfortunately thats kinda hard to take a gravity sample from to calculate addition sugar added.

It has been sitting in secondary since the 19 Feb and today gravity checked in at 1.009. So after the high OG (for its style), the additional sugar added, and the low gravity (lower SG than before I racked to secondary), I have one hell of a Belgian Wit that not only tastes great, fruity, full bodied, and a nice pale red color, but has a noticeable alcohol presence to it.

Any thoughts on what this beer is coming in at for ABV? my guess is around 7 ABV. I don't know if "imperial" makes much sense, but thats not your typical wit ABV.

My calculation is 6.5%, assuming (reasonably) that it was actually finished at 1.014 before adding fruit.

Bottled this last Sunday. I hope the alcohol taste is not too overwhelming. WIth some carbonation and time, I think it will mellow out decently. The FG was 1.005.

Those are some hard working yeast up in the cold!

barroomhero1234 said:

Those are some hard working yeast up in the cold!

Click to expand...

Good thing our igloo is heated!

One of the local beer experimentalists (I think associated with Midnight Sun Brewery) actually did a wild yeast beer out in the Alaskan environment, sometime in the summer, just to see what happened. I have not heard how it worked.

Wow, an Imperial Wit, that's a new one.

Let us know how it turns out!

Looking at your numbers I would say it is between 6.5-7.0 but that is just calculating looking at what was given.

Pomegranate Wit...sounds grand. Let us know how it turns out. I just popped my Waco Wit (orange and grapefruit) which isn't too bad; however, this pomegranate has my attention.

So I don't know if this calculates correctly. Let me know if I am missing something.

The OG after boil was 1.057. I added 0.75 lb sugar via pomegranate (333 grams) in secondary. Using a nominal points per gallon per pound of 1.046 for pomegranate added:

75% of 46 is - 46 X.75 = 34.5 points for .75 lbs sugar per gallon.

Using 4.75 gal batch size at time of pomegranate addition, divided into 34.5 points per gallon - 34.5/4.75 = 7.2 points increase to 4.75 gallons of 1.057 SG

This increases the sugar content of to 1.064. Ferment it down to 1.005 SG and you get:

1.064 - 1.005 = .059

Conversion constant of 131 multiplied by .059 = give 7.729% ABV

Now I don't know if this is a reasonably valid way to calculated this, but it makes sense to me. If you know how much sugar has been added overall, and you have an OG and an FG, it seems you can reasonably calculate it using this method.

I used 4.75 gallons as a low ball ABV. Using 4 gallons yields 7.94% ABV.
Since I took a lot of gravity readings (dang yeast wouldn't quit fermenting!), I ended up with a lower yield, somewhere between 4.75 and 4 gallons. Considering I lost quite a bit to trub after secondary ferment and I bottled about 3.9 gallons, somewhere in that ball park is about right, I think. I don't think it's really an imperial beer, but it is definitely not within ABV style guidelines. It has a nice ring to it - Imperial Pomegranate Wit.

I cracked one last night. A bit cloudy, more than I expected, but decent carbonation for 2 weeks bottled. The color can be explained as a light beer with "color" added to make a darkish, almost blood orange, color. It was VERY light before the Pomegranate addition, so the orange is all the pomegranate.

I served slightly chilled. Body was medium, not too thin and watery, not much head or head retention. The warmer the beer got, visually the more "bubbly" it was. The carbonation, although not visually apparent, had the "stingy" mouthfeel. For 2 weeks in the bottle, it was far from anything flat.

Had a slight fruity smell, but was hard to distinguish if you didn't know it was fruit added.

The hot alcohol taste that was there before bottling was not noticeable at all, however, only having one of these after eating about 1 hour before had a noticeable effect alcohol-wise. Nice belgian wit notes at first and finished refreshing. A slight tart aftertaste that left a slight dry spot on your tongue, but not at all bothersome or overpowering. Not too tart, but something different for sure.

I think I will have to try this next winter when the Pomegranates come into season, except an all grain version.

Sounds delicious. I brewed a Pomegranate Vanilla Wit earlier this year and had similar concerns/questions about the end alcohol content due to the addition of pomegranate juice. But, I just left it to curiosity and I don't trust my equipment enough to do any better than +/-0.5% tolerance on ABV estimates.