Which yeast strain to use...

I am going to brew my wife a foo foo raspberry wheat with honey next weekend. I am stuck between WL East Coast Ale and WL California V. Have any of you made this style with any of those two strains? Which would you recommend? I want to bring out the tartness and fruitiness of the raspberry purée I will be using but not sure which strain will do a better job. Any suggestions or advice are gladly welcome.

Grinnan5150 said:

I am going to brew my wife a foo foo raspberry wheat with honey next weekend. I am stuck between WL East Coast Ale and WL California V. Have any of you made this style with any of those two strains? Which would you recommend? I want to bring out the tartness and fruitiness of the raspberry purée I will be using but not sure which strain will do a better job. Any suggestions or advice are gladly welcome.

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I would use an American Wheat strain. Haven't used the White Labs product, but the Wyeast Am Wheat is very neutral, allowing adjuncts to shine. Made a couple of Honey wheats for the wifey with this yeast. This yeast also attenuates well and finishes somewhat tartish.

Additionally, I found that if you want the honey flavor to come through, 2 lbs at flameout works well. Some Carapils malt (1/2 pound) also helps with foam/aroma.


Pez.

EDIT: forgot, 4 oz of Gambrinus honey malt also adds some honey aroma, but that would probably overdo it with the raspberry.

The east coast ale, or even a kolsch yeast would work great

I used the East Coast once and never will again, it had a tart type flavor.