How does this recipe look?

SWMBO wants a fruit beer that tastes like her wine coolers. She likes the seagrams Jamaican me happy. So I found a lite ale recipe with fruit additions. I just want other people's take on it. It's my first personalized brew.

Briess White Wheat 6 lbs, 0 oz
Weyermann Pale Wheat 4 lbs, 0 oz
Cascade Pellets .5 oz @ 60 mins
Cascade Pellets .5 oz @ 30 mins
Malto Dextrin - 8 oz package 12 oz
Irish Moss 1 ea
Wyeast Labs American Ale 1 ea

Mash at 153 for 60 minutes, Sparge with 170 for 10 minutes.
Boil for 60 minutes
Ferment at Ale temp for 7 days, Rack to secondary and add 5lb of chopped fruit to secondary (Preferred: lemon, strawberry, watermelon, and guava) and let sit for 2 weeks or until fermentation has completely stopped.
Add priming sugar and bottle.

IF YOU WANT IT SWEETER AND CARBONATED

Follow the instructions at:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/


Please let me know if you would change anything....

Don't forget rice hulls.

what will rice hulls do?

Rice hulls in the mash to keep from getting stuck sparge from the wheat, they add no flavor or gravity to the brew. With that much wheat I would recommend at least a pound of rice hulls, kinda depends on your setup, what type manifold, etc.

Also, I assume one of those wheat ingredients are malted?

I was gonna do a BIAB. should i still use the rice hulls?

Xalwine said:

I was gonna do a BIAB. should i still use the rice hulls?

Click to expand...

Dunno, never have done BIAB, I would think it would be really sticky and would lock up the moisture without draining, but I really have no idea. Maybe someone with BIAB experience will answer. Also I edited my earlier post regarding the wheat, One of those wheat ingredients need to be malted.

COLObrewer said:

Dunno, never have done BIAB, I would think it would be really sticky and would lock up the moisture without draining, but I really have no idea. Maybe someone with BIAB experience will answer. Also I edited my earlier post regarding the wheat, One of those wheat ingredients need to be malted.

Click to expand...

Both wheats are malted.

Why not make a "breezer" styled wine. I bet you could naturally carb or force carb it and it would be a wine cooler. Wheat beers are great but they are beer...

When I think of "wine cooler" I think back sweetened, carbed, low ABV wine not wheat beer.

I am going to guess that if you make her what she likes she will like it...you still get all the "I brewed it" bragging rights. So what if it is wine instead of beer?

The guys @ my LHBS have been trying to get me to try one of these things. I keep telling them my SWMBO likes beer but if she liked wine coolers I would not hesitate to brew her some.

Xalwine said:

I was gonna do a BIAB. should i still use the rice hulls?

Click to expand...

No

Zamial said:

Why not make a "breezer" styled wine. I bet you could naturally carb or force carb it and it would be a wine cooler. Wheat beers are great but they are beer...

When I think of "wine cooler" I think back sweetened, carbed, low ABV wine not wheat beer.

I am going to guess that if you make her what she likes she will like it...you still get all the "I brewed it" bragging rights. So what if it is wine instead of beer?

The guys @ my LHBS have been trying to get me to try one of these things. I keep telling them my SWMBO likes beer but if she liked wine coolers I would not hesitate to brew her some.

Click to expand...

She hates wine. She thinks she will like thus because of the fruit. Plus the wine cooler she likes is "flavored beer." any links to the breezer style wine recipes? I am making an apple wine (not Ed worts) and wouldn't mind trying that style.

I made a few gallons of this last year (hard lemonade) and it turned out really good. You might want to give it a try also.

I apologize they are called Island Mist as seen here: http://www.annapolishomebrew.com/shopIMkits.asp

I guess I am lost lol. I thought the wine cooler she liked was a wine cooler. I have made "poor mans" wine coolers with a bottle of Arbor Mist and a bottle of 7up/Sprite, so making up a batch of wine, stabilizing, back sweetening, adjusting the gravity and carbing just seemed logical.

I have made 2 fruit beers, I gave all of 1 away the other tastes very much like a stout mixed with a red wine. It is not gwad awful but it is not my favorite. (Goes great with steak.) It seems that the wine characteristics fight with the beer and eventually one or the other wins. I am also all done messing with fruit post boil, the risk of infection is to great IMO.

I am not a beer purist by any means so I have no issues trying new stuff in beers. It just seems like an odd place to be in between wine and beer. especially if it is a sweeter drink...

I wish you the best of luck and if a beer wine is what she wants then your recipe looks good to me, but I am no expert on these styles of drinks...lol.