sour peach wheat beer

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lovemybrew

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I made a partial mash - american wheat. The goal was to split and make 2 different brews (1/2 honey wheat and 1/2 peach wheat). I've made around 15 batches in the past of different beers, so I'd say I'm not a newbie but not an expert....
it is however the first I've tried adding honey or fruit to a beer.

2 lbs weyermann wheat
2 lbs vienna
.5 carahell
3 lbs wheat dme

3056 bavarian wheat yeast

after primary, I transferred to secondary. for the honey wheat, I dilluted about 3/4 lb orange blossom honey in warm water, added to the secondary and transferred beer in.
for the peach, I used 3 lbs of oregon peach puree, put in seconday and transferred the rest of the batch in.
Today I bottled, and tasted both. The honey wheat is interesting, almost a cider taste - dry. I wouldn't say I can pick out honey but it's 'different'.

The peach on the other hand... tastes sour to me. I'm not sure what it's going to do after carbonating, if it will get any better or not. But right now, it's got a definate sour taste to me. So my question is, what did I do wrong?
After reading (prior to making the beer) I knew that peach is a light taste, and I didn't expect an overpowering peach taste, but I definately didn't expect sour....
 
That's pretty normal with peach (in my experience) and will mostly age out, but may take time. It starts off tasting like unripe peaches, but after additional aging will taste more like ripe peaches.
How long has it been since you bottled?

A note on your honey... Honey has a longer fermenting time and will definitely change in flavor over time (read the mead forum, they'll commonly age for 7+ months). A small warning if you added extra sugar at bottling, if you went over on that sugar addition you may end up with over carbonated beer after a few weeks of aging b/c there's bottling sugar and still fermenting honey... Depends on how long you aged it.
 
crap.
I brewed on march 6th, transferred to secondary on 3/16 and bottled on 4/5. So about 3 weeks aging in secondary. I'm having a beer party on 4/30, so do you think there's any chance the peach will be less sour and the honey won't be too carbonated?? I don't know what I'm going to call these two (if I even serve them). honey wheat champaine? sour mouthed peach wine...
I didn't read the 'mead' topics, because... well I guess it didn't occur to me. crap.

brew and learn
 
I used 2 cans (6lbs) of Oregen Peach Puree in a 5 gallon Belgian Wheat recipe a few weeks back (in the kegerator now around half full) and I did not experience any type of sour taste. The peach was definitely a bit overwhelming for the first week or so but never sour. Now, over a month later, the beer has settled down and is a pretty good beer. A tad sweet at times but a great beer nonetheless. Perhaps a few weeks of conditioning and carbing will negate the sour taste...my guess is that it will.
 
Any overcarbonation from the honey would be very slight (you only added 3/4 lb right?). I didn't mean to scare with the comment, just advice for future honey/ fruit beers to make sure there's time to ferment.
2 weeks in secondary will get you most of the way through fermentation, so DWRHAHB.
As for how long the peach taste takes to settle... YMMV. Most the ones ive done are drinkable after the usual 3 week bottle time, but definitely keep changing even after 2 months. It takes a lot for beer to be undrinkable (IMO).
 
whyrat: yes, I used 3/4 lb of orange blossom honey. Thanks, I'll try to relax on the carbonation topic :mug:.

As for the sour peach, that I'm not so sure about, only because it didn't taste all that great to me, with a definate sour taste. Especially after mikey_dawg said there was a strong peach taste at the beginning in his peach brew, but it wasn't a sour taste. Which has me wondering why mine was sour. I'll try not to stress over that until I taste it in about 3 weeks!
 
Peach has a tendency to create muted or weird flavors in beers. I agree with others that it mellows and improves in time.

I've never had a problem with overcarbonation using honey in a beer. Honey is simple sugars. It ferments quickly (like straight sugar) when it is in a nutrient-rich environment like wort/beer. It ferments slowly and difficultly on its own because it does not have the nutrients yeast need for fermentation. Mead is aged for flavor, like wine, and because the yeast are fighting in a hostile environment to ferment.
 
I made a sour peach wheat that turned out absolutely delicious. I didn't use pureee though, I used 10 lbs of fresh peaches which I diced and cooked down.
 
Babylon, do you mean it started out tasting sour (before bottling) and then turned out good?
If so, how long before it was good?
 
still unsure on what went wrong with the batch, but it still has a definate sour aftertaste to me. Some tasters have described it as metalic.
I can't drink it, but I'm not dumping yet, I'll give it some more time before trying it again. Or find someone that likes sour wheat beers....
 
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