Hüll Melon American Wheat - Feedback

I've been struggling with which beer to brew next, and while I have what I think will be a pretty interesting IPA in mind, I'm leaning towards keeping my fridge stocked with more "summer-appropriate" beers for the next couple months. I recently bottled an Oberon-inspired American wheat, and I'm thinking I might want to do a riff off of that.

Recipe Type: All Grain BIAB
Yeast: Harvested Bell's House Ale Yeast
Yeast Starter: 1.5L
Batch Size: 5.25 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.057
Final Gravity: 1.014

ABV: 5.63%
IBU: 24
Boiling Time: 60 minutes
SRM: 4.89

Grain Bill
5.75 lbs Briess 2-row [53.2%]
4.25 lbs German Wheat Malt [39.3%]
8 oz German Munich Light [4.6%]
5 oz Melanoidin Malt [1.2%]


Mash Schedule
60-minute mash at 157F with 1-gallon sparge

Hop Schedule
1.00 oz Hersbrücker Pellet (4 AA) - 30 min [11.70]
1.00 oz Saaz Pellet (2.9 AA) - 15 min [5.48]
0.50 oz Saaz Pellet (2.9 AA) - 5 min [1.10]
0.75 oz Hüll Melon Pellet (10 AA) - 5 min [5.69]
0.5 oz Saaz Pellet (2.9 AA) - Dryhop 5 days
0.75 oz Hüll Melon Pellet (10 AA) - Dryhop 5 days

Whirlfloc at 10 minutes before end of boil

Primary Fermentation: Pitch at 65F and maintain at 68F in water bath/aquarium heater. Ramp to 72F after five days. Cold crash and dry hop 5-7 days prior to bottling.

Secondary Fermentation: None

Part of going with this is because it's the same grain bill as my last beer and I wanted to switch up the non-noble hops (Cascade/Centennial to Hüll Melon) to see just how different it'll be, as well as to try to improve a bit on the process I had last time.

I've never used Hüll Melon before, so I have no idea whether they'll overpower things or if this even makes sense. I have Calypso, Rakau, Aussie Summer, and Nelson as other options for the non-noble addition. I'm open to suggestions!

The grist for my American wheat recipe is similar to yours with the substitution of some flaked wheat (for a little more haze) and Vienna malt for the Munich/Melanoidin malts. I used Galaxy along with the Huell Melon. For a 5 gallon batch I added 10 g Galaxy at 20 min, 20 g Huell Melon at 10 min, 20 g Galaxy at 5 min, and 20 g Huell Melon whirlpooled for 20 minutes. Just took a bronze medal in competition.

Personally, I think the Huell Melon is a little too fruity to go with the Saaz-type hop spiciness, but I have never tried it to see how well they would mix.

I too am not sure about the Saaz / Huell combo. The huell can give you lovely honey melon and strawberry notes plus other details, and that should go great with a wheat (I will do something similar myself). However, as Oginme noted, that might clash with the Saaz. I have heard that pairing it with Calypso can really bring out the melon side though, so I´d consider that.

I actually did almost exactly what you're looking to brew - Oberon clone malt bill with Bells yeast and Huell Melon hops. It ended up being good after a while, but the first few weeks being carbonated it had a very... different taste. After it conditions for a bit, it actually produces a nice beer. However, as someone said above, it'll be quite fruity, not spicy like a saaz hopped american wheat pale.

Excellent. This is exactly the feedback I was looking for.

Perhaps I could replace the Saaz with Calypso or Rakau at the appropriate time based on the much higher AA of each. I'd lean slightly towards the Rakau given the apricot and slight tropical notes. What do you think?

Brew_G said:

Excellent. This is exactly the feedback I was looking for.

Perhaps I could replace the Saaz with Calypso or Rakau at the appropriate time based on the much higher AA of each. I'd lean slightly towards the Rakau given the apricot and slight tropical notes. What do you think?

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I am not familiar with Rakau at all, never heard of it even, so I can´t comment on it. I only heard about the Calypso combo being good. From what you say however, Rakau can work nicely too. I personally would advice to put the focus on the Huell as I find it to be an amazingly gorgeous hop. Still, I agree with a brewer who is on the frontline of German hops, having named Polaris, who said that it is great, but can be a bit single minded, just like Mandarina Bavaria.

Long story short: Put the Huell up front, and then just take whatever you feel like would be a good pairing for what you want and use it to fill out the flavor.


Also, and this is a personal taste thing, I would recommend thinking about adding a touch of something like crystal 60 or so. I know this is an american style wheat and I don´t want to make it sweet, I am just always concerned with having just enough sweet flavor (which is not residual sweetness nececarily) to really make all the great fruit flavors you get from the hops pop.

That is also why I am, as a rule of thumb, partial to east coast over west coast IPA. That is another discussion though so lets not go into it and just view it as my personal reasoning, k?

For smooth bittering, go with the Calypso. If you want a more resinous, piney finish, go with the Rakau. I think either one will work with the Huell Melon just fine.

Kiichi said:

I am not familiar with Rakau at all, never heard of it even, so I can´t comment on it. I only heard about the Calypso combo being good. From what you say however, Rakau can work nicely too. I personally would advice to put the focus on the Huell as I find it to be an amazingly gorgeous hop. Still, I agree with a brewer who is on the frontline of German hops, having named Polaris, who said that it is great, but can be a bit single minded, just like Mandarina Bavaria.

Long story short: Put the Huell up front, and then just take whatever you feel like would be a good pairing for what you want and use it to fill out the flavor.

Also, and this is a personal taste thing, I would recommend thinking about adding a touch of something like crystal 60 or so. I know this is an american style wheat and I don´t want to make it sweet, I am just always concerned with having just enough sweet flavor (which is not residual sweetness nececarily) to really make all the great fruit flavors you get from the hops pop.

That is also why I am, as a rule of thumb, partial to east coast over west coast IPA. That is another discussion though so lets not go into it and just view it as my personal reasoning, k?

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Thanks. I tend more towards sweet, but I'm hoping that with a high mash temp I can get some of that sweetness out of it. I'll probably keep the grain bill as it is, if only to see just how different I can get this beer to be compared to my previous one. Obviously, it'll be quite different given the hops change, but this will be a good exercise for me since, still being a novice, I haven't made two beers with the same grain bill yet.

Oginme said:

For smooth bittering, go with the Calypso. If you want a more resinous, piney finish, go with the Rakau. I think either one will work with the Huell Melon just fine.

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Hmmm...I'm hoping for less resin and more fruitiness. I have 8 oz of Calypso on hand, and given the reputation of being mildly fruity, maybe that'd be a better way to go.

Maybe this as a new hop schedule:

0.75 oz Calypso Pellet (15 AA) - 10 min
0.75 oz Hüll Melon Pellet (10 AA) - 10 min
0.50 oz Calypso Pellet - 2 min
0.50 oz Hüll Melon Pellet - 2 min
0.75 oz Saaz Pellet - Dryhop 5 days
0.75 oz Hüll Melon Pellet - Dryhop 5 days

This leaves me with just shy of 30 IBUs, which is on the high end of where I want it, but definitely within an acceptable range. Perhaps its slight apple, pear, and melon would accentuate the Hüll better.

I'm 30 minutes into my boil on this one. Looking good so far. Turns out that the Hüll Melon is 5.2 AA, so my IBUs will come in a little lower, but that's fine by me. Don't know how I got that one wrong though! Both those and the Calypso have a really nice aroma out of the bag. If I don't jack this up, it might turn out to be a really nice beer...

Nice, keep us posted mate!

Kiichi said:

Nice, keep us posted mate!

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Will do!

I hit my pre-boil gravity of 1.044, but I added some extra water to the kettle before it cooled enough to measure it (why...I'm not sure). I ended up at 1.055, which is certainly within the acceptable range. I definitely have more wort in the carboy than usual, so I'll definitely end up with a bit more final product.

I don't have a sight glass, so I have to go by notches I made in the side of my kettle, and my personal system isn't fully dialed in yet, so my volumes and gravities are bound to fluctuate a little until I get everything squared away.

OG sample was nice. Not very bitter, with some basic fruitiness to it. Pitched Bell's yeast at 63F about four hours ago. I'll let it do its thing for a few days and ramp it up to 72F with my aquarium heater.

I made a Hull Melon recipe with a similar grain bill last year and if I had to do it again, I would only use Hull Melon hops for late additions and dry hop.

slymaster said:

I made a Hull Melon recipe with a similar grain bill last year and if I had to do it again, I would only use Hull Melon hops for late additions and dry hop.

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Cool. Sounds like Calypso has some similar properties as Hüll Melon (I've never used either), so I'm hoping it'll turn out well...assuming I don't yet another bottle infection!

I just cooked up some German Mandarina. Will have to try some hull melon next.

So I have a dilemma...

I just got back from ten days out of town, and I pulled a sample from my carboy before dry hopping tomorrow. Gravity came in at 1.014, just as my sample did from the day before I left town. Excellent - hit my expected FG.

But here's the problem, if you want to call it that: This beer tastes phenomenal! It's got the fruitiness I was hoping for - if not terribly melon-y - it's clean, sweet, and very clear (despite simply sitting at 65F for ten days - no crashing). It's quite silky, as well, which is something I was hoping for.

So...do I go ahead with the dry hop that I had I'd planned on, or do I bottle this up and go with the beer as it is? I think dry hopping might really add something, but I'm a little leery of messing with this now since I've had a series of bottle infections recently and I'd hate to mess this up at this stage.

Damn...serious first-world problems!

Dry-hop that sucker! Just don't overdo it.

I too would say do a bit of dryhopping. If you feel it would add something it is a good call here, as it will freshen things up again.The plan from the original post seems reasonable here if you keep the temperature down.
Dryhopping should have nothing to do with bottle infections. For those just make extra bloody darn sure that every single thing during bottling is clean and disinfected. Be like the surgeon you would want to opperate on your open heart.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to go ahead a dry hop this one. It's not a ton of hops, so it should add a nice little something to liven the beer up a little.

As for the bottle infections, I've replaced by auto siphon and tubing, as well as my bottling bucket, spigot, and wand. I had a separate thread and discussion about it on HBT and I'm fairly certain we determined what the culprit was, so I'm pretty sure it won't be an issue this time around. Still...after three infected batches in a row, I'm a little concerned about adding an extra step on a beer that already tastes pretty good!

I dropped the dry hops in this morning: 0.75 oz each of Calypso and Hüll Melon.

The smell is intoxicating!

Planned to bottle this today, but my brand new bottling spigot snapped on me as I was trying to adjust the bottling wand. POS!

Took a sample, and it was just as delicious as the last one, except with a discernible increase in hoppiness. Hops weren't overwhelming at all - only 1.5 oz of dry hops - but it was definitely "brighter," if you will.

I'll pick up a new spigot and bottle it tomorrow. Gotta make room in the carboy for the Half-Nelson IPA I'm brewing this weekend!

Near-disaster during bottling as I had a pretty big leak to start off with - washer on the spigot got twisted up and I didn't realize it - but some slight adjustments (without sticking my hand in the bucket) meant I only lost 10-12 oz, all told.

Sampled some left overs and it still tasted great. I hope to the Big One above that this turns out well in a few weeks!!

What did you end up bittering this recipe with? Some more Calypso or something else? Sounds like a fantastic recipe that I would like to cook up in the next week or so.

tracyk said:

What did you end up bittering this recipe with? Some more Calypso or something else? Sounds like a fantastic recipe that I would like to cook up in the next week or so.

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I didn't add any bittering hops - it was all late additions - so any bitterness is going to come from those late-added hops. The Calypso has a high AA value, so even the late additions can give you decent bitterness for a beer like this that doesn't require high IBUs.

Thanks for the positive feedback...I really appreciate it. If the FG sample is anything to go by, this could turn out really good. Please let me know if you decide to brew it and, if so, how it turns out!

Brewing this up this weekend. Finally got some time to brew. Work has been hectic. Will let you know how this goes. Thanks once again for the recipe. I had been wanting to do something with the calypso hops that I have, just wasn't sure until this recipe came along and it sounds perfect for that!

Resurrecting this one for some feedback. I know it was 2 years ago, but how'd it turn out? I have some calypso and huell melon on hand and want to give this one a shot.