Extreme Brewing Kiwit

[Sharkman20]

So over the weekend I made the Belgian Kiwi Wit beer (Kiwit) out of the extreme brewing book. I must say I think this will turn out to be very good when it's done. The recipe called for 4 lbs of kiwi, but after reading a few threads on here about it I decided to add another half pound, and I opted for DME over the LME that the recipe called for because I was trying to keep the color a little on the lighter side. It still looks a little darker than I had hoped but in the end that doesn't really matter. Target gravity was 1.052 in the recipe, and I hit 1.053 when I topped off to the 5 gallon mark. Not too bad. Pitched Wyeast 3944. So has anyone else here made this beer? If so how did it turn out for you?

 

[INWarner413]

I just bottled mine last weekend. I also increased the amount of kiwi, but stuck with the LME. I tasted it at bottling and it was quite good, but I must admit, the kiwi didn't stand out as much as I hoped it would have.

 

[Dogphish]

i floated a keg of that stuff last month. sadly, it had nearly ZERO kiwi taste. i had high expectations for it too.

it was a nice beer, but no kiwi flavor. i was thinking that maybe i used kiwis that were too firm. now, i don't think riper kiwis would have made a difference.

 

[ryanpaulnorris]

I've made that beer. Turned out well, but I agree that the Kiwi flavor was less than I would have liked. I believe the recipe said to add the fruit at flame-out, then move it into the primary with the cooled wort. Next time I think I would wait and add the fruit to a secondary fermenter. Either way, it was a great beer, so you'll have a good summer brew coming your way!

 

[KCBigDog]

I also have that book, and there are some fantastic looking recipes. Might be a dumb question, but is there a site somewhere that will convert an extract recipe to AG?

 

[smokinghole]

I was thinking about redoing this recipe and cheating a little. I was thinking about a bottle of Kiwi flavored sugar syrup. Set the bottles up for priming with that and it should give more flavor with minimal color addition (the stuff is green). Torani or something like that is the name of the company.

 

[Dogphish]

i converted many of the recipes to all grain. check this out:

http://hopville.com/brewer/recipes/Dogphish

 

[Sharkman20]

Well I wasn't going to rack to secondary, but after hearing that maybe I'll rack to secondary after 3 weeks and then add 2 additional lbs of kiwi for another week or so.

 

[Dogphish]

i would suggest adding the kiwi in secondary. the only down side could be possible contamination with wild yeast since your are not heating the fruit to boiling temp. you could probably dunk the fruit in starsan if you're worried. (don't be)

also, A LOT of yeast got into my keg because it was sitting atop the chunks of kiwi floating at the top of my primary fermenter. as i started to rack and the water level fell, the yeast started falling between the pieces of kiwi, and mixing into the batch.

 

[KCBigDog]

i converted many of the recipes to all grain. check this out:

http://hopville.com/brewer/recipes/Dogphish

Awesome, thanks!

 

[Sharkman20]

i would suggest adding the kiwi in secondary. the only down side could be possible contamination with wild yeast since your are not heating the fruit to boiling temp. you could probably dunk the fruit in starsan if your worried. (don't be)

also, A LOT of yeast got into my keg because it was sitting atop the chunks of kiwi floating at the top of my primary fermenter. as i started to rack and the water level fell, the yeast started falling between the pieces of kiwi, and mixing into the batch.

I just put all my kiwi into a bag, so once it's done fermenting I'll just take the bag out and let it rest another day or two before I bottle.

 

[Dogphish]

^ that's a good idea, if you use a bucket for your primary. that would give the yeast plenty of time to settle to the bottom.

 

[mr_bell]

I also have that book, and there are some fantastic looking recipes. Might be a dumb question, but is there a site somewhere that will convert an extract recipe to AG?

It's not that hard to convert on paper, simple math really. I don't have time to get in to the details, but there was a good article in BYO a few months back (the one that featured New Belgium)--that talked about converting all grain to extract and vice versa. I learned to do it from that article, and it really comes in handy. Whether from that article or another source, it's very useful.

 

[Sharkman20]

It's not that hard to convert on paper, simple math really. I don't have time to get in to the details, but there was a good article in BYO a few months back (the one that featured New Belgium)--that talked about converting all grain to extract and vice versa. I learned to do it from that article, and it really comes in handy. Whether from that article or another source, it's very useful.

I just made a simple excel sheet where I can just punch in how many lbs of grain, LME or DME and it will convert it to the other two. Came in handy on this recipe. If anyone wants it, let me know and I'll email it to you.

 

[Dogphish]

hopville.com (the brew calculator i posted on the first page) is free.

i STRONGLY recommend it to anyone that is trying to convert recipes. just be sure to set the "batch size" and the "boil size" correctly.

 

[girdwood]

I'm currently brewing this one right now (another 20min left of the boil). I'm going to be using the WLP410 yeast. I also deleted the original hop additions and added 1/4oz of Citra at 60min and 3/4oz at 10min. I think I'll add a pound or two of kiwi in the secondary also. I'm looking forward to this one!

 

[girdwood]

I forgot to update... This turned out great. Primary 1wk, Secondary 2wk, keg and force carb. So far, this has been the favorite of my beers, one person even said it was their new favorite summer brew and asked me to brew a batch just for him. I think the Citra hop revision was a winner; there was a lot of kiwi flavor in mine, and I didn't add any to the secondary.

 

[girdwood]

About to do it again this weekend... Hoping this branches out and more people try it.

 

[murlocking]

About to do it again this weekend... Hoping this branches out and more people try it.

Can you share our recipe please?