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Blood Orange Hefeweizen

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id say 1 week on fruit.

also, nice early bump for this thread this year. wasnt expecting to see this till about march/april
 
Very cool to see this one again! It was a favorite last year. On the list for when my rhubarb wheat runs out....
 
I've been waiting since last April for somewhere to get in some more blood oranges and guess what? I went to Bel-Air last night and they had a whole table of them. I grabbed about a dozen and I'll be making this brew this weekend. I'm pretty excited, I've been waiting a long time to be able to make this.

I'm thinking of also doing this with only DME with no LME. Has anyone who has done this gotten a lighter brew they can post a picture of?
 
blood orange beer.jpg


this is my all wheat DME one. i dont use liquid so i cannot compare, but i hope it still helps some.

the darker parts on the top are more of a reflection. the color on the bottom is more representative.
 
Looks like a fine brew to me. lol I picked up everything I need today, I'll be brewing this up this Saturday.
 
TheWeeb said:
Make it even more delicious!

I enhance the original extract recipe a bit. I did a partial mash with one pound of Weyermann Dark Wheat and one pound of Briess Carapills, and added a pound of brown sugar to the boil. I know it gave it a darker color (see the pic I posted a couple of pages ago), enhanced the flavor profile, and boosted the OG to 1.066. I had a FG of 1.012, making a nice, warming 7.2% ABV hefe. :ban:

TheWeeb, I'm thinking of brewing partial as well and new to brewing. Would you mind providing partial recipe? Thanks so much in advance.
 
Just brewed up my batch today using all DME with 2/3 of the DME added in 20 minutes before the end of the boil. Came out to 1.048 OG. I threw the zest from all 4 blood oranges in. Depending on how it turns out after fermentation I may chop up and zest one more orange and throw it in and secondary the batch. It already smells great. I already can't wait to drink this one.

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What do you guys think about adding organic Blood Orange fruit juice to the secondary? I brewed an experimental beer with Black rice (Forbidden Rice), Victory malt, American 6 row Pale, and some light Belgian candy to obtain a purple colored beer. I'm using Hefeweizen IV Ale yeast with idea of getting a spicy character. It's in the primary now and looks good. The purple color is very prominent, like a cloudy cabernet with a pink krausen. Then I see this thread and the idea of blood fruit in my Purple Reign sounds great. I have two quarts of blood orange juice. What do you guys think?

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Brewed this a couple years back and was a big hit. Just finished a batch this afternoon-looking forward to it again!
 
What do you guys think about adding organic Blood Orange fruit juice to the secondary? I brewed an experimental beer with Black rice (Forbidden Rice), Victory malt, American 6 row Pale, and some light Belgian candy to obtain a purple colored beer. I'm using Hefeweizen IV Ale yeast with idea of getting a spicy character. It's in the primary now and looks good. The purple color is very prominent, like a cloudy cabernet with a pink krausen. Then I see this thread and the idea of blood fruit in my Purple Reign sounds great. I have two quarts of blood orange juice. What do you guys think?

THAT is an interesting brew! It kind of looks like blood! haha. I'll be very interested to see what this looks like in glass and more importantly how the flavor turns out.
 
Bottled last week and tried last night. Carbonated well and tastes great! Coloring lighter than expected and orange flavor not as strong as expected, however, great flavor! Will definitely brew again and will post a picture next time I pop one open (later today for sure)!
 
hbr2547 said:
Bottled last week and tried last night. Carbonated well and tastes great! Coloring lighter than expected and orange flavor not as strong as expected, however, great flavor! Will definitely brew again and will post a picture next time I pop one open (later today for sure)!

Here is a pic - great brew!

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Looks like I'll be brewing this again on Sunday. Last time I did it with Valencias, extract and bottles. This time, blood oranges, all-grain and kegged. I'll post pics hopefully in about 3-4 weeks when I'm drinking it.
 
I'm picking up everything to brew today -- also my first all-grain (BIAB) so hopefully I won't screw it up :p
 
THAT is an interesting brew! It kind of looks like blood! haha. I'll be very interested to see what this looks like in glass and more importantly how the flavor turns out.

It tasted terrible! I dumped the whole batch. I will experiment with the black rice again in the future. I'll try the blood orange Hefeweizen straight up soon.
 
I bottled a very slight variation on this recipe today. The little bit extra I couldn't fit into a bottle is my sipping drink tonight, and unlike most beers, this stuff is drinkable and delicious right away!

The thing I did different was use some leftover hops (Mt. hood, US Hallertau) kicking around my fridge and some leftover steeping/partial mash grains (10 oz honey malt and 4 oz smoked malt) just to clear them out before my wife questioned their presence in our kitchen. I let a little pith get through to help up the bitterness with the extra malt. Danstar Munich Wheat, Briess DME, 6 blood oranges with their peel. (I love blood oranges, so I used a lot!)

This is such a great recipe, and there's plenty flavorful room to tinker with it. Thanks Sam for giving it to the world!

I'm going to keep the Blood Orange Hefeweizen in my regular rotation, for sure!
 
Tapped a few pints while brewing today to see how it was doing. Needs to carb up a bit more, but it tastes nice. I think the orange of my mash tun and the yellow on the glass gives you a good idea where my color fell.
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Not sure why, but almost all cloudiness in mine dropped out. I racked mine to secondary for a couple of days to add some more orange zest and it started clearing. Maybe something to do with the extra oil from the zest? I can get some cloudiness back if I swirl the bottle a little before I crack it open, but I'm not sure if I'd call it a hef. Tastes good though.
 
Here's the recipe I used:

This is from the book and it's very verbose.

Ingredients

Preboil Tea
4 gallons water

Boil
6.6 pounds (3kg) light liquid wheat extract (55% wheat malt and 45% barley malt) (65 minutes)
1/2 ounce (15g) Hallertau hop pellets (60 minutes)
1/2 ounce (15g) Saaz hop pellets (20 minutes)
4 average sized blood oranges (20 minutes in another pot)
1/2 ounce (15g) Hallertau hop pellets (10 minutes)

In carboy
Cool water to the 5-gallon (19L) mark

Fermentation
Yeast: Wyeast 3068 or 3638; or White Labs WLP300 or WLP380

Bottling
5 ounces (125 g) priming sugar

STARTING GRAVITY: 1.050
FINAL GRAVITY: 1.12
FINAL TARGET ABV: 4.8%

PROCESS
1. Heat 4 gallons (15L) of water in the brewpot. As the water begins to boil, remove it from heat. Add the light wheat malt extract. Stir to prevent clumping and scorching o the bottom of the pot. Return the pot to heat.

2. Allow the wort to come up to a boil. After pre-boiling for 5 minutes, add the first Hallertau hop pellets and stir. Start timing the 1-hour boil at the point that you make this hop addition.

3. 20 minutes before the end of the boil, add the Saaz hop pellets.

4. Peel the blood oranges and separate sections of fruit. Discard half of the peels. Cut the remainder of peel and fruit sections into small pieces. Use a grater as you only want the orange part of the rind. The white will add extreme bitterness. They should be small enough to allow easy entry into the carboy in a later step. An alternative is to use a plastic fermentation bucket that would allow easier addition of the fruit. When using a plastic fermenter with a large lid, the size of the fruit is not a concern.
The fruit may be placed in a straining bag for easy removal after fermentation. Heat fruit and peels in 1/2 gallon (2L) of water to 160 degrees F (71C) and then turn off heat. Let it steep as it cools.

5. 10 minutes before the end of the boil, add the second Hallertau hop pellets and stir for 1 minute.

6. At the 60-minute mark, turn off hte heat source, stir the wort clockwise for 2 minutes as you build up a whirlpool effect. Stop stirring and allow the wort to sit for 10 minutes.

7. Chill the wort in a cold water bath to a temperature of 70F-75F (21C - 24C).

8. Transfer the wort into a carboy or a plastic fermenter. Pour blood orange peels and fruit into the wort.

9. Aerate for 1 minute.

10. Pitch the yeast into the carboy and aerate for another minute. Top up the carboy to a 5-gallon (19L) mark with cool water.

11. In about 10 days, your beer should be ready to package.
I didn't find the recipe to be verbose. On the contrary, it was very clear and succinct.
 
Hey everyone, I've got a quick question for the fruit beer experts. I have made this recipe a few times with great results. My wife has been bugging me for a while now to make a blueberry beer, so I used the base recipe for the blood orange hefe and used blueberries instead of oranges.

Took a couple pounds of frozen blueberries, put them in some water, brought it to 170° to pasteurize, cooled while making the rest of the beer and added it all in primary. That was 2 weeks ago. Is there any harm in leaving the fruit in primary for another 2 weeks? I'm going out of town on business tomorrow for 10 days, and don't necessarily want to bottle today (lots to get done before I go). Obviously if my beer is in danger I'll do it, but if you think I'm safe leaving the fruit in primary for another 2 weeks that would be much better.

Please let me know what you think, thanks!
 
Personally I dont think there would be problems but if your nervous, rack it - at 2 weeks the flavor has established.

I left this beer for a month in primary with no problems. Lets see what others say but thats my 2 cents.

Man, it's about time to brew this lol.. Spring a'hoy!
 
You are going to have to post a picture of this "PURPLE BEER". Why do are they called blueberries when any time I've done something with them it always turned out PURPLE!!
 
My blood tea looked pinkish red, and almost gave the wort a slight pinkish color. Thats probably because I made a light hefe using white wheat. The finished beer looks hazy and straw colored, no sign of the oranges. Let us know how it turns out with eight oranges.

I used 4-5 medium oranges and it hardly effected the final color -- I was expecting more color contribution but I just serve it with a fresh orange slice for presentation and you can squeeze int he extra juice for more color.

I'll probably go 10+ next time.
 
mashing this as we speak, doing a split batch with blueberries and peaches. was going to use plums but the gf said nein... lol ah well, lets see this baby roll~!
 
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