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heinz57

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I've been thinking about making a fruit beer for the past couple of weeks and after a few questions the plan is to make a mango wheat. The recipe so far is this:

6.5 lb 2-row
3.0 lb wheat malt
0.5 lb crystal 10

Single Infusion Mash at 152 F

2.0 oz Cascade 6.8 AA% at 10min (~16 IBU)

Expected OG with 75% eff and attenuation: 1.051. This is assuming no sugars come from the fruit, which won't be the case. The OG should be a little higher, but I didn't see a way to add fruit to the fermentable bill in Beer Alchemy.

I plan on using about 1.6 lb/gallon of mango (~8 lb total) in the beer since it is a relatively mild fruit.

I've been reading Daniels' book about both fruit and wheat beers and my questions lie withing how to add the fruit and what yeast to use.

In terms of when to add the fruit, Daniels talks about two methods: steeping or adding to the fermenter. Both seem reasonable to me, but adding to the fermenter seems easier to execute. He also has somewhat of a side note specifically for dealing with pumpkin, but I was wondering if it could be applied to other fruit...such as mango. He says to bake the pumpkin at 325 for two hours, puree it, and then add it to the mash. What is the consensus on when to add mild fruit to a wheat?

My other question is about the yeast. Daniels writes that it is common for both Belgian yeasts and clean ale yeasts to make their way into these types of recipes. I was looking at some fruit beer recipes on the forum and noticed some people use Bavarian weizen yeast as well. It seems like it might be a good idea because of the mild natured flavor of mango, but I don't want the flavor masked. Any thoughts?
 
First I would say listen to the April 24, 2006 Jamil podcast - http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/jamil.php

Second, add the fruit to the secondary fermenter. Adding to the brew before is bad for 2 reasons, first if the fruit is boiled it will release pectin and essentially ruin the beer. Second, any flavoring you get prior to fermentation will be lost when the yeast do what they do best.

Finally, I plan to brew my first fruit beer this spring, and my recipe has WYeast 1187. I have recently started using this strain for a few beers and have found it has a nice place in limited styles, and want to see what it can do in the fruit arena. I know Sea Dog brewery uses the Ringwood strain for all of their beers, which include some good fruit beers, but there is a controversy over weather Wyeast's product really is from the same strain.

I imagine you could use about anything that is either neutral or has fruity characteristics.
 
heinz57 said:
I've been thinking about making a fruit beer for the past couple of weeks and after a few questions the plan is to make a mango wheat. The recipe so far is this:

6.5 lb 2-row
3.0 lb wheat malt
0.5 lb crystal 10

Single Infusion Mash at 152 F

2.0 oz Cascade 6.8 AA% at 10min (~16 IBU)

Expected OG with 75% eff and attenuation: 1.051. This is assuming no sugars come from the fruit, which won't be the case. The OG should be a little higher, but I didn't see a way to add fruit to the fermentable bill in Beer Alchemy.

I plan on using about 1.6 lb/gallon of mango (~8 lb total) in the beer since it is a relatively mild fruit.

I've been reading Daniels' book about both fruit and wheat beers and my questions lie withing how to add the fruit and what yeast to use.

In terms of when to add the fruit, Daniels talks about two methods: steeping or adding to the fermenter. Both seem reasonable to me, but adding to the fermenter seems easier to execute. He also has somewhat of a side note specifically for dealing with pumpkin, but I was wondering if it could be applied to other fruit...such as mango. He says to bake the pumpkin at 325 for two hours, puree it, and then add it to the mash. What is the consensus on when to add mild fruit to a wheat?

My other question is about the yeast. Daniels writes that it is common for both Belgian yeasts and clean ale yeasts to make their way into these types of recipes. I was looking at some fruit beer recipes on the forum and noticed some people use Bavarian weizen yeast as well. It seems like it might be a good idea because of the mild natured flavor of mango, but I don't want the flavor masked. Any thoughts?


AHHHH, you've taken my idea!!! :D
I also plan to do a Mango wheat for the spring. It seems to be a pretty rare beer but I'm curious to see how it comes out. I'll be really interested in how yours works. Good luck
 
My second brew ever was a peach-mango wit. Freakin' spectacular---before they turned into gushers, that is. Personally, I'd add them to the primary towards the end of fermentation---and cut them up pretty well too. Otherwise, you'll get gushers like mine. I think what happened was, when I strained out the fruit it agitated the beer-soaked pieces of fruit and released some more sugar that had been hiding in there...
 
I have not yet used mango but have done a few good fruit beers. Notably, I brewed a kiwi wit beer (the one from BYO a year or so ago) where 1lb/g of fresh kiwi was added at knockout. It created a very nice tangy wit beer with good head retention and a nice twist on a great style.

I have also done various berry wheats for my wife, I have found putting the fruit in the secondary to be the best. This way you retain the delicate freshness of the fruit.

I normally find a nice looking worker in the fruit/produce section and have them respray all my fruit with sanitizer in the back and wrap the fruit in a plastic bag. Then I just take the sanitized fruit home and dump it directly into my secondary.

Mango sounds like it would be good. I would consider adding some bittering hops at 30min and bump the IBU's up to around 20-25, but thats just me.

p.s.- has anyone used wine/champagne yeasts to ferment fruit beers, seems like it may be a strange but wonderful idea...
 
To highlight the mango flavor, you may need to select a fairly neutral ale yeast. I fear that a weizen yeast, while great for other fruits, could overpower the subtlety you're looking for in the mango fruit.
 
I've found that using Saison yeast works will with fruited beers. I did strawberry and raspberry.

Add to secondary, then rack to tertiary after a week or two just to get it out of the fruit and get things to settle before bottling (see notes about gushing above).
 
Just checked Wyeast's recommendations for fruit beers and apparently Kolsch yeast lends itself well to the style as well. I like the idea of the saison yeast, I didn't even think about it. Timely too, the LHBS has the seasonal WLP saison in stock, but on the other hand I have WLP029 on hand.

I'm not worried about having gushers, I'm planning on kegging this beer.

The plan as of now is going to be to add it to secondary in small pieces. Do you think the alcohol alone should be enough to keep any bacteria at bay, or should I spray the fruit with star san before adding? Also, I was thinking that dropping the fruit in secondary, then racking on top would be the best way to avoid oxidation.

The jury still isn't out on what I'm going to do about yeast. Maybe I'll have a chat with the guys at the LHBS and see what they say. Of course I'm sure a bunch of these questions will be answered once I give Jamil's fruit beer pod cast a listen. I doubt I'll brew this weekend, but if I get antsy who knows.
 
Instead of adding to secondary in pieces, you may consider a "potato masher" type tool. Make a "mushy goop" out of it, then rack on top, and gently agitate with a sanitized spoon?

I look forward to your results, I may be doing something similar very soon.
 
I made a mango mead and blended the mango...really bad idea...I waited over 6 months for the mango to fall out and still bottled a lot of mango.

I was not pleased as the flavor did not comethrough as I had hoped.

Also as a purist for German-style hefe weizen beers I would not use a German yeast for the wheat, go American this time...IMO.
 
I did a mango last year - although I hedged my bets and did a split 5-gal batch.
I added about three ripe fresh mangos, mashed up, into the 3-gal secondary and let sit for about a month. I'd have to check my notes, but I think I used a basic, Wyeast, american style yeast, which was good because the mongo flavor is subtle and you don't want to overpower it.
I plan on doing a 5-gal batch next month with basically the same recipe; although I plan on adding a little moer mango and maybe some orange peel for last 5-min of boil to give it a slight twang.
Good luck. Let us know how she turns out.
 
I'd recommend heating it up to 160 or so for 15 minutes to kill the bugs, then give it a slight mash with the potato masher device and put into bucket.

use a bucket - easier to get the bits out of when it's time to clean it.
 
The only thing I have on hand is a blender. Will that do the trick or is it strictly a smashed effect that is recommended?

I took a listen to Jamil's podcast and it was pretty informative. The more interesting part of the show was when he discussed his experiment with extract, puree, and whole fruit from the same 10 gallon robust porter. He said in the end the puree was the best choice, which makes sense since it is already sanitized and smashed as seems to be the most desirable form of fruit.

He also mentioned that adding to the primary is one of the worst places to add fruit in any form, and he wasn't too enthusiastic about adding fruit in a heated environment, read in the boil/mash. The only fruit he discussed that can be mashed is pumpkin, but that is because of its starchy nature.

I'm going to do some looking around to see if I can find any food suppliers that sell a mango puree.
 
Well, after a months worth of doing other brewing related things, I finally made this.

Grain bill is same as original post, the changes are in the yeast and the way the fruit will be added.

I ended up using the yeast cake from a Kolsch (WLP029) I brewed in January. I was originally going to use either 1762 or 3787, but they were both pretty dark beers, and I didn't want to up the SRM.

After searching and calling around I found a nice enough chef who says he knows how to get a mango puree, and since that's Jamil's most recommended way to add fruit to beer, I plan on doing that. I'm not sure of the brand/price of the puree yet, but once I get that info I'll post it here.

I'll let the beer sit in primary for a week or so before adding the fruit. I have a feeling fermentation will be pretty quick since it was added directly to the yeast cake.

I'll let you guys know how it turns out when finished.
 
It's been about a week, and the wheat beer went from 1.053 to 1.009. Checked yesterday, and then this morning and I was comfortable enough to rack it.

SWMBO's uncle is one of the head chef's at a cuban restaurant in Burbank/Glendale called Porto's and they make a killer mango mousse. I asked him where they get the mangoes and it turns out they use a nice frozen puree. I also asked him if it was really pricey but he said not to worry, he could get me about six pounds as long as he'd get some of the final product, not a problem. I guess in actuality I have no idea how much the puree really costs...and that's probably for the best.

Went to Porto's and picked up the mango puree and man did it smell good. Got it home put it in a 5 gallon pot, added some hot water and brought it up to about 150 for 5-10 minutes, quickly cooled it, poured it in the ale pale, and racked the wheat beer on top.

So far so good. The wheat alone tasted like a good base beer,nothing special aside from the clean flavor profile of the Kolsch yeast. Hopefully the mango meshes well.

For now I'll secondary for about two weeks, keg, and then enjoy. I'll post again with the results of the final product.
 
You are awesome. My little brother is an executive chef, I never even tought of asking him. He said he can add me to his weekly orders as needed. I should get additional buckets from him too.
 
Finally kegged the beer this weekend. Smelled fantastic. A lot more mango aroma than I had anticipated, and that's not a bad thing.

It's been sitting on the gas a few days now, and I poured a small sample glass to see how it was turning out.

It is carbonating well, but still needs some time to sit on the gas. There was zero head retention though. I'm assuming this was killed from the mango puree. Normally anything I've ever made with wheat always has a decent amount of head retention. Anybody have an idea what happened?

It's really orange as well, my guess is maybe 6 lbs of the puree was a bit too much. Because it was a little flat and there lacked any head retention, it looked like I was drinking a bubbly mango juice. I'll get a picture up soon. Scaling down a pound or two doesn't seem unreasonable for a future recipe.

The flavor seems to be spot on with my expectations. The mango flavor is definitely not as subtle as I had anticipated, but I don't think it's a bad thing. I didn't really detect any specific differences from using the Kolsch yeast, but the mango could be masking the effects. It's still early so we'll see how this matures over the next few weeks.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Also as a purist for German-style hefe weizen beers I would not use a German yeast for the wheat, go American this time...IMO.

Ja, Richtig! Kein Obst in Bier!
 
heinz57, any updates on this attempt. I came up with the same idea. My beer has been in the primary for a week now and I'm going to be adding mango puree as well. I'm slightly nervous that the yeast in the secondary would be able to handle the sugar influx from the puree. I don't want to end up with a beer flavored mango syrup. Would chunk fruit be a better way to go here?
 
I think the yeast will do just fine...

This past week, I racked my wheat into a secondary with a portion of blueberry puree. For about 48 hours after racking, there was a slight spike in fermentation, which has since faded.

Personally, I enjoy the method where you add the fruit into the secondary fermentation part of the process---it just seems easier. I would also recommend racking into a tertiary fermentor, which will help settle the beer before bottling/kegging. 7 days in secondary and 7 days in tertiary has worked for me, but the duration will depend on the beer.
 
Sorry about the delayed post, nobody had posted anything for awhile, so I was waiting it out to see if the head retention plumped up....which it hasn't.

The yeast did fine, beer is a nice orange color, a lot of mango aroma, but because it's a relatively mild fruit the flavor is not over powering, and it still tastes like a nice wheat.

What I still can't figure out is what happened to the head retention. I've had other types of fruit beer, raspberry, apricot, etc., but they always had decent retention. The retention on my version has about a 10 second lifespan and then dies. In fact, after about a minute it looks almost like drinking fizzy mango juice. I don't believe it's my kegging set-up, every other beer I've made has had medium good retention. I believe it's either the fact that I used a puree instead of whole fruit or mangoes just have some inherent head retention murdering capability. I'm thinking about doing another batch with whole fruit to see if there is a difference.

People really enjoy this beer thus far, but I would really like to pin point what's deteriorating the head retention.
 
Hopefully, after 6 years of brewing, he's solved the head retention problem.
 
Hi there! I have been searching for a simple all grain blueberry wheat recipe with a low IBU <20. This is an interesting thread and Iw as wondering if the recipe was ever finalized or if someone can point me to a good recipe. Thanks in advance!
 
For good head retention in a wheat beer, the hop alpha acids must bind with the dissolved proteins. Carbonation makes bubbles, but hop oils and proteins help create foam.
You can have all the carbonation you desire and no foam. Why? Maybe the hopping rate is low and you're using noble hops with a low AAU level. Maybe you washed your mug or glass with a detergent - so rinse it.

I had the same problems early on with my beers. Great carbonation, but very little head retention. I switched from strictly low AAU noble hops to adding mid-range AAU bittering hops to the mix.
One of my observations leading to this conclusion was made with Leffe, a Belgian beer I liked and tried to imitate. It's hoppy - for me, anyway - and had good head retention when fresh, just like a good wheat beer.
So problem solved. Now my ales have great carbonation and foam retention. The trick is using higher AAU hops but keep your IBUs to a moderate level, if that's your preference.
 
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