hefeweizen flavor experiment

[ntbritton]

About a week ago we brewed two 5 Gal hefeweizen extract kits from NB, with the intent on separating them out to 10 1 gal secondaries to experiment with flavors. So far we are looking at Cherry, Honey, and Vanilla. We thought we would do two of each leaving two of them without flavor, so we could do another flavor as well.

But the thought is to add the first one with less than the second one so we can do side by side comparisons on the flavors.

If you guys where to do this how or what advice would you give to amounts and processes. Or what ever else you want to through at us.

Thanks in advance everyone!

 

[454k30]

Usually those flavors come with a recommended ratio: so many ounces to so many gallons. What you're proposing isn't a bad idea, in fact it sounds fun. One thing that I have found is that the flavor of the extracts don't change much if at all so I would say add a little less than suggested, taste it, and then add more if you want more of it. Do that until you find a ration that suits you.

 

[Mozart]

If you have the ability and the desire to, were it me doing this, I'd ferment those two 5 gallon batches at different temps, one near the yeasts lower range, and one near the higher range, and flavor all but one gallon from each batch afterward.

If you want to brew more hefes in the future, this might give you an idea of what fermentation temp you prefer going forward as between the two samples you won't have the impact of the differing fermentation temps obscured by whatever you'd be adding to the others.

Just one suggestion.

Cheers!

 

[ntbritton]

Thanks for the feedback guys! It was alot of fun! They were also allready fermenting so maybe we can do that another time.

One guy decieded to go all in and do all five gal with rasberrys so he added 3 lbs of frozen, thawed, and mashed rasberrys.

The other batch we did the following:
1. control
2. 4 oz of honey
3. 5 oz of honey
4. 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract
5. 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

I noticed the 5oz of honey built a layer of bubbles at the to top of carboy. Assuming its working away at the fermentables added.