Fruit Beer Lemon-Lime Hefe Weizen

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Brewed this again today. Went with wlp320 for this batch and am interested in the result. Hoping for a nice clean wheat beer base to make the lime really pop. I fermented a little warm last batch with 380 and felt the phenol/ester profile was muddying the lime a bit for my taste. Also went with Rahr red wheat this time for a bit more color. Who am I kidding, it's just fun to tinker sometimes.
 
Tested a bottle that was 1.5-2 weeks old. This came from a split batch from NB BV Hefe kit. Bottled first 1/2 as hefe and the leftover was fit with the limeade and zest. I like the base Hefe- lots of nose and mouth flavor. I will give the lime version some more time. Very tangy zesty and like lime flavor you get when cooking with lime leaves (Thai curry). To me, this lime version seems drier.

Also- I have had this limeade before but only till I made this beer had I tried it recently- I think they changed their recipe. It is more sour/tart and dry, versus the sweeter and smooth version I had a few years ago.

I will give it a week or 2 more and check back in. Carb was very good.
 
For those that have bottled this what Vols have your aimed for?
 
What should the appearance be on this beer? I pulled a sample Saturday(almost 2 weeks in the fermenter) and it looked very milky
 
Mine did too, almost light green. It will come around nicely. About three weeks in the bottles for me. What was left at week four was excellent, nice light straw color.
 
Monty0124 said:
Mine did too, almost light green. It will come around nicely. About three weeks in the bottles for me. What was left at week four was excellent, nice light straw color.
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Thanks, that's good to know. I was gettin worried that I had to dump 10 gallons of this stuff.
 
SD-SLIM said:
After brewing this beer several times and having other people brew it as well....I can tell you this will be one of your favorite recipes!

All Grain
  • 6.25lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
  • 4lbs White Wheat Malt
  • 1lb Vienna Malt
  • ****Mash 158 for 45 minutes****
  • 0.25 Motueka Hops at 60 Minutes
  • 0.25 Sorachi Ace 20 minutes
  • 0.25 Motueka Hops 20 minutes
  • 0.25 Sorachi Ace 7 Minutes
  • 0.50 Lime Zest 5 Minutes
  • White Labs Hefeweizen IV Ale Yeast
  • ****Start Vigorous Fermentation****
  • After Vigorous Fermentation subsides, add 1.75L Simply Limeade
  • ****Ferment for a minimum of 3 weeks****

Extract
  • 7lbs 12.6 Ounces of Wheat Liquid Extract
  • 10.7 Ounces of Pale Liquid Extract
  • Follow rest of All Grain Recipe
This beer is a great every day drinker, I recommend a frosty mug and a lime garnish!
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Has anyone brewed this extract version using dry malt extracts?
Would Briess DME's convert ounce for ounce with the liquid extracts?

Thanks :mug:
 
olephart said:
Has anyone brewed this extract version using dry malt extracts?
Would Briess DME's convert ounce for ounce with the liquid extracts?

Thanks :mug:
Click to expand...

Multiply LME by 0.80 to get DME. This is due to water in LME. You can also add some of the DME later in the boil if you are concerned about color.
 
Anyone have any experience on the different flavors imparted by sorachi ace at different times in the boil?
I have a whole # and no idea when I might use that much so I'm thinking of hopping it up a bit more, but want to steer away from the grassy notes. Maybe just whirlpool 4-5 ounces?
 
Did you mash at 158 or 148F? I see both mentioned in various places in this thread.

Also, how do you arrive at 11.9 IBU? Entering your recipe in beersmith gives 16.3 IBUs?
 
So I am almost to 4 weeks in the fermenter, how long is this going to go? I push down on the lid this morning and the airlock sat back down and five minutes later it raised back up. I actually saw it bubble last night.
 
TorMag said:
So I am almost to 4 weeks in the fermenter, how long is this going to go? I push down on the lid this morning and the airlock sat back down and five minutes later it raised back up. I actually saw it bubble last night.
Click to expand...

It's likely done. You can check the gravity to see if it's stable over the next few days if you are unsure. The beer is just de-gassing the residual co2 that was absorbed during fermentation which is why you are seeing a bubble or two in the airlock.
 
babaganuj said:
It's likely done. You can check the gravity to see if it's stable over the next few days if you are unsure. The beer is just de-gassing the residual co2 that was absorbed during fermentation which is why you are seeing a bubble or two in the airlock.
Click to expand...

ok, thanks
 
I've been brewing this beer for almost 10 years now....it's crazy how popular this beer remains and how very little I've had to change it in that time.
 
I am really enjoying it a lot. Saved the yeast so I can do it again. Plus already have the hops cause it uses so little....
 
What should I do I brew this Saturday and now it's wensday and and now there is barely any activity it started great in like three hrs just not sure what my options are the temp here is warm in the room I have it fermenting is high 60's
 
Gilby32 said:
What should I do I brew this Saturday and now it's wensday and and now there is barely any activity it started great in like three hrs just not sure what my options are the temp here is warm in the room I have it fermenting is high 60's
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If it already started and then slowed down/stopped, it's probably about done. Once ale yeast gets going, a lot of them go very fast. Many Hefe's are kegged at 10 days.

Also, if this is a bucket, seeing reduced activity is normal because some gas can get out around the lid (which is OK!)
 
Gilby32 said:
What should I do I brew this Saturday and now it's wensday and and now there is barely any activity it started great in like three hrs just not sure what my options are the temp here is warm in the room I have it fermenting is high 60's
Click to expand...

Let it ride. Keep temp constant, check FG with hydrometer in another week or so. Check FG again 2-3 days after that. If the numbers are the same, the beer is ready to package. Keep all your equipment sanitized in the process --- if/when you pop the lid of the fermenter, spray a little StarSan around the edge before replacing it.
 
Check your gravity. Only way to really tell if it's done. Even if gravity doesn't change I prefer to give it a little more time for the yeast to clean up.
 
I think it's done my og was 1.060 and now it's at 1.008 tasted it it pretty good for in carbonated think I'm going to keg it and see how it goes
 
Brewing noob here. Went to the home brew store after work. Looked up the recipes on my phone. For some reason, the original recipe didn't show the batch size on my phone, and I assumed it wasn't posted. I asked one of the workers to guestimate what the batch size would be based on the amount of ingredients, and they said they thought it would be about 5 gallons.

I have a 3 gallon plastic carboy, so I scaled down by multiplying everything by 60%. I did all of the steps scaled down by 60% only to discover that this was for a 6 gallon recipe.

When I took the original gravity, it turned out to be 1.025???

Not sure what I did wrong. If anything, I figured I would have had a higher original gravity. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I boiled too long?
 
matman89 said:
Brewing noob here. Went to the home brew store after work. Looked up the recipes on my phone. For some reason, the original recipe didn't show the batch size on my phone, and I assumed it wasn't posted. I asked one of the workers to guestimate what the batch size would be based on the amount of ingredients, and they said they thought it would be about 5 gallons.

I have a 3 gallon plastic carboy, so I scaled down by multiplying everything by 60%. I did all of the steps scaled down by 60% only to discover that this was for a 6 gallon recipe.

When I took the original gravity, it turned out to be 1.025???

Not sure what I did wrong. If anything, I figured I would have had a higher original gravity. The only thing I can think of is that maybe I boiled too long?
Click to expand...

Extract or AG? Did you top off with water before you took your gravity reading? Or not mill your grain?
 
Hi Jwin,

I did ag, and made sure to mill the grain before hand. I topped off the water before I took the gravity reading. I've read that its difficult to get an accurate reading when topping off with cold water, so I just pitched the yeast last night and went to bed.

This morning, there doesn't seem to be any activity in the blowoff. :(

The only thing I can think of is that I may not be following best practices with mashing. What I did during the brew was I had too much grain for one pot, so I had to split it among 2 pots. One had a steeping bag, in the other, I just added the grain directly to the water. One pot was at 150 degrees for 45 minutes, the other was at around 140 degrees. Maybe I didn't get enough sugars out of my grain by steeping it too low?

EDIT: doh! I even forgot to aerate the batch before I added the yeast (did this maybe a minute or two later), maybe that would account for the low to zero fermentation activity.
 
Give it time, it will probably start showing fermentation soon.

Your one batch was pretty low, so you may be under on sugars extracted from that part. But I'd imagine that is more likely your gravity reading was off than anything else, since og should have been close to 1.050 or 1.060. Mine was 1.061 post-boil.

Like I said, give it time. See how it turns out.
 
Matman, so you added water to the fermenter?
If so, you probably screwed your gravity reading. And yeah, low mash and I assume no sparge didn't help. A learning experience.
What size kettle and batches are you doing?
The easiest ways around this in the future would be
1) supplement with some and extract to hit target gravity(add some in the last few minutes of boil)
Or 2) get a cooler mlt together. Coolers will be on sale everywhere soon.

Or there is always a bigger kettle...$$$
 
Simply Limeade, check

Limes, check

Make sure that Hefe IV is in stock, and this becomes reality this weekend! So stoked to taste this one!
 

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