Weissbier Orange Honey Hefeweizen

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Further developments.

The missus was just down in the supermarket and she found orange blossom honey for €2 for 11.5oz:rockin:

Given the fact i couldn't find it for brew day i think i might use it for priming the batch. So here's my thinking. The nutritional information on the side of the jar says its 76.4% sugar by weight or approximately 3 quarters. So if the tastybrew calculator says i need 100g of table sugar then i'll need around 133g of orange blossom honey to carb to the same degree.

Any thoughts on this? Would i need to boil it or can the fermentables be digested by the yeast as is?
 
I am brewing this badboy up tomorrow! I am, however, doing an extract version.
6# Munton's Wheat DME
WLP320 American Heffe yeast - I wanted a more neutral heffe so that the clove and banana notes do not overpower the orange or honey.
the zest of 5-6 oranges instead of 2.
I also switched from Mt Hood to Amarillo for a larger citrus note....

Because I am going to be fermenting this in an Ale Pale, I bought a new airlock and some vinyl tubing to create a blowoff tube that will still fit....at least that is my hope....

What would happen if I threw the actual fruit of the orange into the wort at some point? should I? If so, when?
 
i wouldnt reccomend it, if only because it will add chunks to the fermenter and possibly blow the stopper out ( i had that happen using whole hops in a Pliney the Edler clone)
 
I am brewing this badboy up tomorrow! I am, however, doing an extract version.
6# Munton's Wheat DME
WLP320 American Heffe yeast - I wanted a more neutral heffe so that the clove and banana notes do not overpower the orange or honey.
the zest of 5-6 oranges instead of 2.
I also switched from Mt Hood to Amarillo for a larger citrus note....

Because I am going to be fermenting this in an Ale Pale, I bought a new airlock and some vinyl tubing to create a blowoff tube that will still fit....at least that is my hope....

What would happen if I threw the actual fruit of the orange into the wort at some point? should I? If so, when?

IMO the changes you made will result in a much different beer than the one in this recipe. I wouldn't be afraid of the clove and banana notes, as they compliment the orange blossom honey quite nicely- one of the reasons I like this recipe so much. This recipe does not come out extremely citrusy, and I like that also.

But, it looks like you are going for more of a citrusy beer. I'd be interested to hear how it comes out.
 
I made this recipe and let it sit in the secondary for 2 weeks instead of the 1 as prescribed in the recipe. After conditioning for 2 weeks, I sampled some and the first couple of bottles were very very very light, almost coors light, in taste and color so I was a little disappointed.
Going on about 7 weeks post bottling, the last couple have been better. More body and the flavor has really come out. I'm going to let them sit a bit longer and hopefully it'll get even better.
 
Just drank my first bottle, AWESOME. Most likely best beer I have brewed. Big ups for the recipe.
 
Kegged this last week. It taste great, even my brother in law likes it he only drinks miller lite. I plan on another batch here real soon
Thanks for a great recipe. I plan on doing a couple more from your site.
 
Just brewed a hybrid of this on Father's Day with my father-in-law - although I added another pound of OB honey at flameout and .25lb of honey malt in the mix with a little carapils.

Just for kicks (and because I've never done it before), I'm going to rack onto about 2-3lbs of pasteurized raspberries in a couple weeks. Raspberry Honey Wheat here we come!
 
Ekk - after 50+ batches, thinking I've mastered most process steps, this recipe gave me a bit of humble pie. Added honey at flameout, chilled the beer, poured into fermenter through a paint strainer... pitched yeast, and put the lid on. When cleaning out the paint strainer I noticed a thick viscous liquid, felt like a congealed fat. It was also all over the bottom of my kettle. *sniff* HONEY! damn. A little note to anyone doing honey late additions for the first time: Stir it in very well.

Oh well, should still be a kick arse beer, minus 20% or so (I hope it was that little) of honey.
 
Also, it's important to stir to prevent the honey from burning/carmelizing at the bottom of the kettle. Hope it turns out alright. I learned that the hard way too, but it was during my first full-boil with extract. Nothing like a nice burnt toast underflavor to your light summer ale, eh?

I'll also throw an update on mine - haven't racked onto my 3 lbs of raspberries yet, but I did have an interesting experience during primary fermentation. Has anyone ever had a beer blow off twice? I'll explain -

I expected WL300 with a starter to push this sucker's primary fermentation pretty hard, so I put a blowoff tube on my carboy and let it do what I expected it would do. After the first 2-3 days, it blew off and subsided a bit. I put an airlock on it thinking I'm all good for now. Wrong. I check back in a couple days and my airlock is filled with krauzen residue and overflowing at the top and all over my carboy & the bottom of my freezer - what fun!

The only culprit I can think of (since this is a first for me as well), was that I increased the temperature of my freezer oh so slightly...like 2 degrees. Lesson learned: keep the tube on there until primary fermentation is over.
 
I think I want to give this Orange Honey Hefe a try, do you think it is ok to replace the orange zest with an ounce of either bitter or sweet orange peel. I have a packet of each sitting around and have been meaning to use them.
 
Racked on top of 3-4 lbs of pasteurized raspberries the other night. Kicked fermentation back into gear and I've got another healthy krauzen. That WL300 was hungry! Mmmmmm, raspberries!
 
Finally transferred to the keg the other night, had a taste and WOW that's tart! Those raspberries really add a bit of pucker! All that matters is that the SWMBO enjoyed the sample, something in which she rarely partakes. I don't get as much of the honey just yet - uncarbonated it's like a weird mix between a raspberry white zinfadel and an ale. Let's see how she turns out!
 
I brewed up a 10 gallon batch of this last Saturday to get ready for the girlfriends housewarming party. In screwing with the recipe at work to adjust for my efficiency, I somehow just doubled the Pils as I should, to 10 lbs, but left the wheat malt at 4 lbs. With 2 lbs of honey and my efficiency, I hit what I was targeting, just stupidly screwed up the ratios.

But, had a taste tonight after only 10 days, as I took a gravity reading and moved to a better aging spot, and it tasted fantastic for a green, not fully done, 69* beer. Very much looking forward to pulling my first pint of this.

Not sure if the ratio of less wheat malt will effect this, but I did experiment. Pitched 1 WLP300 pack to one 5 gallong batch. Pitched 2 packs to the other. No starters. I wanted to under pitch the one to see if I get the banana, and properly pitch the other looking for clove. Did both at the same temp, 63* for the first 6 days, slowly going up to 69* after that. Well be interested to see if people can tell the difference.
 
Brewed 10 gallon version of this last week, ended up with an OG of 1.050.

Substituted clover honey that I had around the house, bittered with Hallertau and pitched Weihenstephan Weizen yeast. I zested six organic Valencia oranges and am soaking them in 1 cup of Everclear, hopefully that ratio works well with ten gallons.

Thanks for the recipe. Looking forward to serving this one at our brew club summer campout.
 
Thanks for this recipe post. It sounds awesome. I ended up at 50 instead of 52 for my OG, but I'm a skoshe over 5 gallons, so I think I'll be good there. Just finished it a couple hours ago. Any suggestion on how to treat the orange zest with a keg? Sorry if you touched on that already, but 'keg' search on this thread yielded zero results.

JB
 
Check the "soaked zest" paragraph on the original post. You extract the oils from the zest, don't actually add the physical zest.
 
I served my version of this beer at most recent Lagers/Fossils brewclub campout; it was huge hit!! Blew through that keg in no time. The beer was perfect for the hot summer weather.

Luckily I made 10 gallons, so I still have a lot more to enjoy the rest of this summer. :mug:
 
I've always been on the fence about using vodka in my beers. Would it impart any taste, especially when using a dirt cheap vodka?
 
A small amount of vodka isn't going to change the flavor of 5 gallons of beer. However, I personally recommend grain alcohol; mine had no flavor at all other than the orange.
 
I'm wanting to serve this on July 4th. I keg. When's the ideal time to brew this? If I do it now, it'll be ~5 weeks.. This likes to get served young, right?
 
You should be just fine with 5 weeks head start, and yes its best enjoyed young.

Make sure you start soaking your orange zest now too as it will also take awhile to extract the volatile oils.
 
My zest has been soaking & smells delicious... Two oranges worth of peel in a couple of cups of vodka. I've got two & a half gallons of brew there. How much is too much? What's the best practice for adding it (minus the zest of course) - I don't want to overdo the orange, but at the same time, don't want to underdo it.
 
It's a matter of your taste so just be sure to add small incremental amounts until it suits your taste buds.

I need to do this one again. I have some 'skeeter pee' that I'm considering mixing with a wheat, but not sure it'll be anywhere as good as the orange.
 
Thanks for the advice. Put in half a cup of the vodka into the keg. I'll give it a taste test in a day or two, see if more is needed.
 
Thanks for the advice. Put in half a cup of the vodka into the keg. I'll give it a taste test in a day or two, see if more is needed.

So the half batch of this that I put the orange vodka in is a nice wheat, but not orange-y enough IMO. I'm going to add what's left of the orange vodka tonight.

The other half I put a pound of blueberries & a half pound of raspberries in for a week. That is *delicious*. Absolutely delicious. And very pink!

Both are going to go down well at our friends' July 4th party. Keg of the orange wheat, growlers of the pinky-pie beer :)
 
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