Peach peppercorn wheat beer

[Southern_Junior]

How does that sound? I think it could turn out well. I've never tried to construct a beer recipe before, but I cook alot and these should be delicious.

I'm looking for help on what I should use as far as malts and yeast, any specialty grains, and finally the peach proportions and peppercorn proportions. Trying to stick with mostly extract, but maybe a nice specialty grain steep?

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

It really depends on what your going after. I know white labs wlp300&380 are German style Hefeweizen which will give banana and clove flavor. They make an American Hefeweizen too think its wlp320?? I haven't used that one but it's supposed to have more subdued flavoring. For extract you could always just use wheat DME or a mix of lightDME and wheat. Hops I would go with the noble variety as your really not going for hop flavor in the foreground. Not sure how much peach or peppercorn you would need to add. The only peach pilsner I made used peach extract for flavoring. Hope some of this helps. I'm sure others will be by as well with their .02$

 

[Southern_Junior]

Yea, this is a lot of help! If i may ask, how did you develops this knowledge? Time and tasting or is there more that I can read to learn about the profiles of the yeast and hops?

 

[aiptasia]

I'd probably find a nice light-style beer recipe as my base for constructing a beer like this. Maybe a pilsner or a light ale style. There's a lot of variety of extracts out there these days (more and more every day) so you can definitely keep it an extract brew. For a 5 gallon batch, i'd probably do an adjunct grain steep using a pound of crushed 2 row malt, 4.5 ounces of 60L caramel malt and a light pilsner style LME or DME for the bulk of the malt (6.6 lbs). I'd use some noble, low alpha acid hops like hallertau or saaz for the bittering/aroma/flavor and keep the ratio light, maybe 1 ounce bittering, .5 ounce flavoring and .5 ounce aroma.

Peppercorns can be overwhelming if you use too much. I'd probably experiment with about .25 ounces of crushed peppercorns at 10 minutes left on the boil clock. I'd have to use fresh South Carolina McBee clingstone peaches, skinned, pitted and blenderized into a peach pulp. I wouldn't pasteurize them, just add 2-3 pounds of peach pulp to the primary (or if you rack to a secondary, after you rack) after the primary fermentation has finished. That will keep your yeast focused on your malt sugars initially and then they can have the supplemental feeding from the peach sugars.

For yeast, a nice Belgian style trappist yeast would do fine, or an English ale yeast allowed to ferment on the warm side (say 70 degrees f.). These will produce a lot of fruity esters that will compliment this beer.

 

[Southern_Junior]

Yea, I was wondering about how I could experiment with my peppercorns. I was originally thinking red or pink peppercorns for a more subtle flavor. Put them in the boil though? I guess that would be the only way to get the flavor out.

I was going to purée and partially bake my peaches, to add more flavor. Will that prevent the yeast from feasting on the sugars? Definitely was thinking a small portion of peaches in my primary and then adding more to my secondary after racking.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Yea, this is a lot of help! If i may ask, how did you develops this knowledge? Time and tasting or is there more that I can read to learn about the profiles of the yeast and hops?

Mostly from trial and error. I searched on here for alot of the info. Also BYO had a pretty comprehensive chart for hops and yeast. Uses and descriptions. Here's a link to the hops per style of beer
http://byo.com/resources/hops
On the left hand side bar is links to the yeast charts

 

[cublue]

Mostly I've learned from reading, trolling these sites, hanging out at the local brew pub/ brew supply store (in my case I am lucky, they are the same place) and Palmer's "how to brew".

As for your question, I agree that I wouldn't to a wheat, but an ale or a blonde. The peach pepper should be subtle, less is more. I don't care for fruit beers myself, but that said, I recently had a lemon pepper spiced blonde at the brew pub that was wonderful. Light with a spicy crisp aftertaste. They used magnum hops for buffering and some dry hopping.