Pretzel Wheat Beer

[Wreck99]

This yeast is going to town! Only 4 hours after brewing, I already noticed activity in the airlock. This morning, I see it's well on it's way. Don't mind the lack of data in the first couple hours. I updated my RPi and forgot to reattach to Brewfather with the new Cloud URL.

 

[Wreck99]

Just updating everyone. The batch has hit terminal the other day. I rose the temp at the end to room temp for confirmation as well as some diacetyl rest. I am now cold crashing since Weds night and should be moving to a keg this weekend. I snuck a taste yesterday and while it was warm and flat, I could pick up some pretzel/bready flavor as well as a little salt. It's looking promising. I'll report back after I've kegged it and got some bubbles in it.

 

[AlexKay]

Posting to say that this thread has inspired me. I just brewed:

73% English pale
24% crushed sourdough pretzels
2% medium crystal
1% pale chocolate

0.4 g/L Fuggle @ 10 minutes

Lallemand London

I was thinking along the odds of an English mild, though I came in quite a bit high at 1.050 OG.

For those keeping track, this comes in at about 15 pounds of pretzels per finished barrel.

It’s also about 5 g of salt per gallon, from the pretzels. I did not need to worry about sodium or chlorine additions to the brewing liquor.

I did in fact make myself pretzel tea the night before: I steeped a proportionate amount of pretzels in water for an hour at ~150 F, then strained, chilled, and tasted it. (Pro tip: always chill your “tea” to get a good assessment of its taste.) It was good, good enough that I drank a glass of it.

Wort tasted great today. Fingers crossed.

 

[Wreck99]

Here it is in all it's glory. I did a grain to glass video on my YT channel if anyone wanted to check it out.

The beer is good. I've never had the Twisted Pretzel from Shocktop for comparison. Tasting notes: I can definitely taste the pretzels though not as strong as I hoped. The salt amount is just right too. It tastes like you're drinking a beer with a half salted pretzel. It's a good beer. I think I'll try it again in the future and maybe either add more pretzels or more biscuit malt to try and get more breadiness or pretzel flavor. Overall, it's a good beer. I enjoy it.

 

[Lampy]

This thread inspired me to try making my own pretzels to brew with. Following the advice of the first online recipe I found for hard pretzels, I made "baked baking soda" (Na2CO3) for the caustic bath. This turned out way too strong and the pretzels ended up very bitter/soapy.
In a last ditch attempt to save them, I used a lemon juice/cream of tartar solution to neutralize my pretzels (yes, they fizzed!) and then washed and rebaked them at low heat. Now they taste much better, but I will probably use a healthy helping of acidulated malt when I mash them.

 

[day_trippr]

Well they look beautiful!

 

[Lampy]

Well they look beautiful!

Lol thanks! To me they have quite a... scatalogical morphology.

 

[AmarikinBrew]

heh. heh. heh. He sed scatalogical

 

[Halfakneecap]

These pretzel beers, are making me thirsty!

 

[AmarikinBrew]

They all have a brown tinge to them.... brown malt or home toasted Maris Otter?
Maybe toasted oats to keep a head on it?

 

[beren]

This thread inspired me to try making my own pretzels to brew with. Following the advice of the first online recipe I found for hard pretzels, I made "baked baking soda" (Na2CO3) for the caustic bath. This turned out way too strong and the pretzels ended up very bitter/soapy.
In a last ditch attempt to save them, I used a lemon juice/cream of tartar solution to neutralize my pretzels (yes, they fizzed!) and then washed and rebaked them at low heat. Now they taste much better, but I will probably use a healthy helping of acidulated malt when I mash them.

That’s interesting. Lye is not hard to work with and makes far better pretzels, and imo is essential for authentic Bavarian pretzels. You only keep them in about 10s a side iirc. How long did you soak them?

 

[Lampy]

@beren Probably more like a minute. I was pretty laizze-faire in my treatment (an approach that tends to be OK for cooking but not BAKING).

 

[beren]

Depending on the reaction that could be too long, yeah. The lye is also using cool water since it’s so caustic.