Recipe check: Strawberry Wheatbeer

[Peppers16]

Hi all.

Trying to come up with a drink that I can give to my non-beer-drinking friends (sadly, most of them) and was wondering if someone can give this a once-over since I'm still quite new to forming my own recipes?
I'm going for something that's fairly sweet and fruity that hopefully will appeal to the reluctant/inexperienced beer-drinker.

I'm doing a half-batch of 10L, using the BIAB method.

Est OG: 1.066
Est FG: 1.018
Est ABV: 6%
Bitterness: 26 IBU
IBU/GU: 0.40
Est eff: 65%

• Yeast- Danstar Munich or Safale WB06

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• 48% - 1.5kg (3.3lb) 2 Row UK lager malt
• 32% - 1.0kg (2.2lb) Wheat (preferably flaked, torrified depending on HBS)
• 8% - 250g (1/2lb) Dextrose sugar (to boost the ABV a bit)
• 5% - 150g (5 oz) Cara-Pils
• 5% - 150g (5oz)Flaked oats
• 3% - 100g (3.5 oz) Lactose (may be unnecessary with low bitterness?)

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• 20g EK Goldings for 45 minutes

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• 1kg (2.2lb) strawberries - Probably blanched and added after primary has slowed?
• Maybe a vanilla bean?

Mash schedule is intended to be 11L water at 69C (156F) to give more body before mashout with an extra 4L. Since it's BIAB the adjuncts should not be an issue.

How's it looking? Do any of those percentages need tweaking?

I've noticed a lot of recipes along this line use raspberries. Is there a reason for this?
Cheers!

 

[BanginBanjo]

As far as the strawberry's are concerned, make sure fermentation is done before adding them, otherwise some of the flavor/aroma will be lost. Depending on how much strawberry character your looking for, you might also want to consider adding more. Strawberry's provide a delicate flavor and you need a lot of them to really bring out their character. The amount you have here will likely yield a light/medium strawberry flavor.

Keeping the mash temperature high is a good idea to help preserve some body. The lactose is also probably a good idea. Adding fruit can cause the yeast to ferment fairly dry and leave behind some tartness. Keep that in mind with the dextrose addition, looks like that's a bit high, although I would personally leave it out and replace it with more malt.

 

[Bluelinebrewer]

I would definitely up your strawberries. I make a strawberry blonde, and I use 8 lbs for 5 gallons. And its just about perfect! The strawberry flavor will mellow over time. As far as adding the strawberries, I buy frozen strawberries, dump them into a secondary and rack the beer onto the berries. I've never had any kind of infection doing this, and its easy (i.e. I'm lazy!) Be careful, when you secondary with the strawberries, it can/will kick off another fermentation, so BE PREPARED! Good luck and let us know how it turns out!

 

[Peppers16]

Thanks for the comments, I'll up the strawberries to 3-4 pounds.

I was also considering downing the IBUs to 17 or less, since I've noticed in other recipes that Belgian wheats seem to be even lower in hops than I initially suspected.

I'll have a think about the dextrose. I understand it's not unusual to add sugar to belgian beers to keep the body light, but it does seem to contradict my efforts to up the body elsewhere, I'll admit!