Thoughts on this recipe

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DuffmanAK

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Howdy folks, been a while. Had to put a hold on my brewings until I got a few things paid off (like my new $400 gadget) but now it's time to kick it off again.

Anywho, I was going through some cabinets and found I had like 14 lbs of "wheat malt extract". It's kindda old, opened both containers and there's no mold on it, so I figure it's ok to use. Now it's time to come up with something to make out of it. I recently made a raspberry ale that came out great and was thinking of using this for some sort of blueberry-wheat ale. Here's what I was thinking:

6lbs wheat malt extract
1 oz Mt Hood hops (@15 min)
1 oz Mt hood hops (@ 45 min)

Ferment couple weeks, add 3lbs pasturized blueberries, ferment, age, drink, enjoy.

The raspberry ale recipe i followed had like 3lbs light malt extract and 3lbs of rice solids. I'm wondering if 6lbs of the wheat is going to overpower the fruit too much or not.

I'm by no means an expert yet, still think I'm new to this, so feel free to rip it apart if this is a terrible idea :D

Comments? Suggestions?
 
Wheat is pretty light and I am a big fan off flavoring wheats with fruit anyhow, I think it would work... may not be the most complex bear in the world but who cares...
 
If I had that much wheat DME I'd order up some hops and make a couple batches of my wheat pale ale in my dropdown. But, if SWMBO was out of fruit beers I'd definately make her a batch to keep the waters calm;)
 
I use 8 lbs of wheat LME in my american wheat beers that I add fruit to, but that's just preference. I haven't added anything in the way of specialty grains to them, just fruit, and they've all been good.
 
+1 to the whole American Wheat concept. Ferment it with something fairly dry, like Nottingham, and rack onto the fruit in the secondary.

Me, I'd use the Oregon Puree instead of whole fruit, but YMMV.

If you pulp the fruit, it takes less time to extract the yumminess. Should you use whole fruit, I suggest three or four freeze-thaw cycles to both break down the cell walls and sufficiently sanitize the fruit. In my experience with that process, I've never had to pasteurize fruit, I've never had a microbiological problem, and I've never heard of anyone using it having a microbiological problem. If it's going to keep you up nights, by all means pasteurize; I just think that's totally overkill.

Cheers!

Bob
 
I'm thinking that there's too much hops for a fruited wheat beer. I personally would leave out the 15 minute addition, and would even consider reducing the bittering addition. You want the fruit to be the star of the beer, not the hops. Also, +1 to everything Bob said.
 
Well when I say pasturizing, I'm heating the fruit with some water to 170F for 15 minutes or so. When I did this with frozen raspberries last time, it didn't break all of them down, though it did end up kindda like a slurry.

I'm all for another/better way to do it. So you're saying a few freeze/thaw cycles on the fruit, then puree it? Or put it in whole? Being that I live in Alaska, it's unlikely I'll find fresh blueberries this time of year, so I'll probably buy the frozen ones at the grocery store.
 
I'm all for another/better way to do it. So you're saying a few freeze/thaw cycles on the fruit, then puree it? Or put it in whole? Being that I live in Alaska, it's unlikely I'll find fresh blueberries this time of year, so I'll probably buy the frozen ones at the grocery store.

I'd do the freeze thaw cycles, which should soften them pretty well, then just squash them up while they're still in the bags. Then I'd sanitize the bags and scissors, cut open the bags, dump them into your secondary, and rack the beer on top.
 
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