Black Raspberry Wheat

[berryman]

I've never done a fruit beer yet (unless we consider Pumpkin as a fruit and it is, and they turned out good for me). What I have in mind is an simple 5 gal. extract brew with a little carpils, 6 lbs wheat LME, and 1 lb light amber DME. I have lots of home grown Black Rasp. this year. I have a lot of Saaz, Mt. Hood and Fuggle on hand to use up. Ok now my questions. What would be a good yeast to use to bring out the Rasp. flavor? How much and when to add the fresh Raspberries? And how do I Prepare the Raspberries before adding?

[Inkleg]

I did a Centennial Blonde using 05 because that's was the recipe called for. After primary I racked onto 6 pounds of frozen strawberries for two weeks before bottling (5.5 gallon batch). Note: 6 pounds of fruit takes up a lot of room.

I would freeze them to help break down the cell walls and kill any unwanted guests, pull them out and break them up some to further break them down and back into the freezer, into the sanitized secondary on transfer day and allowed to warm up some before transferring.

My beer was a big hit by all who tried it and I've been ask to brew it again. Let us know what you do and how it turns out.

[berryman]

I did a Centennial Blonde using 05 because that's was the recipe called for. After primary I racked onto 6 pounds of frozen strawberries for two weeks before bottling (5.5 gallon batch). Note: 6 pounds of fruit takes up a lot of room.

I would freeze them to help break down the cell walls and kill any unwanted guests, pull them out and break them up some to further break them down and back into the freezer, into the sanitized secondary on transfer day and allowed to warm up some before transferring.

My beer was a big hit by all who tried it and I've been ask to brew it again. Let us know what you do and how it turns out.

This is what I love about the We all think a lot a like. I have 05 and notty that I should use up soon and I think the 05 will work good on this. Was thinking a wheat yeast, but think 05 will get more what I'm looking for here. I plan on secondary but will put some in the end of the boil and then put the rest in the secondary. Just not sure how much yet................

[RickBeer]

I made a wheat designed to go with fruit earlier this summer and in fact just brewed another 5 gallons of it to ensure we have enough. I reviewed several recipes and came up with this:

6 lbs of wheat LME
grains, all steeped:
0.5 lbs of torrified wheat
0.5 lbs of flaked oats
0.25 lbs of crystal 10
1 oz of Willamette at 60
S-05 yeast

In my opinion, a fruit wheat should be a neutral beer that allows the fruit flavor to come through. This one is.

As I previously posted, I tried an experiment with adding fruit flavoring (via LorAnn flavors), at time of drinking. 1 or 2 drops in the glass, then pour the beer. Allows one batch of beer to be ANY fruit wheat you want, and not make a batch and discover it's not great. Of course, since you have fresh black raspberries you can't try that.

We've tried cherry, raspberry, strawberry, apricot, peach, and blueberry. Cherry tastes like Luden's cough drops. Peach isn't great. Apricot is good, raspberry is great, strawberry is ok, blueberry hard to notice (same I found adding 2 cans of Oregon Blueberries to a Mr. Beer batch). Orange is great added to a Blue Moon clone. Chocolate not yet tried (bought it to try with Oatmeal Stout, haven't done that yet. Peanut Butter also with Oatmeal Stout (same that I've used with prior batches, so we know it will be fine). Flavors I'd like to try include black raspberry, black cherry, and maybe blackberry. LorAnn doesn't make Black Raspberry though. One drop from a small LorAnn dropper is plenty for most of the flavors for 12 oz of beer.

We bought directly from LorAnn, $1.40 per bottle. Bought their eyedroppers also, then in a back and forth email thread learned that the flavors, even from their aroma, will eat away at rubber over time and ruin the flavoring - in other words, you cannot store the dropper in the bottle. LorAnn now discloses that on their site at my suggestion. So you can buy the small pack of droppers no matter how many flavors you buy. I looked at their shipping breaks and figured out what I could try and not incur more shipping (with the large pack of droppers). My LHBS charges $2.99 for the same that LorAnn charges $1.40. Easy to calculate the breakeven on that.

The key for me was the ability to have multiple fruit wheat beers in one batch for two reasons - first so we didn't make an entire 5 gallon batch of ____ Fruit Wheat and then discover we did not like it, and second to allow for different people's tastes in both flavors and strength of flavors. At $1.40 per flavor, discovering that you don't like one (i.e. cherry) isn't any big deal.

[mashani]

Germans or Belgians would argue the point that fruit beers should be neutral.

Germans regularly take a strongly clove oriented wheat beer and mix it with flavored fruit syrups like the Italian kind you see in a starbucks. If I went to my local family owned German watering hole that has 100+ types of beer, real German food, and a German Deli attached, and I asked for a raspberry wheat, that's exactly what the bartender would pour me, a Weihenstephan with some syrup. If I drank about 6 of those, he would then offer me some Jägermeister as medicine to help cure my impending future illness.

Lemon and Raspberry are very common mixes. I think Blackberry would work just as well as Raspberry. Oh, and re: Peach - Peaches and Cloves taste good together. So results of taste perception may vary greatly between "clean" and "spicy" beers. Peaches are used in Belgian sours.

Some Belgian cafes do the same thing with their fresh unflavored sours. You can drink straight up or mix with any syrup the have. Even get a double shot of syrup if you want to cancel out some of the sour.

I think the ideas above about freezing/etc. are great, if you want to add them during the brewing process. But if you want the most fruit flavor, I would personally say to not add it to your beer or rack onto it. I would instead make my own Blackberry fruit syrup. Then you can mix it with anything. And then you can tinker with it, adding more or less to a glass to get exactly the taste you like. And you can put it on pancakes or waffles. And you could make both an American and German style wheat beer and see which way you like it better.

And that to me would be better then LorAnn flavors, because your adding "real food" to your beer.

I think the LorAnn flavors is a cool idea for figuring out what you like. But I would not use such a thing on a regular basis. One of the reasons I homebrew because beer is food, and I like my food to be as natural and unprocessed as possible. Except for the true essential oils, most of the LorAnn stuff is not derived from real food, but has artificial flavors/manufactured ingredients, and is not fruit based even though it's a fruit flavor. That's why they are more powerful in flavor then a natural derived extract or tincture of the real thing.

But that's just me, so do what you like. Just think it's worth mentioning.

[RickBeer]

Natural, smatural.

It's one drop from an eyedropper. As long as it isn't derived from civet feces (coffee bean joke here), who cares.

Seriously though, while I understand the perspective, I've made beer with cans of Oregon blueberries, raspberries, and cherries. The one drop of LorAnn raspberry was significantly better in taste.

Not a fan of belgians though.

The key, as with anything with brewing, is if you like the end product that's what matters.

[berryman]

I have a little while to plan this as I have two batches to do before this and another one in the primary right now. I'm taking advantage of the warm weather and doing brews that I can let the temp rise. The wife has been picking berries every couple days now. She's been making pies and freezing some too. So I'm open to all suggestions but am going to use the wheat base, going to use up some of the extra stuff I have on-hand. Might use some torrified wheat as Rick used that I have left over from my Funky Farm House Ale.
Graham cracker crust Black Raspberry Pie....

[BlackDuck]

Can you freeze one of those pies and send it my way? That looks fantastic.


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[mashani]

Natural, smatural.

It's one drop from an eyedropper. As long as it isn't derived from civet feces (coffee bean joke here), who cares.

Seriously though, while I understand the perspective, I've made beer with cans of Oregon blueberries, raspberries, and cherries. The one drop of LorAnn raspberry was significantly better in taste.

Not a fan of belgians though.

The key, as with anything with brewing, is if you like the end product that's what matters.

I agree, that's why I said do what you like. FWIW, LorAnn does not guarantee that their fruit flavored extracts (except for essential oils) are vegetarian. Which means some of them are derived from critters or use ingredients derived from critters. Considering I have vegetarian and/or kosher friends who drink my beer, I could not use them and guarantee they could drink it and meet their dietary rules. And critters do not belong in fruit extracts IMHO. Now if you wanted critter flavored extracts (bacon!) for your non kosher and/or vegetarian friends, well that's different. Who knows, civet feces might factor into their coffee flavored extract LOL.

EDIT: Oh and yes, the reason I suggested he makes his own blackberry syrup (besides the natural part) is the same reason you like the drop of LorAnn. It will taste better then if done in the fermenter, if what you are looking for is that true berry flavor. And you can adjust qty however you like. And you can use it on waffles and pancakes. What's not to like?!

EDIT2: Oh, and I will order a pie too please.