Any opinions on my honey lemon wheat?

[tgmartin000]

5 gal
1.047 OG
24.5 IBU

2 lb 10 oz 2 row
1.5 lb light german wheat
1.5 lb dark german wheat
1.5 lb flaked wheat
1 lb C10
0.5 lb rice hulls

2.5 oz hallertaur 60 min
1 lb honey 10 min

zest from 2 lemons and 2 oranges at 10 min.

American wheat 1010 yeast.

I brewed this last summer, and it was great, however there was a bit of an acidic bite, I think due to the acid in the lemon peel. Anyone have any idea how to counteract that acidity?

Also, I was considering using kolsch yeast. I heard on an episode of brew strong that Kolsch yeast makes a really great american wheat. Anyone tried that?

 

[eastoak]

a pound of crystal seems a bit much for a low gravity wheat beer. was this kegged or bottled? over carbonation can make the beer taste acidic. Pinkus makes an excellent wheat beer using kolsch yeast so i gave it a try and it was delicious. wyeast 1010 has to be my least favorite yeast and i would have used anything else but that.

 

[woknblues]

make sure you only get the rind, and leave behind all the white pith on the citrus.

 

[benflath]

woknblues means use only the zest and not the pith. Rind = peel = zest + pith.

There isn't a huge amount of acid in citrus zest (I brewed a pale ale with zest of 10 Meyer lemons, not overly acidic), I'd look elsewhere for the cause of the acidic bite.

 

[tgmartin000]

Right on, thanks for the opinions. I'm going with a pound of crystal to hopefully offset some of the acidity. The recipie is based off a kit from Dry Dock that's really tasty, which uses a full pound of crystal 10. I thought the same thing.

This was originally bottled, but will be kegged this time. Last time I used the zest of 5 lemons, and it had a great lemon flavor. I'm going to go with lemon, orange, grapefruit, and a few other citrus fruits this time.

Got a starter of White Labs Kolsch yeast going.

I'll have to keep an eye out for the Pinkus wheat - I love their pilsner.

 

[chuckstout]

The kolsch yesst well work great i made a wild blackberry wheat last year that was good.

I have not added zest or honey to a beer yet, but Ive heard moving the additions to flame out is the way to keep more aroma. I guess honey is very delicate also and if you dont add it at flameout or in primary your just wasting the wonderfull flavor and aroma of the honey

 

[BreezyBrew]

Honey ferments fully so you won't taste it, but will make a drier beer. If you want honey taste add honey malt. It is pretty sweet, so I use sparingly. Also you may want to replace some of that crystal with it or it may be too sweet.