brewing a wheat with citrus

[daddyo1109]

Hi guys, I know some of you have discussed Shock Top type beers before, and I'm trying one, for my daughters 21st birthday.
Question: Can I put lemon juice, fresh squeezed, into the secondary fermenter for flavor or will the acid ruin the beer?

 

[Challenger440]

No idea about the acid but as an alternative, you might try zesting the lemon and adding the zest to the secondary. Just be careful to not get the pith (the white part)

 

[Rivenin]

Just dont over do it... what was the recipe? For a basic wheat id prolly put in the juice of two lemons. Wait a day and test. Or like he said above. Just the zest of a few lemons give it like 2 or 3 days and test. You can always add more. But you cant take it out

 

[daddyo1109]

Thanks, will try that.

 

[BuddyWeiser]

+1 zest

I recently used 1 tbs orange zest @ 15 min (left of the boil) and another 1 tbs @ 1 min. Turned out awesome! I've read about using the zest of 1 lemon in the last 5 min.

 

[daddyo1109]

Uhm, the recipe, well I just kind of ball parked that.
about 10 oz cracked wheat grains steeped, then sparged.
4lbs wheat DME
about 1lb leftover Plain lite DME
1oz Centennial hops bittering
1oz orange peel, 1oz coriander, and zest from 4 lemons, added with 6 min left on boil.
White Labs Ale yeast.

 

[daddyo1109]

So the Citrus Wheat is finished and my Daughter loves it. She calls it SnickleFritz Wheat. It has a really great citrus flavor, more lemony than Orange. It's supposed to be for her birthday but it's so good we may have to make another batch by August.

 

[tgmartin000]

I did the zest of 5 large lemons at 10 min in the boil. Next time I'll prolly add a few oranges too ..

 

[jfuriosi]

I used tangelo orange peels once and they rocked. This was a wheatless hefe which needed lots of coriander, orange peels and orange spice to make it seem like a hefe. German pilsen for grain. Whitelabs hefe yeast. Came out awesome. Those tangelos are nice peels.

 

[Squirrels]

I also agree with the zest. I did a lemon wheat a couple months ago and it to me is my best beer to date! Glad to hear it turned out!