triskelion
Well-Known Member
Just finished fermenting x4: 1 gallon batches of experimental wheat beers and thought I should share my experience with them. I had a can of wheat malt well past its date so the plan was to use it to experiment.
I made a single wort with 30g, 25g and 10g additions of saaz at 60, 30 and 5 minutes, and divided it up between 4 demijohns. To three of the demijohns I extra additions, which were left in the fermenters to 'dry hop': (all boiled to sanitise before going in)
1- half orange zest and the whole flesh, chopped.
2- half orange zest, whole peel. 12g ground coriander.
3- 75g grated ginger, half lemon zest.
4- just the wort.
I pitched with wyeast 3333 at 28oC and fermented at 18oC for 2 weeks in primaries.
I've bottled the ginger and the orange and coriander, the wheat and the orange have been transferred to secondary.
I didn't measure the og, not wanting to waste the amount it takes to fill the hydrometer jar, probably not my best decision. It was probably about 1.030 though.
The ginger came out at 0.999. It has a pretty good balance between ginger and hop taste but is a little watery.
The orange and coriander also was 0.999, it has a very strong taste of orange peel and coriander, something like hoegaarden. you can just about taste the hops. It is also watery but suits it better.
The orange one came out tasting like cascade for some reason. Its current gravity is 1.006
The one with only wheat malt is at 1.010, it just tastes like a mildly bitter ale.
My green beers never taste good, but some of these i'd happily drink straight from the primary! I'm guessing the low gravity means that they don't need much time to condition.
The plan now it to bottle half of the one with just malt and hops and make a lemonade wheat hybrid with the rest of it.
I made a single wort with 30g, 25g and 10g additions of saaz at 60, 30 and 5 minutes, and divided it up between 4 demijohns. To three of the demijohns I extra additions, which were left in the fermenters to 'dry hop': (all boiled to sanitise before going in)
1- half orange zest and the whole flesh, chopped.
2- half orange zest, whole peel. 12g ground coriander.
3- 75g grated ginger, half lemon zest.
4- just the wort.
I pitched with wyeast 3333 at 28oC and fermented at 18oC for 2 weeks in primaries.
I've bottled the ginger and the orange and coriander, the wheat and the orange have been transferred to secondary.
I didn't measure the og, not wanting to waste the amount it takes to fill the hydrometer jar, probably not my best decision. It was probably about 1.030 though.
The ginger came out at 0.999. It has a pretty good balance between ginger and hop taste but is a little watery.
The orange and coriander also was 0.999, it has a very strong taste of orange peel and coriander, something like hoegaarden. you can just about taste the hops. It is also watery but suits it better.
The orange one came out tasting like cascade for some reason. Its current gravity is 1.006
The one with only wheat malt is at 1.010, it just tastes like a mildly bitter ale.
My green beers never taste good, but some of these i'd happily drink straight from the primary! I'm guessing the low gravity means that they don't need much time to condition.
The plan now it to bottle half of the one with just malt and hops and make a lemonade wheat hybrid with the rest of it.
