Planning a Raspberry Wheat

Hello all!

Planning on brewing something fast and refreshing and maybe something my good wife might try. I've brewed the GH recipe before and I'm tweaking it a bit based on some ideas I've read and other recipes.

I normally brew 19l batches for kegging, but my plan is to get a 12l batch together purely to bottle, something I havent done in a long time and also stretching the capability of the 20l Braumeister (minimum 23l of mash water, so no sparge and 90min boil)

Going with 1.5kg each of wheat malt and Pilsner malt and adding 150g each of light crystal (for some sweetness) and rolled oats (for mouthfeel and body, to counteract the possible thinning of adding fruit sugars). Bittering only to 25ibu with Challenger. I will use 700g of frozen raspberries in the fv after 2-3 days, planning on using them in a couple of boiled up sainsburys reusable vegetable bags (fine mesh plastic) and crushing up the defrosted fruit inside them.

Using half a packet of CML Kristallweizen yeast, possibly just sprinkled straight in and fermented about 19-20c.

When it comes to bottling, my fv (ss chronical) has a raised racking arm, so thought I could add the bottling sugar (caster sugar dissolved in some boiled water) straight into the FV after removing the squeezed bags of fruit and stiring gently. Planning on 2.8 vol/co2 in standard brown glass bottles.

A lot of this is different to my usual practices, does anybody have any thoughts/dire warnings?

Cheers!

I like the sound of it...I have a few kg of mixed soft fruit in the freezer which is going to end up like this...

I enjoy a raspberry wheat but I pasteurise my fruit by heating and holding at about 80c for about 10 min then let it cool to the temp of my fv. I don’t add any bags etc but just make a bigger batch to compensate for the losses. I add mine about three days into fermentation and it comes out like the picture. Has a great colour and if you can afford to go with more fruit then do as it will really add to the flavour. I used 4kg in a 21l batch and it was tasty!
My only other ‘quirk’ is I used the White Labs American Wheat yeast WLP320 as I wanted cloudy but none of the associated flavours German wheat beer flavours like clove/banana. I waned the Raspberry to be the main flavour as I don’t think clove and raspberries would workbut raspberry and banana might not be too bad making sure you pitch the correct/temp to accentuate the banana flavour of your chosen yeast.

I make my version every Spring and it’s a great brew to enjoy in the warm weather. I use 50% pale malt, 40% wheat and 10% oats. Nice and simple!

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

That beer looks lovely!

I'm fermenting on the low side of temp because, yeah, I think the cloudy, silky mouthfeel of a wheat plus the oats will be great with the fruit; bananas, cloves, pepper, bubblegum, not so much.

I'm hesitant to add more fruit this time, I wasn't looking to make anything too strong, rather make it quaffable without the next morning regrets! I'm still figuring out how to get a relativity small batch size on my gear, I was aiming for a 10l batch to go straight to bottles so I can pour in all the yeasty goodness, its looking like close to 6% for a 12l batch already!

I pasteurised the same as you on my first time too, but I was concerned about loosing some of the fresher character of the fruit, have you tried without? What bitterness did you go for? I've just done a fresh elderflower pale at around 35IBU but thinking of going even lower for this one and no late hops.

Mine normally comes in about 5% and I don’t notice a big jump by adding the fruit - I’m not sure how easily fermentable fructose would be. An option if it’s working out a 6% is a increase the liquid volume and that might also deal with any losses from the fruit. I’ve tried this beer with 3kg, then 3.5k of raspberries and 4kg in this batch and I think the higher number works for me. To describe the flavour - initial taste was raspberry the finish was like beer!

I may try upping it a bit then, sounds like the taste I’m looking for. I’m limited to a minimum mash of 23l and was intending on bottling 20x 500ml bottles, I don’t think I have many more than that.

I have a 6.4% Belgian Blonde, a 4% Elderflower Pale and about to put on a 5.5% English IPA serving from keg. I was aiming to get a few quick bottles brewed before tying everything up with a slow lager.

BeerSmith has a habit of over-estimating my FG, but I can take a refractometer reading of the raspberry juice to get its sugar content and it will add this to the FG. Fructose is very easily fermented by the yeast, so I’ve added some light crystal to the recipe for some residual sweetness and body.

Be prepared for the need to backsweeten, unless you like a really tart beer. I backsweetened with stevia, but that adds a bit of artificial (even though its natural) taste. Possibly sorbital or lactose would be better.

I do like a tart beer and am considering brewing a kettle sour soon. I noticed the tartness last time I brewed this, but it was about five years ago! I was hoping the crystal malt would take the edge off a touch.

I’ve never back sweetened before but I regularly use stevia normally so am used to the slight bitterness this can have. I didn’t used to find lactose tasted sweet and it’s not an option for me anymore.

I may go with my original 700g of fruit on this run and adjust next time if need be. It’s only a small batch so if it’s a hit it may come round on fast rotation!

Just dry hopped my IPA and cold crashing in FV for the first time and going straight to serving keg so maybe a brew day next week. Don’t have the raspberries yet though!

I’ve not had any issues with tartness but your probably better to brew it to your recipe and take good notes for adjustments you feel it may need next time. Good luck!

It’s looking like a brew day on Thursday maybe. I’ll get the recipe and water profile finalised, get the RO on tomorrow. Frozen raspberries ordered from Sainsbury’s, hopefully they don’t substitute them for a tin of pineapple chunks!

Edison said:

I do like a tart beer and am considering brewing a kettle sour soon. I noticed the tartness last time I brewed this, but it was about five years ago! I was hoping the crystal malt would take the edge off a touch.

I’ve never back sweetened before but I regularly use stevia normally so am used to the slight bitterness this can have. I didn’t used to find lactose tasted sweet and it’s not an option for me anymore.

I may go with my original 700g of fruit on this run and adjust next time if need be. It’s only a small batch so if it’s a hit it may come round on fast rotation!

Just dry hopped my IPA and cold crashing in FV for the first time and going straight to serving keg so maybe a brew day next week. Don’t have the raspberries yet though!

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Just to say for a 10 litres batch I used 1 kg of thawed raspberries. Aldi is best place to buy them and frozen mango.

Cheshire Cat said:

Just to say for a 10 litres batch I used 1 kg of thawed raspberries. Aldi is best place to buy them and frozen mango.

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Thanks, thats good to know. I have 700g getting delivered Thursday night, but I could pop out to the Aldi if they’re missing. Planning on boiling two veggie mesh bags, draining, adding frozen fruit into bags in the drained saucepan, leaving overnight to thaw, smashing them up with the back of a sanitised ladle and adding the bags of mush and juice into the FV 3-4 days after pitching yeast.

I don't boil my wheat beers and i use frozen fruit. I do rack onto the fruit though to avoid oxidisation.

I will boil the wort to sterilise it and also to bring the volume down to 12l (after kettle losses) from a 23l mash, but won’t be adding kettle finings. I don’t have a secondary FV or a bottling bucket because I rarely bottle, but as it’s a wheat beer that I want to serve cloudy, I’ll add the priming sugar into the FV just before bottling. I have a conical FV so might ‘burp’ the wort with co2 to stir up the yeast and fruit, this could work to stir the priming sugar too.

I ended up with 15.5l into the FV, I think beersmith expected 3l of loss to trub but hadn't taken into consideration there were hardly any hops in this brew. Think I ended up at about 4.8% abv, calculating in the fruit addition.
I briefly blitzed to frozen fruit in a blender and added them into a couple of mesh bags in an empty saucepan and poured over 500ml of boiled water with a campden tablet disolved in it. The next morning I mashed with a potato masher and put the bags and juice into the FV and gave it a few CO2 stirs over the next few days.
Its all bottled up now, I have 1/4 of 2l growler (co2 purged) after I ran out of bottles, thats now in the fridge for sampling this evening. U shall report back!

Edison said:

It’s looking like a brew day on Thursday maybe. I’ll get the recipe and water profile finalised, get the RO on tomorrow. Frozen raspberries ordered from Sainsbury’s, hopefully they don’t substitute them for a tin of pineapple chunks!

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Pineapple Hefeweizen might be quite interesting.

Maybe a fusion of pineapple and a yeast that will go bananas, with the grain bill of a NEIPA and tropical mango/papaya hops...?

I'm doing a Raspberry Hefewiezen next (on Friday). I was planning a scaled down version of James Morton's Hefeweizen, but with raspberries added as described in Greg Hughes' Raspberry wheat beer. James Morton is just 50% pilsner malt and 50% wheat malt, with Mittlefruh hops to ~12 IBU. But now looking at this thread I am wondering if I should add some oats.

Greg Hughes says 2.5Kg raspberries in his 23L batch, so I was working on about 1Kg per litre. 800g for my 8L brew. I wasn't sure how to add the raspberries, but some useful ideas in this thread, thanks. I'll be using the last bag of last years' raspberries from the allotment, so will be frozen, 1 year old, and probably quite yeasty.

I've got some Gretel Hefeweizen yeast from CML to try!

krispn said:

I enjoy a raspberry wheat but I pasteurise my fruit by heating and holding at about 80c for about 10 min then let it cool to the temp of my fv. I don’t add any bags etc but just make a bigger batch to compensate for the losses. I add mine about three days into fermentation and it comes out like the picture.

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@krispn @Edison do you cold crash your wheat beers before bottling? I was thinking I'd add the raspberry mush straight into the FV with no bag. Cold crash would settle out the raspberry leftovers with the trub, but would you lose your cloudy yeasty character if you did this?

I used the mesh bags to keep all the vegetable matter out of the final product, not sure but leaving them in the beer long term could give off flavours (but that is entirely in my head and not based on any other information).

I didn’t cold crash, or use kettle finings, because I want my wheat beer cloudy. Also why I bottled this whole batch, a keg would soon loose all the yeast and end up full of clear beer, not what I wanted this time. This, and the fact I had some leftover porridge oats lying around (and it’s not the weather for porridge) is why I added oats. Makes for quite a creamy mouthfeel.

Once the bags were out I added the priming sugar solution while bubbling CO2 up through the bottom port of my conical. I bottled 15 minutes later which should have been enough to allow the sugar to distribute evenly and any heavy trub to settle out but allowing the live yeast to remain in suspension and get into every bottle (not sure I would do this unless I wanted cloudy beer).

Looking at my bottles now there is a normal looking amount of yeast in them. This yeast drops crystal clear easily and needs rousing to get into the glass.

I had a cheeky taster yesterday from the oversized growler. Carbonation was off, which I expected because of the 1.5l of (purged) headspace, but it tasted lush. Even the other half quaffed it. I might have to lock this one away!