Raspberry wheat 2012

Last year, I made a "wheat" beer with wild raspberries to serve at my daughter's birthday party. I add the " because at the last minute, I couldn't get any wheat malt and substituted a couple pounds of wheat flour. The beer turned out good, so this year I am only changing things a little. The recipe now has 50% wheat malt and I chose a different hop.

I brewed the base beer on 7/8/12. The brew day was rather uneventful and went pretty smoothly. I was surprised at how clearish white the wort was coming out of the mash tun. I am not used to brewing without darker malts. The whole thing looked greenish while boiling with the hops. It carmelized in the kettle a bit, so the final wort looked like the more usual light brown.

Friday 7/13 picked around 2# but almost half were eaten, leaving me with 1.25#
Saturday 7/14 picked over 4#. After washing, I had 5.5# of berries.
2# are going to the lambic, which leaves 3.5 for this.
Sunday I picked another 2# giving me a total of 5.5# for this beer.

I will give it another week or so before racking to secondary to let it clear up before kegging.  This will be on tap for mid-August.

My little helper

Lambic 2012 (raspberry) - blending

Raspberry Lambic - Framboise
Fruit beer aged for years with various microbes with fruit added (in this case raspberries)

After my first Lambic attempt 2 years ago with the Dawson creek kit from northern brewer turned out pretty good, I decided to start my own lambic project.

Spring of 2011, I brewed 5 gallons of wort and pitched wyeast lambic blend - this part has been aging quietly since.

Spring of 2012, I stepped it up and brewed almost 10 gallons. This time I pitched a combination of lambic blend, slurry from the year before and some bottle dregs from sour beers I have been sampling.

The plan is to take 3 gallons from both years, blend them and split to 3 separate 2 gallon batches. One gets raspberries, one gets peaches and the last will be gueuze.

I know 1.5 years in is a little early to start blending them, but I am impatient, this will age another 6 months before bottling and I am saving plenty for next year.

This weekend (7/13-7/15) is peak season for wild raspberries here in Croton. Over the weekend, I picked over 7.5 pounds (Not including the 1-2 we ate). 2 pounds of this is for this lambic, the rest goes into RaspBerry Wheat.


Framboise in BB



I had a little tasting session Friday night to see how the 3 batches were doing and confirm my 50/50 blend plan. All went well and I am sticking to the plan. There was some tartness, a little brett flavors coming through and luckily no horrible off flavors. The older one had some apple flavor and the younger one had a little too much oak tannin.

The 2011 batch was crystal clear, while the 2012 was almost opaque it was so cloudy. Hopefully that will settle out with extended aging. The 2012 that I had in this plastic cubitainer tasted like it was more aged than the half in glass, so I will go with that one.



Lambic 2011 original gravity: 1.055 SG now: 1.003

Lambic 2012 original gravity: 1.050 SG now: 1.008

Expected abv: 6%



 

 

Zythos Pale Ale

With the success of my Zythos IPA, I decided to use most of the remaining hops for a lighter pale ale version to serve on July 4th.

I based the recipe off of the IPA, lowered the alcohol a bit, adjusted bittering hops to match and changed a few things based on what I had on hand.

This was kegged and ready just in time for our July 4th BBQ. I was hoping it would have cleared up more by then, but it still had chill haze. Good thing we served in red plastic cups :)

Brewing:
Recipe here

The brew day was reletively uneventful.  Gravity was a hair under what I wanted, but still OK.  I used 4 ounces of Zythos hops in the boil, and one each dry hop and keg hop.  Original Gravity: 1.045, Final Gravity: 1.005.  ABV: 5%

Tasting:
It has finally cleared up and looks great, though I might like it a little lighter.
A nice hoppy aroma with citrus fruitiness. The flavor is similar with a nice balance. Definitely not too sweet or bitter, which makes it nice and drinkable. The light body helps here too. The carbonation is a little high, which is the only thing keeping me from from chugging it.

Overall:
I do like this beer, but am not sure if I will brew again. In the lighter beers, people seem to preffer more malt/less hops.  I will focus my hoppy efforts on the stronger IPAs.