Ive been trying to piece together a lemon zest wheat beer. I pretty much took the NB American wheat and tried to add a twist. I uses the extract kit simply because this is my 4th batch do I’m still new at this.
6lbs NB wheat extract
1oz. Williamette (60 mins)
Zest from 1 lemon (20 mins)
1oz. New Zealand pacific (15 mins)
Yeast- safale us-05 ale yeast
In open to criticism, if this looks like a bad recipe Please let me know!!! I haven’t brewed it yet.
Looks good to me. I brew all grain and usually add some flaked wheat to my wheat beers, but for extract what you have is ok. NB’s wheat LME (if that’s what you’re using) is a good mix of wheat and pale malt. I usually make wheats with wheat and pilsner malt. And I think adding zest from 1 lemon is a good start. Take a taste after fermentation is done. If you wanted to add more zest you could always rack to secondary and add more. But lemon is strong and I think the zest from 1 lemon will be good. If you don’t have one, get yourself a microzester. And zest just the very outside of the lemon. And use organic lemons if possible.
Another idea to add lemon flavor would be to use Sorachi Ace hops. Just a thought.
Reminds me… I have to try my Citrus Wit recipe again this spring. Last year I made a Belgian Wit but wanted to add some citrus flavors. So I planned to zest a little lemon and lime and add it to the boil. That same weekend my wife was having a ladies party (jewelery or some crap) and asked me to pick up some extra fruit for sangria. So i bought 3 lemons and 3 limes. 1 each for me, 2 each for her. While the boil was going I started zesting… and kept zesting… and zesting… Completely forget that most of the fruit was for sangria, I zested all 3 lemons and all 3 limes. Just as I dumped the mound of zest in the boil it hit me! Sh*t! Too late now. So I finished the boil, fermented, bottled and finally a few weeks later tried one. Terrible! I let them sit for months hoping the flavor would dissipate. Nope. I brought a few to a brew club meeting as “what not to do with citrus zest” and the best description I got was “it tastes like pledge”. So it was renamed Pledge Wit and then 2 cases got dumped down the drain. The first and only time a dumped a batch. Anyway, i gotta give it another shot soon. Thanks for the reminder!
Hahaha pledge wit! That is awesome. Ya I was afraid of going overboard on the zest so I think 1 lemon worth will be good. Your pledge wit makes me think of my 1st and 2nd attempts of beer. 1st attempt was a all grain recipe (big mistake to start with all grain) that was supposed to be a saffron ale. Ended up tasting flat and like pool water due to the bleach I used to sanitize lol. Second attempt was a winter recipe that instead of adding a dash of allspice ended up being more of a overload. Beer ended up being a Christmas punch in the face! Kind of like tasting a spruce tree. 3rd batch is in secondary and is the caribou slobber NB extract kit, decided to play it safe with this batch just to get the handle of brewing. Hopefully it goes well! Cheers!
Get a few extracts under your belt to get the basics down like sanitation. Then move on to partial mash. It’s easy and it gets you pretty much to the point of all grain. Once you’re comfortable with partial mash, all grain is easy. I did 5 or 6 partial mashes and said “Ok, I get it. Now just take out the extract and mash more grain”.
I’m sure one day I’ll want to have a real quick brew day and wouldn’t mind doing an extract kit just to get something in a fermentor quickly.
:cheers:
Seville oranges, anyone? After reading Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher, I was intrigued that he said the dry bitter orange and candi sugar we use from the brew shop is not his favorite way to go. He highly recommends fresh Seville orange peel. But try to find them without spending $50.00 for a case shipped from California! I called all the best grocers I new about and when I had to fly to dallas I found out that the largest grocer in Texas had them!
To make a long story short, I have extra Seville Oranges. Let me know if you want to give them a try.
David
Be aware that the oils in lemon zest can be a head killer.
I just bottled a batch of lemon-rosemary blonde ale that I left out the zest and first wort hopped and dry hopped with sorachi ace instead, a hop with a nice lemony edge to it.
So ditch the lemon zest and just use sorachi ace? I assume 1oz? When would I add it? Sorry I’m still new to brew
It’s typically a bittering hop, but I don’t see why you couldn’t add some for aroma between 5-15min. Maybe even dryhop with a little. I’m relatively new to brewing (just over a year) but I often brew beers with just one hop to really get a taste for it. Or at the most, I’ll bitter with something clean like Magnum and use just one hop during any 20-1min additions and to dry hop. So, Sorachi Ace is a high alpha hop, so I would bitter with just a little and add maybe an addition at 10 and 5min. But not too much because wheats shouldn’t be to hop heavy. Remember you could always add a little zest to the batch after its done fermenting if you want a little more lemon flavor.
My beer is a blend of lemon and rosemary so I used a bit less than if I were going to go straight lemon. In a three gallon batch I used 1/4 ounce to first wort hop and 1/4 ounce to dry hop. I like the taste I took just before I bottled and can barely wait for this batch to carb. I used aurora hops to bitter.
Ok so here is what I’m thinking for the final product:
6lbs NB Wheat Extract(yes extract, sorry I’m new)
1oz. Williamette (60 mins)
1oz. New Zealand pacific Hallertau (15 mins)
Does this look to hoppy for a wheat beer??
[quote=“jafstl38”]Ok so here is what I’m thinking for the final product:
6lbs NB Wheat Extract(yes extract, sorry I’m new)
1oz. Williamette (60 mins)
1oz. New Zealand pacific Hallertau (15 mins)
Does this look to hoppy for a wheat beer??[/quote]
Personally, I’d just use Sorachi Ace throughout. And I wouldn’t dry hop. But again that’s just my opinion. My hop schedule would be something like this:
.25oz SA 60min
.25oz SA 15min
.5oz SA 5min
Zest from one lemon at 15min.
Again… this is just how I would build the recipe if I was looking for a lemony wheat beer. With an average boil of 5.5gallons (starting with 6gallons and boiling down to 5) this would give an IBU of about 27. If you’re doing a partial boil, you’d need to up the hop amounts a little or just lose some IBU’s.
Went ahead and brewed my wheat beer today, skipped the lemon additions simply because I could not find sorachi ace at my local brewery shop and killing the head from lemon zest scared me. The recipe went as follows.
6lbs NB wheat extract (again this is only my 4th batch)
1 oz. williamette hops (60 mins)
1 oz. New Zealand Pacific Hallertau (15 mins)
I’ve never done it but ive read that you can dry hop with citrus zest to easily get a citrus flavor. They explain to make sure you get no white of the peel because its bitter. 1oz 1-2 weeks before bottling/kegging.
I plan on adding a small amount to a belgian wit i have in primary right now.
Im interested in this because a friend has asked me to make him a batch of lemon shandy for his birthday on the 4th of july. Ive been reading a lot about how to do that and it generally seems that you make a 1:3 to 1:2 lemonade:hefe mix during kegging. I dont want to bring a beer that’s 2% ABV so i’m exploring other options like lemon zest.
Any have any suggestions? So far the best lemonade I’ve found is from Chick-fil-a.
[quote=“jafstl38”]Went ahead and brewed my wheat beer today, skipped the lemon additions simply because I could not find sorachi ace at my local brewery shop and killing the head from lemon zest scared me. The recipe went as follows.
6lbs NB wheat extract (again this is only my 4th batch)
1 oz. williamette hops (60 mins)
1 oz. New Zealand Pacific Hallertau (15 mins)[/quote]
Zest won’t kill the beers head. I’ve used orange, lemon and lime zest. Never had a problem with any of them killing the head.
[quote=“OlYeller21”]I’m interested in this because a friend has asked me to make him a batch of lemon shandy for his birthday on the 4th of july. Ive been reading a lot about how to do that and it generally seems that you make a 1:3 to 1:2 lemonade:hefe mix during kegging. I dont want to bring a beer that’s 2% ABV so i’m exploring other options like lemon zest.
Any have any suggestions? So far the best lemonade I’ve found is from Chick-fil-a.[/quote]
Maybe mix some vodka with the lemonade? I’ve made some pretty decent tasting hard lemonade by just mixing lemonade and vodka 7:1 and carbonating. That might get you close to what you’re looking for without diluting the beer abv.
I’m still new at all of this, if I want to dry hop my wheat with zest from one lemon do I just add it to the primary? It has been sitting for about a week now and has one more week til I can bottle it.
Hopefully someone jumps in that has more experience than me but I’ve only ever heard of dry hopping in secondary. I really doubt that dry hopping in primary when you don’t have a secondary, is a bad thing but someone around here may know something I don’t.
A piggyback question: What’s the best time to dry hop with zest? I’ve read that dry hopping with actual hops is best at about 5 days before kegging/bottling but haven’t been able to find anything about citrus zest.
