Feedback is certainly appreciated and much needed. I’ve brewed before with my boyfriend, always following his recipes. I wanted to make a non-traditional summer honey lavender wit beer. So here it goes, please be gentle:
Maybe try adding another 0.5# of light crystal, and skip the vanilla. See how the lavender character is before dry hopping to decide whether you should do that or not.
One thing to consider is the late hopping when using a “flavor” of any kind. In this case, your late hops may battle for your tastebuds’ attention with the lavender or the lavender could just be squelched out altogether and covered by the hops. When I make a beer where I add spice, fruit or some flavorings, I add hops up front and no more during the boil so that the flavor has the stage all to itself. Sorachi Ace has a lemony character which is not good or bad, just FYI. If that sounds good to you and goes well with lavender (not sure on that), then all is good. Also, the 1010 does have a nice character which is sort of clovey-spicy but very subdued. It definitely has more character than a standard American ale yeast… again, not good or bad, just mentioning it. Maybe if you describe to us what you envision in your glass, it would be easy to determine how to get there. This is not a bad recipe at all, it would make a very nice, light-character beer with some essenses of the yeast and the lavender. Good luck and cheers.
My original thought for this beer came from the jam that I make in the winter: meyer lemon, lavender, vanilla bean. After doing some research, I discovered Sorachi Ace has that lemony flavor and decided to play on that instead of actually adding lemon peel, so that’s my thought process for choosing Sorachi Ace. Thank you for the suggestion, I’m not going to dry hop out of fear of over powering the lavender.
I think you are a couple of pounds short on your grain bill. I would suggest adding 2 more pounds of wheat malt. I guess it depends somewhat on your efficiency though as well… If you routinely get like 85 or 90% efficiency, then you might be alright with just 7.5 lbs. think about it. But sounds like a fantastic idea otherwise!!
EDIT: Doh! Looks like you already figured this out in your final version. Nice work.
Looks like a good recipe. I think you’ll be pleased with Sorachi Ace in this beer. Defintely has a lemony flavor that works great as a finishing hop. Let us know how it turns out, I may brew this one.
My original thought for this beer came from the jam that I make in the winter: meyer lemon, lavender, vanilla bean. After doing some research, I discovered Sorachi Ace has that lemony flavor and decided to play on that instead of actually adding lemon peel, so that’s my thought process for choosing Sorachi Ace. Thank you for the suggestion, I’m not going to dry hop out of fear of over powering the lavender.[/quote]
My house beer is a lemon-rosemary blonde ale. The last time I brewed it (1/1/12) I used sorachi ace to FWH and DH instead of using any actual lemon. I compared it to a bit I had left over from the last time using lemon zest and it came pretty close.
I poured it at the recent Mashfest home brew beer fest and was voted best in the over three years of experience group.
