Raspberry Wheat

Gonna brew the NB American Wheat tonight. This will be my second ever home brew, my first was the NB Bavarian Hefe- which turned out amazing and keeps getting better. My question for you guys is a ive red numerous posts about adding fruit and honey to this kit, well everyone has their own method and from what ive pulled… see what you guys think… i think i am gonna had some honey to the boil(15min) and some frozen raspberries (5min)??? what do you think? Also plan on adding raspberry puree to the secondary??? I have everything i need but something else caught my eye- Oregon Fruit has Red Raspberry in heavy syrup… can i puree that with some fresh berries? or will that be just too much sugar? thanks for all your help.

I wouldn’t add any berries to the boil. You want those in the secondary after primary fermentation has finished. It will kick back up again when you add them… so be warned. I like the idea of using whole (crushed, mashed, whatever) fruit compared to syrups or extracts, but that’s just my opinion. I feel it’s a more natural flavor.

When adding honey to the boil, it’s all gonna ferment out. Meaning it will up your gravity and will drop your final gravity while drying out the beer a little, but you won’t get any honey flavor, if that’s what your looking for. If your looking to add some honey flavor add it to the secondary along with the fruit.

:cheers:

Good to know about the honey. i thought some of the flavor may have stuck. So if i add honey to the secondary…will i need to add sugar when i bottle? or will the honey in the secondary be enough to carb

That’s an excellent question and I don’t know? I know adding the fruit and honey to secondary will kick up fermentation again… but how much will ferment out, I’m not sure. Hopefully someone else can chime in.

As for the honey adding flavor. I once read that when honey is added to the boil, it will ferment out during primary fermentation, but you will be able to notice some flavors from the flower that the bees used for pollination… or maybe it was the flowers they pollinated, whatever you get the point… I think this is BS. And even if true, I don’t have THAT sensitive of a palette. But adding honey to the secondary after primary fermentation is done will start up fermentation again, but not all the honey will ferment out, so some of flavor should come through. But remember honey is a delicate flavor and may be overpowered by the more tart raspberries that you add.

Honey is 100% fermentable so will will ferment all the way out. What you want to do to get honey flavor is to add a very, very, strong honey. Then you might get a slight honey note in the final product. It will be subtle if there at all. Most other flavors from malt or hops will completely cover it up.

You will primary for a couple of weeks, then rack to another fermenter and add honey and fruit. You need to let that ferment to completion (consistent gravity readings) before bottling. Then you will still need to add priming sugar as normal.

I made exactly this last month. The NB American Wheat kit with 4lbs of frozen raspberries in the secondary. Turned out pretty good. I think 4lbs was too much, the flavor is a litle overwhelming. I wanted something like a Purple Haze, but got something closer to Shocktop Raspberry Wheat, which I think is way too much raspberry flavor. If I do this again, it’ll be 2 lbs, 3lbs at the most.

I always add honeymalt to any honey beer I brew.

well step one complete… brewing complete. now i have two weeks to decide what i shall do.

I just bottled this as my second brew as well. I added 2# honey at flame out and bottled half the batch with LD Carlson strawberry flavor, i hope it develops in the bottle because what i added the flavor to out of the bottling bucket was a little bitter.

I just got through bottling a raspberry honey kolsch beer. Excellent. I used one and a half pounds of raspberry honey that I mixed into the wort just prior to placing in the primary. Result-a gentle whiff of raspberry when poured and a very gentle taste of. Honey.

What about sanitation if you’re using fruit that’s fresh from the orchard? I was thinking of doing exactly this, only with sour cherries instead of raspberries. Could I get away with just running them through a food mill and then pasteurizing by heating it up to 170 or 180F for a few minutes on the stove?

I just brewed this for a clam boil I had this past weekend. I used the artificial flavoring that NB sells. It came out with a very mild raspberry taste. Exactly what I was looking to produce.