I wanted the spicing of a winter ale with the phenol of a tripel to serve as a base for the flavours of burnt orange.

Burnt orange gives beer a nice copper-orange colour so I made a very pale beer to let the colours from the oranges dominate.

Tasting the Tripel

The beer pours with a nice thick head that quickly dissipates. The colour is exactly what I expected, but it is one of the haziest beers I’ve ever made. I think haze might be a necessary sacrifice if you’re going to add burnt orange to the secondary.

The tame aroma is limited to burnt orange. Pleasant, but a little too weak.

The burnt orange flavour is a lot milder than in the previous small batch. It’s doesn’t assert itself as much in this stronger beer, but it is still evident. When I tasted it at bottling, mace really dominated. It seems to have mellowed now to the point where it’s evident but not out of balance.

There’s very little evidence of phenol. Normally, I don’t like phenolic beer so I’m a little surprised that even when I try to get it I can’t. I’m a little disappointed too because I thought it would replace the citrus sourness that is lost when burning the oranges.

While the head has already fallen, the high level of carbonation really brightens the beer making it seem refreshing in spite of the high alcohol.

Burnt Orange Tripel Recipe

Grains

Hops and Adjuncts

Yeast

Wyeast 1388: Belgian Strong Ale harvested from lees

Brewing Schedule

Brewed: 01/03/2009
Racked: 01/09/2009
Added 1st Half Fruit:  01/09/2009
Added 2nd Half Fruit:  01/16/2009
Bottled: 01/24/2009

Water

No water adjustments to local Pilsen-like water.

Brewing Stats

OG: 1.070
IBU: approx. 20
Ferment Temp: 79°F 26°C
FG: 1.014
ABV: 7.4%

Post from: Life With Beer

Burnt Orange Tripel

Unfortunately I can’t find the blog recommending burnt citrus fruit so no link, but basically they said burning citrus fruit causes a chemical reaction that radically changes some of the flavour compounds and and kills the oils.

Being the adventurous little brewer that I am, I instantly recognised the potential for new potential brewing ingredient. I had some Belgian Witbier on so when I went to bottle it, I siphoned off a portion and let it sit on some freshly burnt oranges for a couple of extra weeks.

Tasting Notes

It’s hard to describe the flavour of burnt orange. It retains some orange flavour without the tang, but it doesn’t taste burnt.

The colour is a rich, dark, brownish-orange with a nice beautiful head that unfortunately doesn’t last very long.

Orange and caramel aromas dominate the scent slipping between subtle and bold. Maybe it’s just me but sometimes I totally miss the aroma and other times it seems plain as the snow on my porch.

The burnt orange flavours dominate, but it still retains some beer characteristics. I think the coriander in the original recipe really support the burnt orange well. The mix of orange with the bright carbonation makes this beer seem almost a little spicy. The aftertaste is rich and changes from caramelly to bitter and citric before fading gracefully over a couple of minutes.

Brewing Notes for Future Recipes

This was an excellent first recipe. So good that I’ve already started my next burnt orange beer (or citrus I haven’t decided).

So what is it? a Belgian tripel.

Burnt orange is quite robust. So I’m upping the spice a little, upping the gravity and making the beer a lot more phenolic than I normally like. I think a hint more spice would be nice and the phenols will get balanced out by the burnt orange. If you’re not a regular visitor to Life With Beer, I’m not a lover of the rubbing alcohol-like flavours imparted by phenols.

Burning Orange Belgian Wheat Recipe

Grains

Hops and Adjuncts

Yeast

Wyeast 3944: Belgian Witbier harvested from lees

Brewing Schedule

Brewed: 10/07/2008
Racked: 10/30/2008
Racked Oranges:  11/14/2008
Bottled: 11/28/2008

Water

No water adjustments to local Pilsen-like water.

Brewing Stats

OG: 1.048
IBU: approx. 17
Ferment Temp: 71°F 22°C
FG: 1.007
ABV: 4.9%

Post from: Life With Beer

Burnt Orange Belgian Wheat Recipe

My first Raspberry Wheat beer was very fruity in spite of being a very dry beer. It had a very low initial gravity (1038 OG, my lowest ever), but the raspberry flavour was quite obvious. The whole effect, in spite of the low initial gravity and light body, was more like how I would imagine Raspberry Champagne (if there were such a thing).

Comparison of Raspberry Wheat Beers

I mashed this year’s Raspberry Wheat Beer at a much higher temperature, 154º F (68º C), than last year’s version, 143º F (62º C). I wanted to see how the additional sugars would effect the perception of fruit flavour. My impression is that it didn’t make any difference, but remember I’m comparing this with a beer that I made a year ago.

Another difference is that the fruit that I used this time around spent about a month in the freezer before being added to the beer. I also thoroughly pulverised the raspberries the first time around, whereas this time I added them mostly intact. Again based on a probably faulty memory of the original beer, I’d say that this year’s beer wasn’t as fruity as last year’s beer.

Aside from the above differences, the two recipes were basically the same. Trying the Raspberry Wheat Beer this time around, I notice the taste of the Crystal a lot more than in last year’s beer. I think it might be because I’m better able to discern specific flavours than a year ago rather than any change in the process. I’d like to try a little more Crystal, possibly even doubling it, to make the beer a little more complex. The Crystal certainly did not clash with the flavour of the raspberries.

Future Raspberry Wheat Beers

My impressions of this year’s and last year’s Raspberry Wheat Beer leave me wanting to try a few more experiments with fruit beers like:

• frozen fruit vs fresh, pulverised fruit
• sweet-mashed fruit beer vs dry-mashed fruit beer
• fruit frozen for 1-month vs fruit frozen for a couple of days

The first and last experiment will be pretty easy to do. I’ll just make a little extra wort and ferment it in a smaller container before adding the correct proportion of fruit. The middle one will require tow mashes. The best I can do is make the two beers a few days apart and try to keep everything else equal.

Unfortunately, given the season, these experiments will have to wait until next summer…but I’ve got a lot of mushroom beers on the way.

Post from: Life With Beer

Raspberry Wheat Beer 2008

moments later, this ale met its demise

The cherries in this recipe don’t stand out like in a Bellevue Kriek, but they create a very balanced beer that is difficult to classify. If you don’t know its a cherry beer, then you probably won’t be able to guess. But if you know what to look for, then both the sweet and sour cherries are evident. I would compare the fruit-beer balance of my cherry nut-brown to Swan’s recent Berry Ale (hope you were lucky enough to try that).

Procedure

Make the Base Beer

1. Mash in at °67 C (°152 F) for 1.5 hours.
2. Sparge for 1.25 hours.
3. Add hops and boil for 1.5 hours.
4. Cool and pitch yeast.

Prepare the Cherries

1. Wash the cherries.
2. Split the cherries open, keeping the pits.
3. Freeze the cherries and pits.
4. Defrost the cherries.

When primary fermentation is done or almost done:

Combine Cherries and Base Beer

1. Rack the beer to another primary fermenter (you need the headspace when the fruit starts fermenting).
2. Add the cherries.

Fermentation will restart. Leave the cherries on the beer for at least two weeks (I’ll try three weeks next time).

Finish

1. Rack to secondary.
2. Refridgerate to clear the beer.
3. Bottle or keg as normal.

Ingredients

• 4.5 kgs (10 lbs) 2-Row
• .45 kgs (1 lb) Barley Flakes
• .23 kgs (.5 lbs) Crystal
• .23 kgs (.5 lbs) Wheat Malt
• .23 kgs (.5 lbs) Chocolate Malt
• 28 g (1oz) Northern Brewer (boil)
• Wyeast 1056 American Ale
• 1 kg (2.2 lbs) Sweet Cherries
• .9 kgs (2 lbs) Sour Cherries

OG = 1.048
FG = 1.015

Note: The actual alcohol content is much higher because the sugar from the fruit is not counted in this calculation.

Brewers Notes

If I had my experimental platform set up when I brewed this, then I probably would have made a small lambic version on the side. I think this recipe would be perfect as a lambic.

You could also make this in to a fruitier beer. I don’t think I would go over 1.4 kgs (3 lbs) of sour cherries because this recipe is pleasantly sour, but I’d be willing to try between 2-3 kgs (4.4-6.6 lbs) of sweet cherries. I’d love to hear from people who have used a larger quantitiy of cherries in their beers.

I don’t advise using fewer cherries. The cherry flavour in this recipe is already quite subtle.

Post from: Life With Beer

Fresh Cherry Nut-Brown Ale Recipe 2008

I’m kind of lucky compared to most brewers because I get fresh, home-grown fruit in season. I can throw in some fruit without worrying too much about wasting the fruit and, now that I’ve set up my new experimental brewing platform, I can add fruit, or anything else, to fermenting beer without worrying about wasting too much beer.

So here’s my advice for people wanting to add fruit to fermenting.

1. Freeze Your Fruit First (Usually)

Freezing breaks down cell walls which releases the flavour in to your beer. It also kills some organisms that might otherwise compete with yeast and create off-flavours. If you’re using a fruit that tastes different after having been frozen (try testing this if you don’t know), then just try crushing or blending the fruit before adding it. You’ll taste why.

2. Add the Fruit Between Primary and Secondary

Ferment your beer in the primary as normal. Then rack it to another primary fermenter and add your fruit. You will need the extra head-space because the sugar in the fruit will restart fermentation. After your fruit and beer have spent at least 2-3 weeks together, rack it to the secondary (if you can count this would be the tertiary, but I’m trying to keep the standard brewing paradigm from collapsing under the weight of cherries and raspberries).

Which brings me nicely to:

3. Screw Sanitation, Use Raw Fruit

The sanitation Nazis own the Internet.

If you have let the yeast do most of the work in your primary, you will be adding the fruit to an environment (alcoholic and hoppy) which prohibits the growth of most organisms. Add a healthy culture of highly-competitive yeast to the equation and the odds are in your favour that you will have some damn good beer.

4. Sanitize Your Fruit

It’s not as important as #3, but if you have fruit that tastes fine after a little cooking, then quickly drop the fruit into boiling water to kill any competing organisms. But it’s not a big deal.

5. Use Fresh, Locally Grown, In-Season Fruit

Fruit when it is in-season and locally grown is so much tastier than fruit from the grocery store. Get the best you can and brew something else in winter.

6. Every Fruit is Different

Some fruit are easy to transfer in to beer. I’ve done raspberry, cherry, and prune-plum beers, but I hear apricot, blackberry, and apple can also be pretty good.

Some fruit disappear in a beer. Thanks to the advice of others, I’ve avoided strawberry, peach, and blueberry.

Some fruit lose essential flavour elements in beer. Like red-currants.

7. Use an Plain Yeast

You might be able to find a yeast that complements whatever fruit you are using. But, when starting, use American Ale yeast and just enjoy the malt and fruit flavour without complicating things.

Specific Fruit Quantities

Specific fruit quantities depend on the base beer. For a 23 L (5.5 gal) batches, here is some limited advice based on my mistakes, er experience…

Raspberry: About 0.9 kgs (2 lbs) gives you a very distinct fruit flavour in a raspberry wheat beer.

Cherry: About 1.8 kgs (4 lbs) of half-sweet half-sour cherries produces a very balanced beer on a Nut-Brown base.

Prune-Plums: 0.9 kgs (2 lbs) in a Stout puts the fruit and malt flavours in conflict. Try 0.45 kgs (1 lbs) in a less full-flavoured beer.

Rhubarb: 0.45 kgs (1lb) in a Hefeweisen didn’t work well. To get rhubarb beer to work try a sweeter base beer and use less rhubarb.

Red-Currant: This falls under the “lose essential flavour element” category. I think it could be made tolerable mixed in the right beer, with other fruit, but why?

If you’ve tried any other fruit, please add your experience in the comments.

Post from: Life With Beer

Fruit Beer Brewing Tips

I made a red-currant wheat beer last summer that I’d call a heroic failure. I added about 2 lbs of red-currants to a wheat beer that I fermented with hefeweisen yeast.

The final product was terrible. Fermenting removed some essential element from the red-currant. I can’t think of anything to accurately compare the comparison that really does it.

Anyway, I wanted to share this so that anyone considering a red-currant beer would be saved the trouble.

Have you tried any ingredients that didn’t work? Please share your experiences.

Post from: Life With Beer

Red-Currant Beer? Think Again

This beer has been very popular with many of my non-beer drinking friends and has totally spoiled the commercially available raspberry beers that use syrop instead of real fruit.

Procedure

Make the Base Beer

1. Mash in at °62 C (°143 F) for 1.5 hours.
2. Sparge for 1.25 hours.
3. Add hops and boil for 1.5 hours.
4. Cool and pitch yeast.

Prepare the Raspberries

1. Squish the raspberries to a pulp.
2. Freeze the raspberries for at least a day or two.
3. Defrost the raspberries for one day.

When primary fermentation is done or almost done:

Combine Raspberries and Base Beer

1. Rack the beer to another primary fermenter (you need the headspace when the fruit starts fermenting).
2. Add the defrosted fruit.

Fermentation will restart. Leave the fruit on the beer for at least a week or two even after fermentation has stopped to get a strong fruit flavour.

Finish

1. Rack to secondary.
2. Refridgerate to clear the beer.
3. Bottle or keg as normal.

Ingredients

• 2.5 kgs (5.5 lbs) 2-Row
• 2.5 kgs (5.5lbs) Wheat Malt
• .23 kgs (.5lbs) Crystal
• 28 g (1oz) Hallertau (boil)
• Wyeast 1056 American Ale
• 1 kg (2.25 lbs) raspberries

OG = 1.038
FG = 1.010
Note: The actual alcohol content is much higher because the sugar from the fruit is not counted in this calculation.

Brewers Notes

The next time I make this beer I will mash a lot higher to create a less-fermentable wort and use less fruit. I think a sweeter base beer will bring out the raspberry flavour more even with less fruit. It might also let more of the base beer flavour through.

Post from: Life With Beer

Raspberry Wheat Beer Recipe 2007