While my Belgian Blanche Beers sloooooowwwly ferment, I thought I might share my thoughts on this year’s Raspberry Wheat Beer. I’ve got a few other beers in various stages of readiness, but they aren’t ready yet.
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.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I had a question for you, first of all I’m enjoying your website, I like the fact that you let the reader know what not to do by either your mistakes or findings, anyway a buddy and myself are fairly new to homebrewing, we’re just starting to use a mash, my question was on your raspberry wheat beer is your mash all wheat or is it all barley, or a mixture, or do you steep your wheat, please help me,,,thanks Roger miro,,, Bomoseen Vermont
I tend to prefer 50% malted barley, 25% malted wheat, and 25% unmalted wheat. The enzymes in the barley and malted wheat are enough to convert the unmalted wheat.
I would like to try steeping the wheat first one of these days.
I just got your reply, and thanks, I’m about to do a batch in the next week, I tried a batch of raspberry but it was too hoppy, it was ok but not to my liking, I’m looking for the raspberry to be subtle and I only used 3 pounds of wheat, I will try 50/50,,,thanks again roger miro in vermont