Peach Hefeweizen - recipe critique

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by RendoMike, Feb 15, 2013.

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  1. RendoMike

    RendoMike Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 England

    Good evening fellow brewers. After spending a couple days helping a friend get started, time for me to start planning my next few recipes and on this one I want to experiment a little. My wife doesn't drink beer much, but a beer like this is her thing and peaches are her favorite fruit.

    Simple Extract Recipe
    5 gal. batch, full boil w/ 6.5 gal
    6.6# Wheat DME
    1 oz El Dorado @ 15 mins
    Danstar Munich

    Edit: 4# Peaches, 2# Apricot in secondary

    OG 1.061
    FG 1.015
    IBU 23
    ABV 5.9 %

    I realize traditional hefeweizens use noble hops, but El Dorado seems like it would fit.
    New Variety, High alpha with tropical fruit flavors.

    Characteristics: Apricot, Peaches
    Alpha: 15.8%

    I'm pretty confident this would work, but being a new brewer I sometimes miss something not so obvious. Any thoughts? Thanks!
     
    #1 RendoMike, Feb 15, 2013
  2. Tebuken

    Tebuken Initiate (0) Jun 6, 2009 Argentina

    I think you are not going to get 23 IBUs(IMHO) , my calculations according your given numbers give me 18.50 IBUs.You need 1.25 oz of these hops to get 23 IBUs.
     
    #2 Tebuken, Feb 15, 2013
  3. RendoMike

    RendoMike Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 England

    Good to know. 23 is what the recipe calculator gave me, but I figured it was high. 18.5 is closer to what I was shooting for. I mainly just want the hop flavors while trying to keep the IBU below 20.
     
    #3 RendoMike, Feb 15, 2013
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  4. randal

    randal Initiate (0) Apr 21, 2004 Colorado

    In my experience fresh peaches don't lend a very "peachy" flavor - it seems their flavor depends a lot on sugar which will mostly ferment out leaving a sort of vinous character. If you are looking for peach flavor a post-fermentation peach essence might be more suitable.
     
    #4 randal, Feb 15, 2013
  5. RendoMike

    RendoMike Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 England

    Thanks, I will check it out the essence. That's the reason I planned on using Apricots, which have a much stronger flavor, along with the peaches. To be honest, the fruit part of it I haven't worked out completely yet. Good peaches are tough to get here and will likely use frozen or something like you suggested.
     
    #5 RendoMike, Feb 16, 2013
  6. FeDUBBELFIST

    FeDUBBELFIST Pooh-Bah (1,765) Oct 31, 2009 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah

    I would skip the secondary and ferment entirely in a bucket. Clarity is not important to a hefeweizen so I can't think of any real reason use a secondary here. Plus, you'll have more room in the bucket. This works out well as I was going to suggest that you scale up to 6 gallons anyway to account for the beer that will be absorbed by the 6 pounds of fruit. You will probably want to use a blow off tube if you scale up.
     
    #6 FeDUBBELFIST, Feb 16, 2013
    RendoMike likes this.
  7. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,250) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah

    What am I missing here? If I have a 15% alpha hop in a 5 gallon, full boil batch, I'm calculating IBUS at over 50.
     
    #7 pweis909, Feb 16, 2013
  8. FeDUBBELFIST

    FeDUBBELFIST Pooh-Bah (1,765) Oct 31, 2009 Pennsylvania
    Pooh-Bah

    The 15 minute addition in the OP.
     
    #8 FeDUBBELFIST, Feb 16, 2013
  9. pweis909

    pweis909 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,250) Aug 13, 2005 Wisconsin
    Pooh-Bah

    Right. That would do it. I've been awake for several hours but am still not processing details.

    I think the OP would be justified in adding some of these hops at flameout. This could bring out more or different of these fruit characters and reduce the ibus. I don't have any experience with the hop to know how I might perceive those fruit characters, but I do think fruitbeers can benefit from reduced bitterness, and I think that weizen's can benefit from reduced bitterness.
     
    #9 pweis909, Feb 16, 2013
    RendoMike likes this.
  10. Tebuken

    Tebuken Initiate (0) Jun 6, 2009 Argentina

    +1. This is a very good advice in my opinion.
    Your BU:GU ratio is going to be 0.30, even though weizens has a BU:GU of 0.24(according Mad Alchemist table) I think it will be ok. If you want to get a 0.24 BU:GU ratio you just need to add hops for 11 minutes instead 15.
     
    #10 Tebuken, Feb 16, 2013
  11. RendoMike

    RendoMike Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 England

    This is a great idea if I do end up using fresh or frozen fruit. I probably wouldn't even scale up, just reduce the OG and thus the ABV since this is for the wife mainly. Also, I love the idea of doing away with a secondary when I don't "need" it. Will have to buy some extra tubing to fashion a blow off tube.

    Also a good idea. I have no experience with this hop yet either. I was honestly surprised when a brew shop here in the UK got some, knowing this hop's harvest is quite small. Then again, I have no issue getting Citra here right now. There are at least three places carrying it that I know of off the top of my head.
     
    #11 RendoMike, Feb 16, 2013
  12. RendoMike

    RendoMike Initiate (0) Sep 6, 2011 England

    BU:GU is a new one to me, but I just looked it up. Thanks, always appreciate learning more. Will definitely use this. I have to recalculate my OG to scale up the batch, but will probably be something like .5 oz@10 and .5 oz@5 giving an IBU of about 13 and BU:GU of 0.22.

    To everyone, thank you for the help. Few more batches and I hope I can contribute some wisdom also.
     
    #12 RendoMike, Feb 16, 2013
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