I recently made a raspberry wheat for my fiancee, here is the recipe. 3.5 Gallon Batch 4# American 2 row 2.5# White Wheat .35oz Fuggle @ 60 4.5lb fresh raspberrys, brought to 150* held for 20minutes for pasturization, then brought to room temp and added to secondary for 2 weeks. OG 1.042 FG 1.019 Carbonated with .5 cup table sugar in bottles, after 2 weeks (granted its 90* in our house now) The carbonation is too low, the beer is very tart and dry, with little sweetness. It is Bright pink, but has almost no head. I am going to try one tonight (3.5 weeks in bottles and the temp has gone down in our house to 70 for about a week now) Any suggestions on how to make this sweeter?
It's already bottled, so I wouldn't mess with trying to add any sweeteners to the bottles. Fermentable sugars would just be turned into alcohol anyway. And non-fermentables (like lactose or maltodextrin) don't provide enough sweetness (IMO) to make it worth the risk of screwing up your already carbonated bottles. If you really want a sweet beer, maybe add sugar or honey to the glass at serving time? For future batches, you could disable/kill off/filter the yeast and back-sweeten with whatever you want. But that's not common in homebrewing. (Meadmakers know all about it though.) Or add crystal malts to the grist if you're talking about a more subtle sweetness.
This. The only real easy way of making this sweeter if it has already been bottled is to backsweeten in the glass. From what I hear, when raspberries are fermented they tend to go quite tart and not sweet at all. If you wanted something sweeter (and still carbonated), then you would need to add some artificial sweeteners, lactose, mash higher, and/or add crystal malt.
Two things... - Raspberries are not sweet. The 'recommended' addition is 1# / G. 4.5# in a 3.5G batch is 30% more 'not sweet' additon. No surprise it's not sweet. - Fruit beers don't come into their own until ~10-12 weeks in the bottle. Try one again around Halloween. - Attenuation was very poor. What yeast was pitched?
Sorry, it is a 4.5G batch. I am not trying to sweeten it now, this would be for the next batch. I used American Ale Yeast from White Labs. Note on attenuation, Re looked at my notes, Gravity before adding raspberries was 1.011, FG was 1.009 not 1.019. I read my notes wrong. I was in a hurry to run out the door. Sorry.
Corrections noted. Happens to the best of us. IMO...landing a raspberry wheat a wee bit on the dry side is more better, as is being a smidge high on carbonationating if the target is something re-fookin'freshening! --- IMO...adding ~4% Weyermann's Cara-amber to your grain bill might could take the 'edge' off the fruit's tartness...giving the finished product a bit of 'breakfast biscuit' bravado. Think 'Raspberry Pop-Tart' w/out the sickening sweet sugar.
So my problem is, extreemly low carbonation, and she wants almost a sickening sweet beer. Her favorite beer is delirium red, then lindmens frambois, tinermans kreik. So she loves the sweet then tart beers. She likes a lot of sours but prefers the sweet. Any sugestions?
For that kind of sweetness, you'll have to cripple the yeast and backsweeten. There's no way a fully attenuated wort will get you there without it.
You can. But you would have to cripple the yeast first. The sugars from anything you add that would contribute significant sweetness (other than artificial sweeteners, which IMO suck) will ferment away unless you disable/kill/remove the yeast.
So, to kill the yeast, what do you recommend? And wouldn't i need the yeast for carbonation afterwords? Thanks for all the input.
Probably a combination of Potassium Metabisulfite and Potassium Sorbate. They may not kill, but they will neuter. And yes, if you bottle, you would need active yeast to carbonate. So, you can't make a bottle conditioned Lindemans Framboise. Back-sweetening is a bulk thing, requiring forced carbonation (i.e. in a keg).
Your best bet is to use some sort of v.sweet fruit syrup for backsweetening in the glass, rather than fermenting with it. Crystal malts and things such as Lactose can give a bit of sweetness, but not to the level of Lindemans Framboise etc.
