I have been brewing for a few years now. I feel I have a decent grasp on what I need to do, and how I need to do it. I recently decided that I want to enter a brewers cup in my state; I have had a great deal of encouragement from folks around me. That said the beer I want to enter I need to tweak a bit but I am not sure what to do. I have done a Razz Wheat 5gal brew 2 times, first run just to learn the basic fruit aging process, the second time I added to the recipe. I added chocolate to the mix, which did improve on the over all finish. After letting people taste it at my work(I work at a good beer store), with a great deal of positive feed back, one guy said this is great, but it is missing something. I love that answer because it is honest, we both agreed for it to be a top 3 beer it need to be more complex. I want it to be a tad bit tart, I use the following in the brew and would like some advice on bringing the tart/ sour out just a bit to take away on some of the overall sweetness. Basic American Wheat 3.3lbs Unhopped Wheat liquid malt extract 2lbs Briess Wheat dried malt extract .25lb Aromatic malt(crushed) .25lb Munich malt(crushed) .5lb Flaked wheat .75oz Sazz hops .5oz Hallertau hops 1lb candy sugar roughly 1oz Chocolate nibs(fair trade) Wyeast American Wheat Ale yeast(#1010) first ferment: was nearly 2 full weeks very active Secondary: added half gallon of fresh raspberry puree 3oz chocolate nibs let sit for another 1.5 weeks. Kegged: added half gallon of frozen raspberry puree (DID NOT FORCE CARBONATE THIS) I am looking for constructive help, not anything else... please send your advice on what I can do. I have thought about oak aging with a small % of sour yeast. Thoughts? Thanks and Cheers!
You could do a separate, small sour-mash beer (with wheat extract) and then blend to taste at packaging.
