Passion Wheat Ale

 

This is a recipe for a very refreshing, light and delicious wheat ale with natural passion fruit flavor. A winner for summer and among light beer drinkers.

Used passion fruit pulp from Amazon, link HERE:

This pulp is the real deal. Coming from a tropical country where passion fruit grows like weed everywhere, I know what the real deal is 😁. Having small individual pouches makes it easier to measure as well last longer in freezer.

With no further due, here's the recipe for a 5gal batch:

Grain Bill:

• 4 1/2 lb Great Western 2 row
• 4 1/2 lb Great Western Wheat
• 1/2 lb Dextrapill
• 1/4 lb Cara-vienne
• 1/2 lb Vienna

Water profile (ppm):

Ca = 88

Mg = 22

Na = 4

Cl = 142

SO4 = 93

Cl/SO4 = 1.53

Mashed for 60 minutes at 157F.

Hop schedule, boil time of 60min:

• 2oz Goldings US for 30min
• 1oz Citra at flame-out

Fermenter at 64F with Fermentis S-04 yeast, 1 pack added to wort directly.

As for the passion fruit pulp, blended 3 pouches of pulp on low speed with little water just to extract the juices, then strained, adding some water during this process. Overall juice volume of about 5oz, added to Keg when beer is completed fermented.

Final numbers:

OG = 1.047

FG = 1.014

ABV% = 4.1

IBU = 21

SRM = 6

NEIPA - New England IPA

 

First time brewing a NEIPA, and although this is freshly transferred to a keg, green beer for sure, I can see why this style is becoming so popular among homebrewers. Such a balanced, aromatic, crazy hazy and refreshing beer with tons of hop flavor, without the bitterness that drive folks away from an IPA.

Here's my take on this recipe:

Grain bill for 5gal batch:

• 8 lb Great Western 2 row malt
• 1/2 lb Dextrapills
• 1 lb Aromatic Munich 18L
• 1/2 lb Crystal 15L
• 2 lb flaked oats

Water profile (ppm):

CA = 104

Mg = 12

Na = 20

Cl = 169

SO4 = 48

Cl/Sulfate = 3.54

Mash time = 60min

Mash temp= 160F

Boil time = 10 minutes (yes, only 10 minutes)

Hops:

After flame out, cooled wort to 170F, added 6oz Citra pellets to spider, stirring wort for 20min. By then, temp dropped to about 160F.

Into fermenter with yeast cake from S05 batch, at 67F. Added a suspended muslin bag + cheese cloth with another 6oz of Citra pellets, hanging on top of fermenter.

After few hours, fermentation was active. Next day, about 24h from pitching, lowered the hop bag into active fermenting wort. Left until end of fermentation, which occurred only 4 days after pitching.

Kegged, with care to not oxidize the beer by flushing keg with CO2, as well as pressurizing fermenter with CO2.

Final numbers:

OG=1.049 (lower than expected 1.058, reason is, ended up with 5.5 gals instead of 5 gals. Miscalculated the evaporation rate for 10min boil)

FG=1.015

ABV=4.4% (planned was 5.5, for same reason above)

IBU= unknown, since no boil time, no proper calculation

SRM=7

Cheers, a keeper for sure. Next time I may increase the Crystal malt for a darker, more orange color. May use Crystal 40L instead of 15L.

Juicy IPA

 

Very well accepted IPA, so here's the recipe for a 5gal batch:

• 8lb 2Row
• 1/2lb Dextrin malt
• 1lb Munich malt 10L
• 3/4lb Crystal 75L
• 1/2lb flaked oats

Boil = 60minutes. Hops:

• 1oz Centennial for 60min
• 1oz Centennial for 5min
• 1oz Citra for 5min
• Dry hop 2oz Citra for 3 days in Keg (Leaf)

Yeast=Fermentis dry S05, fermented at 67F

OG=1.048

FG=1.009

ABV=5%

IBU=46

SRM=10

Cheers!

Testing ferrmentability of Lactose and Dextrim

Like the previously debunked mith that sugars from Crystal malts are completely not fermentable, posted HERE, this time testing Lactose and Dextrim powder. Also testing the amount of points (PPG) that these adjuncts can provide.

Same basic setup with 1 gal batches:

Results:

Left to ferment for 5 days and nothing, same gravity as it started. So it is confirmed that both Lactose and Dextrim Power is not fermentable. Also confirmed the PPG that I had in record for these at 45 PPG.

Coloring beer blue with dried butterfly pea flower (Clitoria ternatea)

Testing how well butterfly pea flowers would color a batch blue, sharing some findings.
   While searching on web for similar attempts, read somewhere that PH is a critical issue, so went ahead with some testings.
   I did an infusion of dried flowers in cold water and it did extract the color quite well.
   To start, did a quick test by adding one drop of phosphoric acid in about a cup of water previously tinted with the blue solution and it immediately went  from blue to purple, like magic 😐
    Took my PH meter, water and lactic acid to setup couple samples at different PH, specifically at 2.95, 3.75, 4.40, 5.07, 5.32 and 6.63. Then added 20 drops of tinted solution to each sample.

Samples ready for testing:

Test results:

Closer look:

Clearly, only after PH 6 (Neutral to alkaline), color still remained blue. PH lower than 6 (acidic), color changes to purple, at different levels.

Then tested a sample with real home brewed beer, a very light SRM beer, on which I measured PH of 4.01.

Guess what happens when added the blue drops?

Yes, looks purple and weird.

Here's a another view;

Conclusion is, unless one produces a neutral to alkaline PH beer, color will not be blue.
That seems to be hard to achieve given the PH drop caused by carbonation (carbonic acid).

Hibiscus wheat

Brewed a wheat based beer with hibiscus and grains of paradise. The results is this pretty red tart wine like tasty and refreshing beer.

Ingredients for 5gal batch:

• 7lb Great Western Superior Pilsen malt
• 2lb Great Western Wheat malt
• 1/2lb Dextrapills
• 1lb Vienna malt
• 2lb Flaked oats
• 1lb Flaked barley

Yeast: Fermentis S05 at 67F

Spices:

• 7 1/2oz dry hibiscus flowers, added to keg (dry hop) for 2 weeks.

30min Boil schedule:

• 2oz Cascade 4.4% for 30min
• 5g grains of paradise, crushed, for 10min
• 2 TBS corn starch for 10min

Original plan was to use WY1028 London Ale yeast, but after 2 days with no signs of fermentation (and pack didn't inflate as much as expected), decided to dump a package of S05, that took off in few hours.

Final numbers:

OG=1.049

FG=1.011

ABV=4.8%

IBU=23

SRM=5

The first week or two in keg and it tasted very sour. I thought I have ruined the batch with too much hibiscus. I think there was a lot of sediment on bottom that had most of the hibiscus flavor. After pouring couple glasses and couple more weeks later, it tastes quite nice, tartness reminds me of a sparkling red wine. This will mostly fade out some but I think this is a keeper.

Update Leffe Blond Clone - Partial mash recipe

Brewed around the first week of April, bottle conditioned for 2 1/2 weeks and shared with couple friends. Beer was very well accepted and very few bottles are left.
To my taste, quite sweet with a hint of alcohol, low carbonation and low head retention.
Here are the final numbers:
OG=1.075
FG=1.022
ABV=7%
IBU=24
SRM=6

I may try an all grain version of this recipe.