Peaches N Wheat
My latest brew-ha is a modification to a recipe from the Wine and Hop Shop, on Monroe Street, Madison WI, called Winsome Wheat. I wanted to make a fruit ale this time around. I thought about raspberry ale, but I can't drink very much tart beer. Then I remembered a really great tasting apricot ale from Pyramid Breweries Inc. called Apricot Weizen. It was very refreshing and even my wife who doesn't like beer enjoyed it. I went with Peaches because right now they're really ripe and in season. The Winsome Wheat kit was a bit darker than my desire, so I replaced 1.5 pounds of the dark liquid malt extract with 0.25 pound dry wheat malt extract and 1 pound of honey. This probably won't lighten the beer as much as I want, but it's all I had on hand at the time. I cut the amount of hops in half to reduce the bitterness. Just for kits I also doubled the amount of crystal malt. I used 5.5 pounds of freshly pureéd peaches. I picked Bavarian Wheat yeast from Wyeast Laboratories.
Cooking the wort went very smoothly. I steeped the peaches for 15 minutes at around 170 degrees Farenheit. It smelled like Peach Cobbler. Yummy! I didn't sparge this time because I wanted the peach pureé to sit in the fermenter during the first stage. Also, I am using an open blow tube during the first stage fermentation because wheat beer is usually too explosive for an airlock during this time (I learned that with my Trippin Trippel). This will also give the added benefit of removing hops residue through the blow tube, which I could not sparge because of the peach pureé.
Hydrometer reading: 1.033 (1.030 + .003 correction) ~4.55 % alcohol potential
