Batch #11 – Done Deal Grapefruit Wheat

Batch #11 – Done Deal Grapefruit Wheat

done deal solo

Date Brew:11/19/2013 Rack:1/8/2014 Bottle:1/28/2014
Days 0 50! 70!

Recipe:

SunPig Grapefruit Summer Wheat

Goals:

Try to make a grapefruit wheat, a twist on the usual combo of oranges and wheat beers. Explore when to add grapefruit oil/zest.

Brew Notes:

No real notes on Brewing. Maybe too much product was sampled? Added one camden tablet to remove chloramines from water.

The zest of 3 grapefruits was added at either racking or knockout. Either way, it wasn’t tasted at ALL. Some bitter orange peel was also bought for this recipe, but the sands of time have obscured if they were added at any point.

OG FG ABV
Recipe 1.054 1.013 5.37%
Recorded 1.054 1.013 5.37%

*I’m not saying my notes are wrong, just that those perfectly matching numbers look miiiighty suspicious…

Fermentation notes:

Dry hopped w/ 1 oz Cascade hops.

Bottling notes:

Filled a 2-liter sprite bottle and plan on testing the 2L tap We’ll see what happens. Silver caps.

Tasting notes:

This is a decently hoppy Wheat beer. It’s not what we planned on it being, but it’s still quite palatable. I could see this going well on a summer porch session.

Conclusion:

I need to look into how to have more of an impact with grapefruit. Some of the fruitier hops have a very similar character. Maybe hop bursting is an easier way to get there. Only after reviewing the notes did I realize that this had such a long fermentation. 70 days is more than double our usual, and perhaps the citrus character we were looking for had faded by the time we bottled.