Bottle condition vs kegging and Heavy Grapefruit

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DTS78KC
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Bottle condition vs kegging and Heavy Grapefruit

Post by DTS78KC »

Ok, I am kinda new to brewing Feb 08 but have 7 batch's under my belt. 3 extract, 1 malt pwdr (experiment lager) and 3 all grain. My question is does bottle conditioning (priming sugar) add sweetness to the beer versus using a kegging system? Tring to cut down some of the sugar profile in my beers. The wheat seems too sweet. OG for wheat was 1.054 and FG ws 1.017.

Also grapefruit flavor is from what? Seems pretty heavy in this beer.
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slothrob
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Beer Flavors

Post by slothrob »

Yeah, 1.017 is probably high for a WHeat beer. Priming sugar ferments out completely to alcohol and CO2, so it doesn't add any sweetness. The major sources of sweetness are Malt Extract (some of which has a lot of unfermentable sugar), Crystal Malt (above 0.5 #, Crystal Malt can add a lot of persistent sweetness), Mash Temperature (higher mash temperatures make sweeter beer), high initial OG, and yeast choice (some yeasts are less attenuative and leave more sugars in the final beer).

If you tell us the recipe, we might be able to find the source of your problem.

Grapefruit flavors come from certain hops, typically hops called C-hops or AMerican hops. The common grapefruity ones are Cascade, Chinook & Centennial, but Amarillo and Simco can give similar flavors or accent the grapefruit flavor of some other hops.
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DTS78KC
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Post by DTS78KC »

Thanks for the reply here is the recipe as follows.
5.25# Midwest wheat
4.75# am 2 row
8oz wheat flaked
8oz rye flaked
12oz candi sugar (thats my high OG)
4oz belgin aromatic
8oz carapils
8oz am caramel 20L
4oz German vienna
4oz tortified wheat

Mash schedule was crazy this being my first true all grain
3.5gal water 1hr @ 130F
add 1/2 gal water 45mins @ 135-138F
add 1.5gal 45mins @ 156-158F
Sparged 2gal @ 180F

Hops Cascade 1oz 60min boil (maybe grapefruit from this?)
Amarillo 1oz 20min boil

Overall this is still a decent beer maybe the grapefruit flavor thru me off at first since I like a deeper heavy hefy vs the am. wheat style. Altho this does remind me of my local brewery Boulvard Brewing company and there wheat beer.
Give a man a beer and he'll waste an hour, teach him to brew and he'll waste a lifetime- Nuco Gordo
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wheat beer

Post by slothrob »

DTS78KC wrote:45mins @ 156-158F

Hops Cascade 1oz 60min boil (maybe grapefruit from this?)
Amarillo 1oz 20min boil
I think the majority o\f the sweetness came from the 156-158°F mash. That's a good temperature for an Ordinary Bitter that starts around 1.035, but will leave a beer that started at 1.054 pretty sweet. I'd mash a relatively large Wheat Beer like that around 148-150°F.

Also, you probably don't even need the 20L Crystal, but if you want to keep it I'd drop it down to 0.25#. You could increase the Vienna to replace it but keep the flavor up. The Apomatic is nice, but probably makes this on the malty side for a Wheat Beer, which may contribute to the beer seeming sweet.

Not to bash the recipe, it could be quite nice, but it's a complex recipe, and more of an American Wheat with that hop selection. A German Wheat can be made with a simple ~50/50 2-row/Wheat malt mix, maybe with a pound of Munich or Vienna Malt for a little malt character, then a single 60 minute addition of a noble hop, like Tettnanger or Hallertauer, or one of their American cousins, like Mt. Hood. This will help make a dry beer with a little spicy hop character.

The biggest decision for a German Wheat is the yeast.

Sorry to be so long winded.
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DTS78KC
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Post by DTS78KC »

Thanks for the reply and the additional comments I do apprieciate any inside knowlege on brewing and tips on recipe's. This was a collaberation ofrecipes I took from this web site that sounded good. As I now know yes this is a complex recipe that I probably won't be using much more of, ill take the things I like from it but advance from there.

Thanks again for the comments.
Give a man a beer and he'll waste an hour, teach him to brew and he'll waste a lifetime- Nuco Gordo
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