Lemongrass wheat beer

GFHomebrew

GFHomebrew

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Gday all I'm looking for some advise on my final brew before Christmas. Inspired by Nosey on his lemongrass ginger wheat beer I'm hoping to brew something similar just before Christmas so it's fresh in the keg and an easy sessionable drinking beer. Hopefully :p.

I've only just thrown this together at work and I'm hoping for some refinement on the recipe. IooKing forward to your helpful criticism on this one everybody cheers:)...

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/425369/ginger-wheat
 
I picked up some malted wheet from local hombrew and receive some eager information of the store owner upon my statement of" I was hoping you'd stock wheat" that he now stocks a much better assortment of malts such as marris otter golden promise, victory , Munich unsure of maltster, Vienna unsure of maltster but it gives me hope for the Sunshine Coast area that make more homebrewers around me actually want to extract their own malt before boiling! Yippie price is still high in comparison 6$ /kg but I'll buy it instead of freight.

No one got any opinions on me lemongrass wheat or am I gunna have to wing it:).
 
Not a big fan of wheat beers, or citrusy beers, so you definitely don't want my opinion!!

In my opinion you shouldn't ask for my opinion!! :D:p
 
Trialben said:
IooKing forward to your helpful criticism on this one
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If you only have carapils for head retention, you won't need it. Wheat malt does a better job of that, especially at the % you have it.

Ginger at the end of the boil can be harsh like ginger beer. You might want that, you might not. Could be a nice offset to the sweetness of wheat malt since your IBU is low, or it may overpower the featured lemongrass. Adding at the beginning of the boil will tame the burn significantly if you don't want it. Full boil I'll use up to 1oz/gallon, or about 7.5g/L.

The spice article I keep referencing recommends steeping both lemongrass and lemon zest 15m pre-boil at 28g/19L, but adding at the end of the boil probably makes no difference. Orange peel normally goes there anyway.

Other than that, your fermentables are very similar to a Belgian honey blonde that I do so it's a pretty solid base.
 
Here's my take on a lemongrass ginger wheat beer:

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/337937/lemongrass-ginger-wheat

The backstory: I was on a business trip to Atlanta, Georgia. For those of you not familiar with US geography and weather, Atlanta is hotter than Hades and wetter than Seattle. Let's just say if God wanted to give the world an enema.... But I digress. Based on that environment, I found a restaurant serving local brews and one was a lemongrass ginger wheat. I was skeptical at first but wanted to try and so I did. It's a perfect brew for hot, miserable conditions, light, not too heavy on either of the flavorings, really refreshing. As far as keeping the ginger "cool", don't cook it, but extract it using vodka. Or add it to the whirlpool. Both spices can be variable in their flavor contribution so be ready to adjust with tinctures or teas at packaging!
 
Well thank you heaps. I'll be ditching the carapils I can't believe I over looked the wheat malt for head retention ha ha.
I like the idea of doing a "tincture" of lemon grass and lemon zest pre boiled and added at 0min I can add the ginger to that but I suppose that would be the same as adding Late in boil. I might just pop the ginger 30g grated 1 lemon zest and 90g lemon grass all at 0 min and let this steeper 15 min before chilling:). And I might do similar to dry hop after primary fermentation is over with like 20 g of lemongrass.


Yea I don't want the ginger too strong just there in the background. Looking for light refreshing summer session beer with hints of lemongrass and ginger with some carbonation so ya feel all bubbly :D.
What do youse think about sazz as hop I hear it's a spicy floral hop thought it'd go alright I'm not adding it late anyhow. Doing FWH with it.

Should I ditch my light Munich additiion and just go 50/50 wheat and pils and 500g honey?
What's your water like with wheat beer should i do balanced or sulfate favoured water profile?
Cheers Nosey and KC.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/425369/lemongrass-wheat
 
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I'd be cautious with combining the lemongrass and lemon zest - might get some competing flavors there. Make a bit of tea using both and see if they taste good together before putting them in the beer.

I'd ditch the Munich in this one and, unless you're putting the honey in a few days into fermentation, replace it with table sugar - costs less and will do the same thing (thin the body and add alcohol). Put another way, if you want honey flavor, don't boil the honey - add the honey late or add plain sugar and some honey malt.
 
Right Munich is out Nosey I was wondering about this. It's been a while since brewing with wheat so I've forgotten about mouthfeel head retention. 11IBU is a little low eh?
I'll make a tea this arvo with lemongrass and lemon zest with a tad of honey in the bottom and taste :)

So you think I should add honey after primary fermentation has eased Nosey let's say like day four where yeast activity is really slowing down. I'll need to heat the honey to pasteurise hmm?
 
If you want the honey's flavor, add at three to four days into fermentation. In general, I've found I get better "honey" flavor from honey malt but by adding the honey late, you should preserve some of the flavor. Pasteurize it by mixing it with equal volume of water, heating to 72°C and holding it there for a half-hour - honey has some pretty tough bacterial spores in it!
 
Cheers Nosey for your valuable Insite into this lemongrass wheat beer I now she's gunna turn out fine maybe not perfect first time through but I'll work on it from where it is. I wasn't 100% sure on pasteurisation temp for honey I was going 80 but I know it's not good to heat these up too much I'll also add my second 20g charge of lemongrass to honey mixture.:) Well all I have to do is brew her up cheers;).
 
I'm with Mark on this, very interesting indeed, I love my porters and stouts , but will chug down a well balanced flavorful wheat any day, surely let us know how it turns out... Nosey that was outstanding feedback!!!
 
KC said:
If you only have carapils for head retention, you won't need it. Wheat malt does a better job of that, especially at the % you have it.

Ginger at the end of the boil can be harsh like ginger beer. You might want that, you might not. Could be a nice offset to the sweetness of wheat malt since your IBU is low, or it may overpower the featured lemongrass. Adding at the beginning of the boil will tame the burn significantly if you don't want it. Full boil I'll use up to 1oz/gallon, or about 7.5g/L.

The spice article I keep referencing recommends steeping both lemongrass and lemon zest 15m pre-boil at 28g/19L, but adding at the end of the boil probably makes no difference. Orange peel normally goes there anyway.

Other than that, your fermentables are very similar to a Belgian honey blonde that I do so it's a pretty solid base.
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I just read the new Carapils brulosophey exbeerment there KC what! I:eek: is all I can say well well I just might be ditching this malt given the results of no apparent increase in foam stability or mouthfeel or body also given the fact that standard 2 row beer looked to have slightly better head! We live and learn:)​
 
KC said:
If you only have carapils for head retention, you won't need it. Wheat malt does a better job of that, especially at the % you have it.

Ginger at the end of the boil can be harsh like ginger beer. You might want that, you might not. Could be a nice offset to the sweetness of wheat malt since your IBU is low, or it may overpower the featured lemongrass. Adding at the beginning of the boil will tame the burn significantly if you don't want it. Full boil I'll use up to 1oz/gallon, or about 7.5g/L.

The spice article I keep referencing recommends steeping both lemongrass and lemon zest 15m pre-boil at 28g/19L, but adding at the end of the boil probably makes no difference. Orange peel normally goes there anyway.

Other than that, your fermentables are very similar to a Belgian honey blonde that I do so it's a pretty solid base.
Click to expand...
I found the article !!!already has me tweaking an IPA im working on thanks for the info!!
 
Ok so I've adjusted this recipe again. I'm adding in an protine rest at 53c for 30 minutes. Was going to add ferulic acid rest 43c but I'm not sure the yeast I'm using will contribute any banana anyway. I'm boiling for 90 min something to do with protine coagulation. Changing hops the noble hellartau mittlefruh instead of sazz. Thiese are all recommendations from John palmers podcast brewing wheat beers might as well try to emulate the style as closely as I can.
 
Brewed that lemongrass beer today. Efficiency was 75 in the end. Now I'm not sure how f the recipe calculator adds the late addition honey in with brew day percentages anyone know about this? Does it take your late addition fermentables into account when calculating mash efficiency and brew house? Anyhow the ginger is subtle like I wanted lemongrass is more aroma than taste I added it a 5 minutes because scared of infection let it sit at flameout for 20min.

Note to anyone adding lemongrass or ginger to kettle watch for blockages on transfer lol:D. I ended up up ending kettle into fermentor.
 

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Righto now to add next phase of brew my honey lemon grass syrup added to secondary.
I've added 15g ginger 50g lemongrass and 500 g raw local honey to thermomix with 500g water and mixed on75c for half hour gunna add,this to fermentor. Took an hydge reading she's sitting at 1.014 ATM tastes like typical ginger beer but I'd say subdued ginger no throat bite. honey and extra lemongrass hopefully will change dynamic as I can't detect any lemongrass at all time will tell:).

A ginger note I've picked ginger before there are two types of ginger green ginger and brown ginger brown ginger is 2 year old ginger I've used this,type in this brew green ginger is 1st year ginger not as strong and spicy as brown there ya go :rolleyes:. There are different verietys too Asian galangal I'm not savvy on this typeo_O anyone used that one?
 

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