Pretzel wheat beer

jmcnamara

jmcnamara

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I feel like I'm losing a bit of my hard earned street cred here, but we recently had shock top's twisted pretzel wheat and it was pretty good.
I'm starting to build a recipe for it, but there's not a whole lot out there I could find. The bottle definitely said there was wheat, caramel malts, and orange peel, but I didn't taste the Orange at all.
I'm thinking of basically doing a 50/50 wheat and Vienna grist, but with something else to darken it a bit. Maybe some combo of carawheat, brown, and/or chocolate malt.
Then maybe salt it like a gose. Maybe even a little bit of acidulated malt to give a slight sourdough feel.
I'll be working on it over the next few days and then I'll post it here, but any ideas would always be welcome. Thanks!
 
Maybe some Victory or Biscuit malt for a more bready taste? Oh and don't forget to filter and pasteurize :lol:
 
Haha. Well, maybe more "inspired by" than a straight clone.

Side note, I thought to search the recipes here after I posted. One recipe came up and I was really excited. And it turned out to be the draft one I created. Doh!
 
...or get some unsalted pretzels, crush them and throw them in your mash? I wouldn't use salted ones because you can't control the amount sodium added and salt interferes with yeast action. Then add salt as required when you're ready to package. Might be interesting....
 
Some of what I read suggested you don't really get the pretzel flavor with just those in the mash. That'd be too easy if that were the case :)

Looking at it again, is 12 g of salt for 5.5 gallons too much? That seemed to be middle of the road from what I saw
 
I think a bread taste would work best like using Victory or morris otter or both the get that bready flavor then just add salt, the taste is up to you, if you start adding any other flavors like caramel, malt or wheat and it might take the flavor away
 
those are fair points. there's surprisingly little out there, the caramel and wheat were specifically mentioned on the packaging for this beer.
oh well, not looking to religously recreate it
 
you can also use a bread yeast, ive heard its good, is taste like bread more than just a biscuit
 
Ozarks Mountain Brew said:
you can also use a bread yeast, ive heard its good, is taste like bread more than just a biscuit
Click to expand...

Dad used to make all his homebrew with bread yeast. It does taste bready yeasty in beer. The old crock with a plywood cover with a hole drilled for the hydrometer to stay floating... I miss that guy. I do like my beer better though.
 
would i treat bread yeast any different than beer yeast? pretty much the same as wlp001?

also, we are talking about the dry stuff in the little packets in the baking aisle at the grocery store, right?
 
yes its the same, use the same amounts, saw a test on the internet using the same lighter beers with 6 different yeast, they said the bread yeast beer tasted better than any lol, although it will be low flocculating
 
sorry, i'm dense. when you say same amount, is it the same amount as if it were dry brewer's yeast or the same amount that i'd use for a load of bread? or are both of those the same thing?

I'm guessing 2 packets wouldn't hurt and would be the simplest way to ensure it gets fermenting
 
I use 2 teaspoons for bread, beer takes 11 grams, its all up to you
 
BUMP... Did you try this stuff? Curious about the bread yeast.
 
Not yet unfortunately. We're trying to brew it with another couple so it may be a while.

But, I am brewing with a friend on saturday, I may get enough to do a gallon or so as a test. I'll definitely report back once some is ready to drink
 
finally brewed this last night as a 1.5 gallon test batch.
i was a little worried about the yeast, i wasn't seeing many bubbles after i'd activated it. went ahead and pitched anyway, and this morning the airlock was bubbling away. we'll see what it's like in a few weeks.
also, does anyone know how fast bread yeast takes to ferment? i'll probably leave it there for a week to be safe, but I have no idea how it'd actually perform
 
Bread yeast is actually the yeast people used during Prohibition. Just as "beer yeast" will make bread, "bread yeast" will make beer. I've tasted beer fermented using sourdough starter and it comes out quite good. It's all S. Cerevisiae. Rehydrate and pitch 11 grams of it - the normal amount that comes in a ready-to-use dry yeast packet - and do let us know how it comes out.
 
For those that have never made pretzels, the difference between them and "regular" bread is that they are boiled in soda water before being baked (as in dissolve Arm&Hammer into boiling water). That's what gives the outer coating to a pretzel its distinctive pretzel taste.

I wonder if there's a way to incorporate this concept into the brewing process to carry over the flavor natively?
 
Crush and ferment unsalted pretzels? Hey, lots of original beer recipes used stale bread. Might be worth a try, use 6-row as a base malt to get enough enzymes....

I'm kettle souring this week using sourdough starter, I might just find unsalted pretzels and try them as a fermentable. But a sweetened pretzel tastes a bit like brown malt, that might be the more conventional answer.
 
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