Raspberry Wheat

December 21, 2008

Yesterday I was able to bottle up the West Coast Pale Ale to free up the fermenter for the next batch, Raspberry Wheat. This may turn out to be a favorite of mine since one of my favorite Microbrew beers is a Raspberry Wheat, Abita Purple Haze. Raspberries go great in beer, it is the perfect fruit for beers, Cherry is right behind.

My wife Sally and James were spending the day in the mall, which gave me plenty of time to get brewing. I grabbed the wisk and measuring cup, stuck it in the fermenter, dropped a tablespoon of One-Step sanitizer in, added a few quarts of warm water, shook everything, and let it set for 15-20 minutes. Then I added some sanitizer to the blender and the 4 quart pot I use to make the wort. I drained the sanitizer from the fermenter into the pot and blender, gave the blender a nice shake and let it and the pot set for another 15 minutes, if there is one thing I have learned is the sanitization process is the single most important in homebrewing.

Poured 4 cups of spring water into the pot, then added a packet of Booster, (I'll start using UME later), These ingredients add the additional sugars needed to create the appropriate amount of alcohol. Booster simply adds the required sugar, and UME's add the required sugar and additional flavor. Once the Booster was added, it took about 25 minutes of nonstop stirring to break it up, since it clumps when added to water.

While waiting for the Booster to dissolve, I opened a can of Oregon Fruit Red Raspberries in Heavy Syrup, poured it into the blender and purreed it for almost 25 minutes.

Once the Booster is fully completely dissovled, I brought the water to a boil and held it for 20 or so minutes, then turned the heat off and added 1lb can of Whispering Wheat Weizenbier, then stirred that up for another 15 or so minutes, this is called wort.

I poured the wort into to the fermenter, then added the purreed Red Raspberries, boy did that smell good :). After stirring that for another 15-20 minutes, I cracked open the packet of yeast and threw it in, waited 5 minutes, stirred and closed the fermenter.

January 4th, 2009.

Bottling day for the Raspberry Wheat, dropped a tablespoon of One-Step Sanitizer into the pot, along with a few measuring spoons that'll be needed later, added warm water. Then took another tablespoon of One-Step in another pot, mixed it up nicely, and filled 22 empty Sam Adams bottles, laid a cap on top and shook each bottle, this way the cap gets sanitized also. Since it was midnight when I decided to to this, I thought I'd have a few Sam Adams Cherry Wheat while bottling, have to empty out more bottles for later right?