Thanksgiving Cranberry Wheat Ale
Here is an extract version of a recipe I made a few years back. It was a great beer, a little too tart on the cranberries after it aged a bit. So either cut the berries by one third or be sure to drink it up while it’s fresh. (The latter being preferable to the former).
Here is the recipe reproduced here with a few modifications I had to make for local ingredients. The original version of this appeared in the October 2005 edition of BYO magazine!!! We love that mag.
1.5lbs Muntons wheat dried malt extract
3.3 lbs Coopers Wheat liquid malt extract
2.0 lbs of golden clover honey
3.0 lbs of whole cranberries
2 medium navel oranges (seedless)
2 medium apples (Granny Smith)
1/4 tsp. of yeast nutrients
1/2 tsp. of pectic enzyme (dissolved in a little beer before racking)
5 AAU Williamete hops (30 mins) (1.0 oz pellets/23g of 5% alpha acids)
Safale US-05 dried ale yeast (2 packages, formerly US-56)
1.25 cups corn sugar for priming
Brew this up adding the liquid extract late (20 miutes left in boil). Add yeast nutrients right at the end of boil before your kill the flame. Ferment in primary for 7 days. Blend all the fruit in a food processor to make a rough relish; rinds, peels, seeds and all!!!. Put that in the bottom of a secondary fermentor. Rack the beer on top of it. Save a little 8oz of beer and dissolve the pectic enzyme in it. After it is dissolved, dump it in the fermentor. I let mine sit in the primary for ten days, seven may be better to avoid over tarting from those berries.
on November 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
What a great Thanksgiving beer recipe!
on October 19th, 2010 at 9:12 pm
[...] http://www.brew-dudes.com/thanksgiving-cranberry-wheat-ale/117 [...]
on November 29th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Is there any chance you can send me the original recipe? I’d like to compare the two and come up with a recipe for the holidays. Thanks!
on December 1st, 2010 at 5:22 pm
We’ll have to dig it up, Steph.
on September 15th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Is this for a 3 gal batch?
on September 15th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Tim:
This is for a 5 gallon batch. If you have other questions about it let us know.
on September 21st, 2011 at 10:51 am
you say to add clover honey—in the boil or in secondary?
on November 13th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Ryan, I haven’t made this beer, but you don’t want to boil honey. You could pasteurize it if you wanted, I just add it to primary.
on December 14th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Someone may be able to explain to me why Rich thinks this is wrong, but when I have used honey in extract brewing in the past I have added it to the boil without issue, though usually not for the duration of the boil (i did 30 minutes in a honey hefeweizen). My understanding is the shorter the boil, the more aromatic the honey will be, while a longer boil will yield subtle honey flavors in the beer.
on December 28th, 2011 at 11:24 am
I think the main issue about boiling the honey is the effect it has on the aromatics. I don’t think it is necessary wrong to boil the honey, it’s more about what you want to have in your final product.