Brewing Master

Question:

I am looking to make my first brew with raspberries and would appreciate any recipes, tips, etc. Thanks in advance.

Without trying to sound flippant – put about 7 lbs of raspberries in your favorite light ale recipe and tweak the hop profile way down.  I made a wonderful strawberry blonde about 2 months ago – I’ll include the recipe here.  Substitute raspberries, and it should produce an outstanding brew….                            SUDS Recipe Report                        Page: 1    Category         :  Fruit Beer    Method           :  Full Mash    Starting Gravity :  1.049    Ending Gravity   :  1.012    Alcohol content  :  4.7%    Recipe Makes     :  5.0 gallons    Total Grain      :  9.00 lbs.    Color (srm)      : 13.5    Efficiency       :  75%    Hop IBUs         : 20.4 Malts/Sugars:   6.00 lb. American Two-Row   1.00 lb. American Crystal 30L   1.00 lb. American Victory   1.00 lb. Cara-Pils Dextrine Hops:  0.25 oz. Yakima Magnum   14.0% 60 min  0.50 oz. Cascade          4.1% 20 min  0.50 oz. Cascade          4.1%  5 min Boil temperature of water: 212F Grain Starting Temperature: 80F Desired Grain/Water Ratio: 1 quarts/pound Strike Water:  2.25 gallons of water at 172F First Mash Temperature: 153F Water Absorbed by Grain:  0.90 gal Water Evaporated during boil:  0.75 gal Wort Left in Brewpot:  0.33 gal Add  4.73 gal of water to yield  5.0 gal of wort Rack to secondary with 7# of well crushed strawberries – I pasturized mine at 170 for 15 minutes.  Got major pectin haze, but hey, I brew for my own benefit!  After the berries ferment out, rack off to a tertiery for a week or so.  I also ‘lagered’ it to try to drop out the haze – didn’t work, but it tasted great.  The beer has a _lot_ of body – I designed it that way. I used the yakima hops because they were in the freezer.  Use whatever you have for bittering, just remember to adjust it down – yakima is a rather robust hop.  I used the cascade to get a bit of citrus, and a cultured Chimay yeast for charater – the yeast’s profile set off the strawberry very nicely. You could use just about anything, of course.  1056 is a perennial fave. Rich Moore

Response:

: I am looking to make my first brew with raspberries and would appreciate : any recipes, tips, etc. Here’s how I make my Rasberry Bragot (5gal batch): Ingredients:    Standard beer recepe[5# light dutch dry malt,                         2oz. brewing hops, 1oz finishing hops]                 5# Honey                 6# frozen rasberries                 2 packs London Ale yeast                 Tap water to 5 gals Heat 2gals water. When reaches a boil, remove from heat and mix in malt. Return to heat.  When it reaches a boil again, remove from heat and add honey.  Mix well!!  Return to heat.  When wort reaches boil, add brewing hops.  Keep at a LOW boil for 1 hour.  Add finishing hops 1 minute before end of hour.  Remove heat after 1 hour and let hops steep for 5-10 mins.  At end of steep time, remove hops and add water to 4 gallons. Place thermometer in wort.  When wort’s temperature is around 170F, put frozen berries into 6 gallon plastic bucket, and then pour the still hot wort into the bucket ont op of the frozen berries.  Add water until a few inches short of the top of the bucket(Leave plenty of room in top of bucket for kruzen, there will be a lot!).  When wort reaches about 90F, add yeast. Seal bucket (lid should have an airlock). As soon as airlock activity has stopped, screen out berries and syphon wort into glass carboy.  When wort clears(about 2 weeks in secondary), it’s time to bottle.  If wort hasn’t cleared by two weeks in secondary, rack wort into another carboy, wait for it to clear and then bottle.  Add 1cup corn sugar to wort at bottling for carbonation. Let age for 2 months.  There is a tartness that will mellow with time. jim

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