Okay, so I started this venture like everyone I assume. I love beer, there are so many different variations, and I seem to really love the difficult beers. The complex, medium-full bodied, medium love of bitters (not an IPA junky - there is so much more to great beer than how bitter can we go), and I can not get enough of English dark malty beers, and Belgium spicy and funky yeasts, or German hazy chewy foamy delightful biers. With this all being said, my wife finally had enough of listening to me ramble on on and on, and gave me the go ahead to just start brewing.
With all of this in mind, I set out for a fruity, medium bodied, bready, sweet, fist full of wheat, high haze, etc. German/Bavarian inspired Raspberry wheat ale. So assuming I would make a beer inspired by an Ayinger Bier - Brau-Weisse. So bready, banana, clove, nutmeg, medium-light hop, and ADD an big Raspberry sweet/tartness that blends well with the style. Also because that is a beer both my wife and I really enjoy. I tried to dip in a little darker than the Hefeweizen and lean closer to the Dunkelweizen. To my surprise the .25 lbs of Special B Malt (3% of my grain bill) gave me that black tea color and that roastey-red color at first during mash out and boil. When I poured it over to the primary it was this great orange-red-yellow blend that really looked like a light Dunkelweizen and very suprised at the stone fruit smell of my experimental hops {El Dorado} At any rate. Super confused 5 days into primary I thief out some beer to check on my progress. It looks exactly like Berliner-style Weisse! So super confused, poured black tea to get a very hazy blonde almost cream ale color. My big question is what happened?
I did taste a shot of it after I took the gravity. Added 1/4tsp of Raspberry Extract to get an idea of what it was going to give me. Understanding that this is Un-carbonated far from final product of the beer, but I wanted an idea. Much to my surprise as well I had a very pleasant creamy banana texture and smell on the beer, a bit more hops that I was looking for, and a smooth finish. After adding the Raspberry I got absolutely none of that flavor which concerned me...
Also my OG - was 1.059 and 5 days into it, its still fermenting strong but Gravity is standing at 1.020 so obviously it has much more to go. Super excited about racking it over to condition, but it looks like (assuming) I have a day or two to go. Now when I say strong fermenting, there are bubbles every 3-5 seconds and the lid is really bubbled over. I have it on a blow-off tube to a sani-bucket, and the lid is still puffed up. And like I said on day 5 (5 full days in 4 hours from now)
Another BIG topic on my mind is I am adding Raspberry Extract to my Bottling/Carbonation stage. Which leads me to wonder how much I will really need. I keep seeing online forums talk about Vanilla extract and how quickly it gets lost in the bottle. I really would like the Raspberry notes to be present but not overpowering. Also I would love to know what my beer tastes like in a year or two. And would love to know if the raspberry will just disappear by then. My initial thought was putting in 4-5 oz, yup oz, of Raspberry extract to my 5.25 gallons. But I read that if it were Vanilla that would be WAY TO MUCH. Advise?