Experimental Flavors - Advice Needed

General Homebrew Discussion
1

Hi! This spring, I want to make a blackberry porter and an elderflower-lemon Belgian white (unless someone thinks a Hef would be better).

I’ve never made a porter or a Belgian white (or a hef for that matter, still new to this), and I was wondering if anyone had some advice on choosing a basic porter and Belgian recipe that would work well with the extra flavors.

Thanks!

2

Welcome to the forum, satinejaune!

Try these recipes if just starting out:

These kits contain no yeast.  For the porter I would suggest Lallemand Nottingham ale yeast.  To turn the hefeweizen recipe into a Belgian white, simply use WLP400 yeast instead of a hefe yeast, or you could even try Lallemand Belle Saison yeast if you want a dry yeast option.  These recipes and yeasts will get you what you want.

I thought for sure you were going to ask about how to add the fruit flavors, to which I would have responded:

  1. Use real blackberries, about 1 pound per gallon, added at the end of primary fermentation, then allow to ferment for a couple of weeks.

and

  1. At the end of Belgian white fermentation, soak elderflower leaves and the zest of about one lemon in vodka for at least 5-6 hours or overnight, then add just the flavored vodka to your finished beer, and package immediately.

Cheers and good luck.  Hope you get what you like out of all this.  Cheers.

EDIT: Looks like you will also need a small steeping bag.  If you don’t already have one, try this:

3

Maybe you already have a plan for the elderflower-lemon beer, but as an alternative to Dave’s idea about making a flavor extract:

Years ago in England I had a friend whose mother made elderflower-lemon “champagne.”  She boiled the elderflowers and zest with sugar and water and fermented that.  (Lots of folksy “wines,” ginger beer etc are made this way.)  So you could add the flowers and zest towards the end of the boil for your beer.  (But don’t boil the berries, do like Dave says.  Pectin would give you jam, not beer!)

And welcome to the forum!  We all dig beer!