I wanted to find out what yeast strain works best with different fruit flavors of wheat beer. My question is what yeast strain works with what fruit better? Saisonstein Monster or the English yeast? Will the head retention/ carbonation hold up in the English yeast or will we have to force carbonate off the bat?

Based on brewing an apple wheat beer  a few months prior I suspected that the  English yeast may be better because the  carbonation/head retention lasted longer in  the long haul. I also think since I had to force  carbonate the English yeast it may have  sustained the carbonation longer than the  Saison because the Saison batch we didn’t  need to force carbonate.

We started the brew on March 5th and used both white wheat malt and pilsner grain for the mash. I decided to brew the base wheat beer and add the fruit additions  once the batches are split and let them start to ferment.

The additions I did make during brewing the base wheat was adding a pinch of 45, 45, 10 Citric, Malic, Tartaric directly to the post-sparged wort to adjust the pH and it goes well with the citric fruit  components. I also added Fuggle hops 30 minutes in separated the wheat beer into 4 separate batches:

• Strawberry + Saison Yeast,
• Strawberry + English Yeast,
• Lemonade + Saison Yeast and
• Lemonade + English Yeast.

I then measured out the lemonade which was 4 tubes in each of the two batches. Then I measured out 1.25 lbs of  strawberry concentrate in the last two batches. After the fruit  additions I pitched both the  strawberry batches at a rate of  2 x 10⁷ cells/mL and both  lemonades at 1.9 x 10⁷ cells/mL. The original gravities for the brews were as follows: Strawberry + English at 19.4°P, Strawberry + Saison at 19.1°P, Lemonade + Saison at 18.2°P and Lemonade + English at 18.3°P.

I learned so much from doing this practicum since I got more hands on experience brewing beer. I started to feel more comfortable with the brewing process and now I feel like I kind of know where to start when I am off on my own.