Apricot wheat ale extract recipe – advice and opinions

Question

This is my first recipe design! I've brewed a couple of extract and all-grain batches, with moderate success. This time around I will be trying to clone an apricot wheat ale. The original is a very easy drinking, light ale with prominent apricot flavour. Looking to do an extract brew for a simple pragmatic recipe and efficient brew day. Here is my recipe so far: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/587917/apricot-wheat-ale-clone

Planning to brew 5 gallons of beer. I'm aiming to get as close as possible to ABV = 5%, IBU = 15, OG = 1.063, FG = 1.025, and use Williamette and Golding hops, all according to the stats on the original beer. I will add 4 oz of Brewer's Best apricot flavouring as well as my priming sugar to the bottling bucket before I bottle.

Main concern right now is a low OG/FG. The desired 1.063/1.025 seem high for a light wheat ale.

I'm looking to validate my assumptions! I have very little experience and would appreciate any help if there are some dumb mistakes here.

1. Not sure how to design the hop and boil schedule.

   • It looks like Williamette and Golding have somewhat similar attributes, so the order seems arbitrary to me. 30 and 15 min additions bring me close to my target 15 IBU. Is there a good rule or logic to apply here?
   • This is a 30 minute boil purely as a consequence of the 30 minute hop boil time. Should I change the boil time at all?

2. Does it make sense to use 2 lb of maltodextrin?

   • I've been seeing that 8 oz is standard, 1 lb can be done, but according to Brewer's Friend, 2 lb would bring my OG and FG exactly where they need to go. It's tempting!

3. I chose the Safale S-05 to mimic an "american wheat ale".

   • Don't want spicy/clove flavours to dominate the apricot flavouring I will add. I also chose dry Safale to keep it simple.
   • Does it make more sense to use a different yeast with lower attenuation so as not to bring my FG down below 1.025?

4. For steeping grain, I chose to add Carafoam malts based on a fruit weissbier recipe I saw.

   • I replaced Carapils with Carafoam as my LHBS doesn't have Carapils at the moment. (It does have Caramel Pils, is that about the same?)
   • Any educated suggestions on potential steeping grains I can use to raise OG and FG or for other benefits?

5. Planning on a 7-10 day fermentation with no secondary (keeping it simple).

Answer 1

Mostly everything there looks good.

Exception is the use of maltodextrin which is non-fermentable. So it will increase the OG and FG but not the ABV resulting in a beer that may be too sweet and unbalanced. Also steeping cara malts will also be mostly unfermentable sugars adding to the high FG. Yes carapils and carafoam are about the same, just different brand names.

As a note I've used most of the "natural" fruit extracts in various beers. To my taste they always come out tasting artificial like a those fruit flavors found in hard candy. Have since only used real fruit either added at 170° on the chill, or late in fermentation.

7-10 days may be a little short, I would allow for 21 days. But as always it's done when it's done. Check FG.