How to brew wheat beer

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paulgough

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I am hoping to brew an all grain wheat beer next.

I read somewhere that I need to do a decoction mash.

Does anyone have any instructions on how to do it using an insulated cool box mash tun?
 
Dave1970 said:
I've done Alemans Effin Erdinger very successfully with a standard single temp mash, I think using the right yeast and getting the temps right in fermentation are very important for this beer though
I was going to say something very like that :grin: :thumb:

Yeast (Vital) and Fermentation regime (Important) are the critical things to develop the right flavour balance. . . . Doing a Ferrulic Acid Rest (via a stepped/decoction/infusion mash) is helpful in bringing the clove flavours into balance, but NOT critical ;)
 
I have done a Paulaner clone using using a single infusion mash and Wyeast Hefeweizen yeast and must say it is excellent - plenty of banana with a hint of cloves fermented at 22 degrees.
 
Whilst I'm not in Pittsy's league I do like a nice weissbier.

For your 1st wheaty a standard single infusion mash will be ok ,

Pick a nice yeast if you can afford it , WLP380 is very nice.

Maintaining stable temps during fermentation is important with wheat beers to get the different flavours as the yeast work through various temp ranges but you don't need to worry about this for your 1st time.

Don't worry too much about stuck sparges due to wheat, I've only every had one, a quick blow up the outlet pipe from your mashtun and it will clear. I bought oat hulls before I first brewed a wheaty and they are still in the bag unopened.

Once you taste your own AG weissbier commercial brews just don't cut the mustard.

I bottle my Wheaties in plastic bottles and I generally use 150- 160grammes of priming sugar for a 23L batch.

Don't get hung up on decoctions, that's something for you to discuss with the chaffmeister Pittsy, that boy sure knows his wheat!
Hope this info helps and good luck :thumb: :cheers:
 
Hmm, this looks good. I might give it a go once I've converted my fridge to a brewfridge (stuff bought, just have to get around to converting it). Sounds just the thing for a summer brew.

Would I be ok substituting the Tettnang hops for Saaz (obv AA% for AA%)? I've quite a stock of malts and hops at present and would rather not add to them if possible.
 
fbsf said:
Would I be ok substituting the Tettnang hops for Saaz (obv AA% for AA%)? I've quite a stock of malts and hops at present and would rather not add to them if possible.

I believe so , another great thing about wheat beers is that they are best drunk young, my brews get drunk from 4 weeks from pitching the yeast , also it's worth buying a proper "erdinger" style glass and rinsing it with cold water first then poor, leave 1-2" of beer in the bottle and swill it around to get all that goodness out of the bottle then top the glass, hopefully it will look something like this:

0689345c6921f1b98bee53bf0ab61bc2_zpsc84f07ef.jpg


Damn I'm sat at work getting thirsty :cheers:
 
Ok, and no responses from Graysalchemy on this one...

...can you substitute torrified wheat for some of the wheat malt? :eek:

I've got about a kilo and a half of wheat malt, and the same of torri. Would it be bad to try a wheat beer with both of them and 2.5kg MO?

Just trying to save myself postage on the wheat malt. Must be my inner BarnsleyBrewer coming out... ;)
 
fbsf said:
Would I be ok substituting the Tettnang hops for Saaz (obv AA% for AA%)? I've quite a stock of malts and hops at present and would rather not add to them if possible.
Yep not a problem, Hops are not really a big contributor to a wheat beers flavour, so any noble variety is ok.

fbsf said:
...can you substitute torrified wheat for some of the wheat malt? :eek:
NO F*CKING WAY!!!!!!!
Torrified wheat is an invention of the devil and should be shunned. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

At best you can substitute unmalted wheat (as per a Belgian wit Beer) or flaked wheat, but only wheat malt is used in most German Wheat beers. Torrified gives a vile flavour that would be incredibly noticeable in a wheat beer
 
Baldbrewer said:
fbsf said:
Would I be ok substituting the Tettnang hops for Saaz (obv AA% for AA%)? I've quite a stock of malts and hops at present and would rather not add to them if possible.

I believe so , another great thing about wheat beers is that they are best drunk young, my brews get drunk from 4 weeks from pitching the yeast , also it's worth buying a proper "erdinger" style glass and rinsing it with cold water first then poor, leave 1-2" of beer in the bottle and swill it around to get all that goodness out of the bottle then top the glass, hopefully it will look something like this:

0689345c6921f1b98bee53bf0ab61bc2_zpsc84f07ef.jpg


Damn I'm sat at work getting thirsty :cheers:

I reaaaaally wish i didnt see this! haha :rofl: :drink:
 
Looks like i've nothing more to add here , seems my work is done lol , what i would do if i was making my first wheat beer is mash in at 63c for 30 mins then raise temp to 71c for another 30 mins giving you a nice dry beer (although it will taste sweet because low hops) with a bit of body . I feel the step mashes really do make a difference to the product and so does decoction (decoction is just heating then boiling some of the mash with grain which gives a more malty taste ) but that can wait till your 2nd or 3rd brew and then you can notice the improvement yourself . As mentioned i would recommend wlp380 yeast ,
The best recipes (or most of em ) have 40% barley malt (either pilsner or ale malt) and have 60% pale wheat and many also have around 200/300g of a crystal malt like carahell . :cheers:
 
All this beer talk has made me break my "no drinking until at least Thursday rule"
Damn total lack of will power but this tastes good :cheers:

c821da1af63d806738ec10e41c6ddd5f_zps8a656bc8.jpg


FOOTNOTE: just received swmbo's best Les Dawson look oops! :grin:
 
Has anybody had trouble getting good extractions using wheat? if so what did you do to fix it?
 
Wheat should be milled really fine. Milling on the same setting as barley produces too coarse grind.
 
paulgough said:
Great advice! Thanks.

Can't wait to get brewing!

:whistle: or you could pop round mine and BIAB it on the hob. Step mashing made VERY easy... :thumb:
 
Hi,

if someone wants to get the original German yeast - I have just found the English website version of the yeast bank of 'Weihenstephaner Brauerei'. There are also informations about sale and shipment :thumb:

Unfortunately I'm new here and it takes some posts until I can publish links. Therefore please get in touch with me via private message (PM).

Kind regards,
Norbert
 
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