Brewday - wheat beer

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the_city_of_homebrew

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Just doughed in.

2.4kg pale malt
2.4kg wheat

Will be adding:
32g saaz @ 60 mins
25g coriander @ 10 mins
25g curaçao @ 10 mins
1 whirlfoc @ 15 mins

Using wlp400 Belgian yeast (could be 440 but I cannot remember which!)

Mashing for 90 minutes as doing a BIAB, and will be dunk sparging in 10L.

Ferment at 23 degrees, then cold condition at 14 degrees.
 
Wow this yeast goes off!!!

With only 5 hours in the fermenter the yeast took off like MJ fox in 1985.

With 12 hours on the clock the wort was starting to have a foam layer on top and with 24 hours it's the largest foam created I've ever seen. Completely took over the entire FV and almost a blow off needed. Seems to have calmed down a touch on day 3.

Research suggests that wheat beers traditionally ferment out very quickly and then just need conditioning. Is it possible that this one will be complete in 7 days?
 
I'm interested in this brew because I'm thinking about doing a wheat beer next. Did you use raw wheat or wheat malt?

I have a stack of raw wheat and my own grinder and I've been thinking that with a good malted barley contribution like in your grain bill, there is enough diastatic power in the barley to convert raw wheat. I'm just not sure how much I could get away with. I started a thread on this last week but nobody replied.
 
Tony1951 said:
I'm interested in this brew because I'm thinking about doing a wheat beer next. Did you use raw wheat or wheat malt?

I have a stack of raw wheat and my own grinder and I've been thinking that with a good malted barley contribution like in your grain bill, there is enough diastatic power in the barley to convert raw wheat. I'm just not sure how much I could get away with. I started a thread on this last week but nobody replied.
Click to expand...

This might help...

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=1886.0
 
clibit said:
This might help...

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=1886.0
Click to expand...

Thanks Clibit. Maybe if I did a course grind (of the wheat) and made about 30% of the grain bill out of the wheat, I can make a nice light, crispy beer out of it. I'll take a look at the Greg Hughes book for likely hopping arrangements. I'm quite excited about this experiment. Hopefully, I can put something tasty together. I especially want good body, so I will try and get the mash to work at about 69C, and hopefully there will be residual sweetness too.

Just looking back over the above - maybe some of my requirements look contradictory. When I say 'light' I mean in taste not body.
 
I have seen some great recipes with 25-30% wheat. My suggestion would be to go for more of a hop focus than with a German wheat beer. Use an ale yeast and go for nice hops. Citra, motueka, Centennial, Nelson Sauvin would all be good. A light fluffy pale beer with a fruity zing. This kind of thing...

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=55228
 
clibit said:
I have seen some great recipes with 25-30% wheat. My suggestion would be to go for more of a hop focus than with a German wheat beer. Use an ale yeast and go for nice hops. Citra, motueka, Centennial, Nelson Sauvin would all be good. A light fluffy pale beer with a fruity zing.
Click to expand...

Sounds perfect. As you know I am a sucker for a bit of citra. Maybe some Admiral for bittering and a late addition of citra.

I'm thinking maybe -
2kg MO
1kg Raw Wheat
US05
Finished brew about 23L

20g Admiral @60
20g EKG @5
20g Citra @0


Using the Brewer's Friend calculator that recipe looks like coming out at about 3% ABV at about 39 IBU. If I upped the MO to 3kg leaving the wheat the same it seems to work out about 4% ABV.


Any comment on this arrangement would be welcome.
 
I like the look of it. I'd use more hops though, especially at 0 or dry. And consider trying Motueka or Centennial. For a change.
 
I'm salivating at these 2 recipes, will definitely get around to brewing something soon.
 
What would you suggest then Clibit? I am a beginner after all. I'd want to stick with the hops that I have available which is why I suggested the ones I listed.

I also have progress, ekg, aurora, cascade for the early and late hops, and I do like my Citra ..... :)

Would you go for 2kg MO or 3kg? I'm not overly concerned if it was on the stronger side... What I want is a great beer.
 
I'd probably use 3kg as you don't know what efficiency you'll get with the unmalted wheat. If you use that. For hops, by all means use Citra. But you could use Citra, Cascade and Aurora, I bet that would work well.
 
i've done a couple of tasty wheat beers, but this is more in line with clibits suggestion.

forgive me Lord Vader - I did use some grain ;)

Brew 5: Noah Knows
14/03/2015

4 litres of Tesco chase spring.
500g wheat crystal malt steeped for 30 mins at 65 deg c. in 3 litres .
Used 1 litre of boiled water to keep temp at 65 deg c +
then added
1 kg spraymalt wheat
2 kg light dme
15 g amarillo & galaxy 15 mins boil (in muslin bag)
45 g amarillo & galaxy (in muslin bag) at flameout then stir for 10 minutes 5 minute hop rest

After boil, stir and hop rest poured wort,boiled and flameout hops into fv and
topped up to 21 litres.
yeast (safbrew wb-06) pitched at 28 deg c.
1.058 og calibrated to 20 deg c

remove hop bags in 5 days (19/3/2015)
wait 4 days then dry hop (23/3/2015)
40 g amarillo & galaxy for 5 days
28/03/2015
FG 1011 adjusted for temp
130g brewing sugar
6.17%
17.5 litres bottled
Gravity sample taste, bitter and fruity. Not too sweet.
04/04/2015
plenty of carbonation, orange and tropical fruit, plenty of bitterness needs to mellow a bit,
11/04/2015
bitterness blending well, orange aftertaste - beautiful.

full wheat dme beers are ready sooner IME than hybrids and they don't necessarily fall off a cliff. I had the last but one of the first wheat beers I brewed in mid April and it is still as good as the first. The hybrid still kept getting better.
 
Racked this into secondary this afternoon and conditioning at 13 degrees for a few weeks.

Smells fantastic.

Quick gravity reading shows 1008 so should be around the 4.6% mark. The yeast attentuated down 80%, it was the quickest yeast I've ever known!

Taste from the hydrometer leaves a distinct wheat beer taste. The coriander and orange notes come through from the off, I'd expect these to calm down a little by drinking time.

What are people's opinions on carbonation with this style? I'll be bottling for the first time in a number of brews, so presuming batch priming is the way forward still.
 
I use this as a rough guide....

http://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/

there are style guide examples listed below it.

I use 130g dextrose in the bottling bucket (pre-dissolved in 500ml sterile water) then decant via auto syphon around 20 litres for wheats. You will get a two to three finger head in a wheat beer glass dependant on how chilled it is when serving of course.
 
I made the 'wheat beer' yesterday and just drained off the boiler (no cool) into the FV. I don't seem to have got any sugars from the wheat - which was un-malted, raw wheat. The reading I did suggests that there would be enough diastatic power in the MO (3kg to 1kg of wheat) but my specific gravity readings come out at only 1032 which is more or less exactly what I would have got from 3kg of MO in 23 litres of finished wort. In fact at the end of the process, I only got just over 20l, losing some to the trub and hops at the bottom of the boiler. So, not sure I can call this a wheat beer really, although it does seem to have gained some head retention properties of a higher order than I am used to - it froths up pretty well, I mean.

The flavour is very light and the bitterness about right, near as I can judge from the un-brewed wort in the sample jar.

In the end I went with the following hopping schedule:

@60 mins - 20g Admiral
@ 1 min - 20g EKG

@ 90C after turn off 17g Progress
@88C after turn off 20g Citra.

The last two are a bit unorthodox, but done because I am runninga no-cool system at the moment and I didn't want the flavour/aroma hops sitting around at high temperature for hours.

This morning, 18 hours after turn off the wort was at 40C. Still cooling in teh shed.

The wort is light in colour. Not sure how this will turn out. Time will tell.
 
You will have some flavour and character from the wheat, I'm sure, as you get with steeping grains. It's a great experiment and I reckon the chances of it turning out well are very good. I'm surprised you got zero sugars from the wheat, but I wasn't expecting your overall efficiency to be great, maybe 60%.
 

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