Wheat Beer Advice

[Rick_UK]

Hi Chaps

Planning a German style weiss at the weekend. I have plenty of lager malt and wheat malt and was wondering if there would be any value in adding some speciality grain as I have some aromatic malt that needs using up from my Leffe clone.

Any advice appreciated.

Rick

[jimmiec]

Why not add a little malt sweetness and aroma, most likely going to be mashing low? I add 10% Munich (or Aromatic or Vienna when I'm out of Munich). The rest of my Hefeweizen is 45% Pilsner and 45% Wheat. I'm not sure were I got it from, may be "Brewing With Wheat." To me the most important is the Wheat and the yeast.

Or just go simple 50% Pilsner and 50% Wheat and save the aromatic for another day. It will keep if stored correctly.

[Rick_UK]

Thanks Jimmie

Think i'll add a touch as I do like the extra aromatic malty notes.

I was just going to do a single infusion mash at 66'C should I go cooler?

Rick

[zgoda]

You will not get much clove flavour without ferulic acid rest at ~44C. Other than that, should be fine.

[Rick_UK]

how would I do a 44'C rest in my cool box mash tun?

Could I just add some cloves to the boil?!

[zgoda]

Add hot water?

Some tool to calc infusion amount would be handy.

[Mitchamitri1]

Add some of the sugars in the form of Sugar Puffs at 15 minutes left to boil - trust me on this one - I guarantee it won't make your wee smell.

[jimmiec]

Don't add cloves that is cheating and not sure it will taste the same. I like getting all the spice and fruit flavors from the yeast.

The last Hefeweizen I did was just a 65C mash and used WLP300 at a fermentation temperature of 16.7C. I got a nice balance of clove and banana flavor and aroma. However, I personally like more clove and raising the fermentation temperture is probably only going to give me more banana. The times before I doughed in at 36C and went through the feurlic rest (44C), skip the protein rest, 64C rest, 71C rest, and 76C rest. I think the feurlic rest does make a difference. However, I have a RIMS system and can just set the temp electronically now days. Before I would do decotions to raise the temperature but watch out for coloring, just bring the grains to a boil and then return to mash. May be starting with a low grain to water ratio for the feurlic rest and adding the appropriate amount of hot water to bring it up to sac rest would be safer (like zgoda says). Can be worked out in Beersmith or whatnot software.

I love brewing wheat beers, Hefeweizen in the spring / summer (also hop a wheat beer like a pale ale and use a clean yeast) and Wiezenbock in the fall / winter.

[Rick_UK]

Thanks for the replies fellas. I now have a dilema as to whether to keep it simple with a single infusion mash or go for the very complex sounding multi stage mash. Someone correct me here but I thought multi stage mashes with protein rests were only required for unmalted grains??

[jimmiec]

The feurlic acid rest is at a temp below the protein rest and produces more feurlic acid which the yeast convert to clove flavors.

The protein rest is debatable whether we need to do any more with the highly modified malts. On Palmer website (http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-4.html) he says "This rest should only be used when using moderately-modified malts, or when using fully modified malts with a large proportion (>25%) of unmalted grain, e.g. flaked barley, wheat, rye, or oatmeal. Using this rest in a mash consisting mainly of fully modified malts would break up the proteins responsible for body and head retention and result in a thin, watery beer. The standard time for a protein rest is 20 - 30 minutes." I'm almost afraid to do a protein rest.

On your setup, you can always test a single infusion mash and another time a multi-step infusion. The single infusion mash hefeweizen I did was pretty good (won 1st at a comp. with entries from all the Louisiana clubs). I think everyones setup (brewing equipment) and procedures are different with different final results.

Same thing for mash temperatures. You got to test and taste which mash temperatures for your system give you the best dry or sweet outcome and to style. Just have good brewing practices and tweak things just a little and see what the outcome is. It is going to be good anyways. Competitions are good at helping you tweak things by reading into the judges comments.

[jimmiec]

By the way Rick_UK, have you made a beer with this much wheat before on your system? You may need rice hulls for sparging and watch your crush. I have had to much flour in my crush before and have had trouble recirculating at the lower temperature but once I get to my 71C step the gummyness seems to go away. After a single infusion mash, a mash out may help with sparging.

[Rick_UK]

Thanks Jimmie, your a star for all this advice! I did a light wit with about 50% torrified wheat and 5% oats a while back and I had no issues with a stuck mash though the run off was quite slow, beer turned out great though! Think i'll keep it simple and go for the single infusion mash at 65'C and keep the fermentation temp around 17'C as you suggest and see how it works out.

Am I pushing my luck by asking what your prize winning recipe was?!

Rick

[jimmiec]

Sounds good RIck_UK. This weekend, I'm going to brew a couple beers but split a 38L (10-gallon) batch into a 19L Hefeweizen and a 19L Wheat Ale (Kolsch yeast and Summit hops). I got to get my yeast going tonight though.

For my recipe, I'll have to look it up when I get home tonight. Can't wait till Beersmith launches their recipe cloud next week.

[Cazamodo]

For my recipe, I'll have to look it up when I get home tonight. Can't wait till Beersmith launches their recipe cloud next week.

Sorry of OT but, I was just debating whetehr to get beersmith or not, and this has just thrown it for me. cheers!

[jimmiec]

If you wouldn't mind doing the unit conversion from US to metric and your volume size. The following was my last Hefeweizen that won in the comp, just a simple recipe:

Recipe: 053 - Hefeweizen - 004
Style: Weizen/Weissbier
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 14.25 gal
Post Boil Volume: 12.48 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 12.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 12.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.051 SG
Estimated Color: 4.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 12.3 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
10 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 45.5 %
10 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 45.5 %
2 lbs Vienna Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 3 9.0 %
0.40 oz Warrior [15.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 12.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Hallertauer [4.80 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 5 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP300) [35. Yeast 6 -

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion
Total Grain Weight: 22 lbs
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Infusion (Add 8.25 gal of water at 156.1F) 147.0 F 90 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F 168.0 F 10 min

Just sub the Vienna for Aromatic. Also just use any low cohumulone hop for bittering (e.g., Magnum or Horizon), I just had a pound of warrior so was using it.