Dunklewiesen recipe

[leedsbrew]

Planning a dunkelweizen next week and want to sort out a new recipe as my last one was a bit too sweet for my tastes.

I've come up with the following and wondered what comments or adjustments people might make!

65% wheat malt
21% Munich I
6% Munich II
5% special B
3% carafa special III

18 IBU'S Hal Herts


Wlp300


Boom

What cha think?

Ta

LB

[dave-o]

Special B in a dunkel? Is that your idea or are there famous Dunkels that use it? I can see it being good though - plummy and raisiny but rich and creamy too.

[leedsbrew]

It's not my idea. It forms part of the grain bill for the recipe in 'Brewing classic styles'. I have no idea if it's traditional or not. I was contemplating lowering the % of it and adding some melanoidin malt as well.

The style guidelines say

"The soft, somewhat bready or grainy flavor of wheat is complementary, as is a richer caramel and/or melanoidin character from Munich and/or Vienna malt. The malty richness can be low to medium-high, but shouldn’t overpower the yeast character."

the BCS recipe has 3% special B so may drop mine down, add 1.5% melanoidin and make the rest up with munich.

[greenxpaddy]

I think the key to a good dunkel is lots of dark wheat malt....

Special B - I've used in a Dubel but maybe too much for a dunkel. You can always add it in very small quantity.

[Lugsy]

Now that looks like a tasty recipe LB, I've been thinking about having another go at one of these and you've set me off again

I used 150g (just under 3%) of Special B in mine and it was pretty good, gave a nice flavour. Go for it!

[Barley Water]

I am extremely interested in this topic because I have not figured out how to get a really good Dunkelweizen myself. I have had decent sucess in contests with my heffe but not with the dunkel version. I tried the darker wheat myself last time I made it but that did not get the job done. I also was very 'ancy about putting Special B in a German beer because I was afraid that it would add roasted notes which is a deal killer in this style. Also, and I don't know why, but I couldn't get the yeast to influence the flavor of the beer as much as I could with the heffe, maybe I just screwed up somewhere along the line (and I employed all my standard wheat bier making tricks). I think the dunkel verison is going to be heavier than the helles verison and I suppose that is ok but I don't like beer that is super sweet which also scared me off adding Special B. However, if the Great Jamil says to do it, my advice would be to give it a shot. I have had extremely good luck using his formulations. Recently I tried using his formulation for Munch Helles and it came out really, really well. I suppose I'll see if I have a clue since the beer is getting entered into our big contest coming up in March. Anyhow, brew it up and report back with your results, inquiring minds just want to know.