Home Brew Forum

Permitted a brewday yesterday . Since the chance comes all to seldom nowadays and to make life as difficult as possible for myself (something I seem to be pretty good at ) I decided to do two different beers from the same mash. I've seen this type of thing done with English beers before but never with the German ones so why not? The grist was 55% wheat malt, 35% Pilsner malt & 10% Munich malt.

From the first runnings I drew off enough wort for 5 litres @ 1.080 (actually 4 and a bit litres of wort + some water to make the OG). The results of steeping some crystal malt (~3.5%) and chocolate malt (~1.5%) were added to give it the bock sweet roastyness and colour. 60 minute boil with Hallertauer to estimated 22 IBU.

From second runnings I was able to get 15 litres @ 1.039 which I boiled down for 1.5 hours to 1.044 with Hallertauer again to 13 IBU. Slightly lower gravity than expected but near as damn it.

Both batches were pitched with 3/4 litre starters of Wyeast 3068 and to say they are currently fermenting would be a bit of an understatement .

Unbelieveably there were no hitches or problems in the whole day even though I had two toddlers running around my legs for most it. Now just have to wait to see if it was worth doing .

seems like things went well. hope they both taste great

With all that hot liquor two toddlers running around your legs will always keep your mind focused on the job ... looks like a great brew

You're a brave man johnh, I'm proud of you, especially doing it with the german stuff javascript:emoticon(':D')
Very Happy

Sounds like you had a good day

Nice! I'll be interested to hear how the weizenbock turns out

Bottled the weizen last weekend and coudn't resist pouring myself a half pint 'taster'. Very nice it was too.

The weizenbock took over 2 weeks to stop fermenting. For the first three days it was spewing foam through the airlock like there was no tomorrow. Automatic trub removal! I was in two minds whether to bottle it or rack it to secondary to condition. In the end provedance (i.e. lazyness) made me decide rack it to secondary. Surprisingly it tastes like a combination of it's ingredients. Strong hefe (cloves and banana evident), a roastyness coming from the chocolate malt and a warming alcohol at the end (at 8.5% it should be ). Can't help feeling there's a 'gap' though. Maybe some black malt to deepen the colour and flavour?