Edme wheat beer - watery and flat

[booktownman]

I brewed a 40pt Edme wheat beer kit, made up to 5gallons in my bin as per instructions. Fermented for a week, then bottled with half a teaspoon of sugar to each pint bottle to prime.

The beer is very watery, almost see-through, not at all like an opaque (white) wheat beer. It has a bit of fizz, bit not much. Anyone got any experience of this kit - is the kit the problem, or the brewer? I've been put off bothering again.

Cheers,


Rob

[pauljmuk]

kit beers that come out watery can be improved by using spraymalt instead of sugar - in this case wheat spray malt.

AS for cloudy nature of wheat beer - I've never known the deal here with hombrew wheat beer - I think with commercial wheat brews, you are supposed to invert the bottle before pouring - ie - mix the sediment back - as for homebrew though, don't know.

[mattturner]

What yeast comes with this kit?

That will have a HUGE impact on the flavour of the beer.

[booktownman]

I did start another thread about re-priming the beer. Would uncapping the lot and adding a dose of dried whealt malt help flavour and fizz?

Cheers.

[Invalid Stout]

Wheat beer on its own doesn't mean much. Is the intended result a German-style wheat beer like Erdinger, a Belgian-style one like Hoegaarden, a British one ... ? The first two should be cloudy, the last doesn't necessarily have to be any cloudier than your average real ale, depending on what the brewer had in mind.

[Invalid Stout]

I should have googled before posting. Ah well. This is supposed to be a Bavarian-style wheat beer according to http://brewgadgets.com/edmebeerkits.htm.

That also says:
"To brew this beer you will also need 2.75 lbs light or wheat dried malt extract. "

Before going any further can we confirm that you did add this, aye?

[booktownman]

Hi - that isn't the one I brewed, I did this one:

http://www.brew-it-yourself.co.uk/shop/ ... cts_id=526

No mention of adding spray malt here, nor was there in the instructions. Just add sugar was what it said.

Again, is it worth trying to re-prime the bottles with some dried wheat malt?

Cheers,

Rob

[Invalid Stout]

The half teaspoon of sugar should really have been plenty. How long has it been in the bottle?

[mattturner]

Hi - that isn't the one I brewed, I did this one:

http://www.brew-it-yourself.co.uk/shop/ ... cts_id=526

No mention of adding spray malt here, nor was there in the instructions. Just add sugar was what it said.

Again, is it worth trying to re-prime the bottles with some dried wheat malt?

Cheers,

Rob

If you used exactly 1/2 tsp sugar per bottle, and assuming they were 500 ml bottles, you should have a carbonation of 1.9 vol, that is pretty low for a wheat beer to be honest.
When bottling I use a priming bucket and add all the sugar for the batch in one go (and then bottle from that), this allows a much better idea of the carbonation level I will get as well as uniformly carbonating all the bottles.

Are you chilling the beer before opening, we all know that CO2 dissolves more readily in a cooler liquid. How long have you let these bottles sit to carbonate? I've they have been in the bottles for 2 weeks then they should be pretty much done.

You are asking about dried wheat malt, you do mean wheat malt extract right, not just wheat malt? Adding some malt extract may help, but it will be exactly the same (carbonation wise) as adding sugar, as you already have done.

To put this into perspective, I brewed a wheat beer last weekend, I've now kegged it and am aiming for a carbonation of 2.5 to 3 volumes. I used a Bavarian wheat yeast with very low flocculation to achieve the cloudiness appropriate to the style. Using a standard larger or British ale yeast with good flocculation will lead to a much clearer beer and a different flavour, yeast left in suspension will change the flavour of the beer, although I'm not sure I could describe how.
If you used a larger yeast, this will impart very few flavours to the beer, a wheat yeast on the other hand will change the flavour of the beer dramatically during fermentation.

[booktownman]

Cheers all for that.

Yes I meant wheat malt extract. This was just a kit, so I did what it said on the tin - 2 days to carbonate then stick somewhere cooler to improve.

I'll be buying a yeast specific for the purpose next time....