Help With Wheat Beer

[steve_flack]

I've not tried it no. My guess is that it has around 20-40% wheat in it and it's fermented with the breweries standard ale yeast. Most British wheat beers don't try to be like the german ones.

BTW, IMO the Schneider is the best of the bunch you have there.

[J_P]

So far out of the two I've tried it's winning hands down

Wychwood do fiddlers Elbow which I'm not a big fan of I presume that is one of the British wheat beers you are referring to. I really like _All_ of the other wychwood beers too.

I wonder if I could mini mash a light wheat beer made with safale S04 or one of the other wheat beer yeasts suggested to see if I like it before brewing a full sized batch.

The research will continue

[steve_flack]

As a starter I'd go with 25% wheat and 75% pale or lager malt. Hop it with saaz or styrians would be quite nice. Not too much bitterness but a nice big slug at the end to give a nice aroma. I think safale a bit too dirty for a delicate beer like this. US-05 would be good as it's clean but nottingham should work - it's a better settler but that tends to kill hop aroma a little in my experience.

[J_P]

I think safale a bit too dirty for a delicate beer like this. US-05 would be good as it's clean but nottingham should work - it's a better settler but that tends to kill hop aroma a little in my experience.

That's something I'd never even considered . I wonder then if I'm brewing single grain single hop beers should I be using Safale S04 if it takes out the hop aroma I love so much? Are there any other yeasts that are suitable for bottling that won't destroy the delicate flavour of the beer? I was looking at Safbrew S33 from the H&G but thought it might make the beer a little too alcoholic. Safale S04 has produced 2 5%+ AG beers for me and a 5%+ mini-mash do I really need more alcohol in my beers?

This is all good food for thought though.

[Chris The Fish]

i was chatting to the local brew guru down at the microbrewery near here and got chatting on the subject of wheat beers.

Apparently Hoegaarden uses amongst other things, ground corriander seeds and some orange blossom, i imagine added to the boil at the same time as aroma hops (he promptly brought out a big bag to show me so you can buy it from suppliers) to get its unique flavour, cloves were also mentioned but im not sure for the hoegaarden, we were also discussing german beers so another flavour to consider.

this may be no help at all but i like to sound like i know what im talking about.!!

[oblivious]

Wits will use around 50% unimalted wheat, flaked or grain will do, supposable adds a spicy note to the beer, and also supposedly the much left out in Hoegaarden clones grains of paradise. As a posed to malted used in German/ American styles.

It think Brewferm Blanche or T-58 yeast make a great wheat beer, different for other ale yeast but with out the big in your face flavors of the German stains

[bloodoaf]

What a coincidence! I am reading this quaffing a pint of hb Hoegaarden at this very moment. 50/50 raw wheat (2500 g)and maris otter (2500) plus 250 porridge oats.
24g kent goldings and 15g saaz at start of boil then last 15 mins 3 g of curacao orange peel and 3 g ground corainder seeds and another 15 g saaz.
Fermented with safale s4.
Took a full 8 weeks to start tasting like it should but now its in hoegaarden heaven. Looks a bit darker than the real thing but this tastes pretty much the same.
Shame there is only about 10 pints left!

[Vossy1]

BO, did you post this in the recipe section

I have a 25kg sack of wheat malt waiting for seveneers recipe and maybe some others

[bloodoaf]

Vossey,

...as I say I have starter=d on the hoegaarden and 10... no.... 7 pints left now.
I have posted it in the recipe section after your suggestion. The recipe was from Wheelers "Brew Classic European Beers at Home"

PS, note that it is raw wheat not malted

[Vossy1]

PS, note that it is raw wheat not malted

A challenge.....I like it

[steve_flack]

Raw wheat is a complete PITA to crush - it's like ball bearings only harder. Make sure it comes crushed as often it doesn't.

[J_P]

Morning chaps

I have chickened out of doing a full sized batch of this until I do some more "research" into wheat beers, I think I may attempt a wheat beer mini mash in the near future though.

Cheers for humouring a noob

[oblivious]

Raw wheat is a complete PITA to crush - it's like ball bearings only harder. Make sure it comes crushed as often it doesn't.

Do you need to crush raw wheat before a cereal mash?

[oblivious]

Morning chaps

I have chickened out of doing a full sized batch of this until I do some more "research" into wheat beers, I think I may attempt a wheat beer mini mash in the near future though.

Cheers for humouring a noob

What about a Partial-Mash or you could up the recipe and do 10 liters of an all grain?

[steve_flack]

Do you need to crush raw wheat before a cereal mash?

I've not done a separate cereal mash with it but put it in the main mash. I didn't have any conversion issues with doing that. I'd guess you should crush it - of course flaked raw wheat would be a non-crush alternative.