request for weissbier recipe

[hopit]

Hi there,

I am seeking a good recipe for a weissebier. I've got wheat, pale ale, pilsner and vienna malt at the minute, also got some flaked wheat, some Saaz and Hallertauer Mittelfrüher hops, and cross my loof wheat beer yeast, but could get some other stuff before the brewday if required.

Main questions I have are around RO water additions, mash temps and fermentation temps. Last time I did a weisse years ago it was mad on the banana which was nice but some clove would be good too.

Cheers

[chastuck]

Here's one I brewed recently:
Size: 45.42L (post-boil)
Mash Efficiency: 95.0%
Attenuation: 76.0%
Calories: 250 kcal per 500ml

Original Gravity: 1.050 (style range: 1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (style range: 1.010 - 1.014)
Colour: 3.1 SRM (6.1 EBC) (style range: 2.0 - 6.0 SRM, 3.9 – 11.8 EBC)
Alcohol: 5.0% (style range: 4.3% - 5.6%)
Bitterness: 13 (style range: 8.0 - 15.0)

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Pale (or White) Wheat Malt - Weyermann if possible (60%)
3.30kg lb Pilsner malt - Weyermann if possible (40%)
500 g Rice hulls (or Oat hulls/husks) - used to prevent stuck sparge
60 g German Hallertau Hops (4.1%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min (12.79 IBU)
1 Whirlfloc Tablet (Irish moss) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
4 packs Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen liquid yeast (or an appropriate starter)

Notes:
Water treated with brewing salts to: Ca=50, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=71, S04=69
3.13 L/kg mash thickness. Single infusion mash at 66.7C for 90 mins. Mashout to 76C.
60-90 min fly sparge with ~6 pH water. Collect 56.40 litres in boil kettle.
Boil for 90 minutes. Lid on at flameout, start chilling immediately.
Cool wort to 17C and aerate well. Ferment at 17C until complete. (Jamil Zainasheff gives some good advice on fermentation temperature for Wyeast 3068 from his Brewing Classic Styles book which I follow: Ferment at 17C. It's just below the recommended 18 -24CF range but it works great and produces a really clean tasting beer with a nice balance of banana/clove flavours.)

[hopit]

That looks like just the ticket. I am new to RO water. What exact additions would you make to that profile and get the ph right? Thanks for the help.

[Hanglow]

Here's a good recipe, similar to the one above but involves a step mash

OG 1.051
FG 1.010

Wheat malt 60%
Pils malt 35%
carahell 5%

soft water, about 40ppm calcium, 70ppm chloride and 20ppm sodium (so just use calcium chloride and sodium chloride)

don't bother adjusting mash ph. the ferulic acid rest needs a higher ph to work effectively, the higher ph will also help hazyness . mash ph should be about 5.8 for a weisse

step mash
45.5C 30mins (ferulic acid rest - helps clove aroma instead of banana)
63.9 C for 40mins
72.8C for 30mins
76.7C for ten minutes


60 minutes hop addition for about 15 ibu ( i aim for 20 but that's a bit more than most )

ferment at 20c

[guypettigrew]

Here's one I brewed recently:
Size: 45.42L (post-boil)
Mash Efficiency: 95.0%

Original Gravity: 1.050 (style range: 1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (style range: 1.010 - 1.014)

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Pale (or White) Wheat Malt - Weyermann if possible (60%)
3.30kg lb Pilsner malt - Weyermann if possible (40%)
500 g Rice hulls (or Oat hulls/husks) - used to prevent stuck sparge

Your efficiency is amazing! 95% overall efficiency. A gravity of 1.050 in 45 litres from 8.3kg of malt is incredible. I get close to that efficiency for the mash extract, but lose a lot in the hops in the boil due to absorption. I reckon to get 80% overall efficiency if I'm lucky.

What do you reckon you do to get such wonderful efficiency?

Guy

[chastuck]

Here's one I brewed recently:
Size: 45.42L (post-boil)
Mash Efficiency: 95.0%

Original Gravity: 1.050 (style range: 1.044 - 1.052)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (style range: 1.010 - 1.014)

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Pale (or White) Wheat Malt - Weyermann if possible (60%)
3.30kg lb Pilsner malt - Weyermann if possible (40%)
500 g Rice hulls (or Oat hulls/husks) - used to prevent stuck sparge

Your efficiency is amazing! 95% overall efficiency. A gravity of 1.050 in 45 litres from 8.3kg of malt is incredible. I get close to that efficiency for the mash extract, but lose a lot in the hops in the boil due to absorption. I reckon to get 80% overall efficiency if I'm lucky.

What do you reckon you do to get such wonderful efficiency?

Guy

No great mystery really. I mill my own grain and use Blichmann 20 US gallon (75L) pots with a Blichmann false bottom. I usually get between 85% to 95% mash efficiency depending on the recipe/grain bill.

[chastuck]

That looks like just the ticket. I am new to RO water. What exact additions would you make to that profile and get the ph right? Thanks for the help.

I suggest you use something like Bru'n Water. You can enter your water type into it and the profile you require. It will then tell you how much salts to add to meet the desired profile. The calculations in Bru'n Water are quite accurate. Just don't be fooled into accepting the 'red' warnings it gives as they are based on US interpretations of what a beer should be.

[hopit]

Can I just use standard table salt from the supermarket for the sodium chloride? I noticed it's got an anti-caking agent in the ingredients but presumably if it's ok for human consumption it can't be that bad for yeast? If not where in the UK can I get appropriate salt?

Cheers

[chastuck]

Can I just use standard table salt from the supermarket for the sodium chloride? I noticed it's got an anti-caking agent in the ingredients but presumably if it's ok for human consumption it can't be that bad for yeast? If not where in the UK can I get appropriate salt?

Cheers

That will be fine. Just don't buy salt with iodine in it.

[Cobnut]

My weissbier recipe is simply:

55% wheat malt (Crisp)
45% pilsner malt (Crisp)

Mashed 60mins @ 65C to OG 1050

Then - unusually - I use Citra hops in a 60 min boil to approx. 22 IBU
Protofloc last 15 mins of boil

Versions to date have used MJ Bavarian Wheat Bier (M20) yeast fermented at 20C for 3 days tehn raised temp to 23C for a further 3-4 days.

This yeast seems to finish a little sweet, but with a reasonable balance between Banana and Clove (with a little bubblegum).

Recipe has served me well winning a Gold at BrewCon 2018, BOS at Norwich Craft Beer 2018 week HB comp. & BOS at LAB's All Hail Pail 2018.

I then got to brew it with 3 Blind Mice Brewery in Ely last summer. They couldn't get the MJ yeast so used Safale WB-06. It wasn't my beer, but it was nice.

I've also read Jamil's tips on brewing weissbier. He'd probably hate my recipe and approach!

I do plan to rebrew the above using the Weihenstephaner yeast (probably propagate some from a couple of bottles as Sainburys sell it).

The only water treatment I do is to reduce the residual alkalinity to 20-30ppm using CRS/AMS (water in Ipswich is very hard!).

Use or abuse!

[Hanglow]

Was reading this and remembered this thread, quite in depth if you are interested.
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-b ... d-to-know/

[Cobnut]

Was reading this and remembered this thread, quite in depth if you are interested.
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-b ... d-to-know/

Yes a good article. Although, it led me to try a multi-step mash which resulted in a weissbier which fell way short of its' target gravity/ABV, but did win me a Best of Show

In all honesty, I think a single infusion mash works perfectly well, so that's what I shall be sticking to for a while at least.

[hopit]

Cheers folks, it turned out pretty nice!

Pils Malt 2750 grams 37%
Wheat Malt 4250 grams 57%
Vienna Malt 500 grams 7%

Saaz 60g 60 minutes

Ca=39, Mg=0, Na=18, Cl=54, S04=45

Crossmyloof kristalwizen yeast (2 packs) - fermented at 19 degrees

Not sure how much was in the fermenting kegs, but ended up with about 30ish litres in a serving keg + bottles post ferment. Forgot to take the starting gravity but would guess around the 4.7% mark possibly

We ended up sparging a bit too much so was a touch thinner than we were aiming for. Also I would ferment higher next time to go for more banana. But all in all, it is a decent pint for the first proper attempt.

Nice one!

[Hanglow]

Was reading this and remembered this thread, quite in depth if you are interested.
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-b ... d-to-know/

Yes a good article. Although, it led me to try a multi-step mash which resulted in a weissbier which fell way short of its' target gravity/ABV, but did win me a Best of Show

In all honesty, I think a single infusion mash works perfectly well, so that's what I shall be sticking to for a while at least.

I made another weisse beer today using the step mash, it took me about two hours and i hit all my number which was nice.

I have only done step mashes a few times in the past and every time they have resulted in great head and head retention, and in the case of a couple of saisons, great clarity a well. So I like them a lot at the moment.

It;s good that we can do single step mashes as well and get excellent results.

[Hanglow]

Here is my weisse using the recipe I posted earlier in the thread. 6 days in primary then bottled and this is it at 13 days after brewing it. Corker of a beer. It's a few shades more blonde than the pictures show.