Wheat beer recipe

[booldawg]

Not done one yet. I have the ingredients and am fairly excited about getting it on this week.

Please let me know if the following recipe would work out well, as its guesswork on my part!

2820g Wheat Malt (60%)
1880g Lager Malt (40%)
68g Hallertau (AA 2.1%) for 90mins
25g Hallertau after 80C

Safbrew WB-06 yeast

Mash at 67C for 75 mins

Should work out at 5% for 25L (according to Brewsmith set to 90% efficiency which seems to be tried and tested)

[SiHoltye]

Looks good to me I used WB06 and was pleased with the outcome. Will try liquid Hefe next time just to vary it. Love Wheat beers, early drinking.

[mysterio]

Looks like a classic formulation, I personally would resist the temptation to use aroma hops and let the yeast do the talking. Good luck with it!

[booldawg]

Thanks for the advice. I'll leave out the late hops as advised.

[prodigal2]

I'll second what Mysterio has said, WB06 has a lot to say and the last thing you want is it competeting with aroma hops.

[Barley Water]

I agree with the masses, drop the aroma hops. You will also like what happens to the beer if you pull a decoction and boil it for about 20 minutes, it makes the beer have a really nice mouthfeel. The whole deal with wheat beer is controlling the fermentation to get the flavors you want out of the yeast. I personally like the bananna and bubblegum you get if you ferment a little warmer but many like the heavy clove you get going a little cooler. At least in my neck of the woods, we have figured out that you will do better in competitions if you have a more balanced flavor, with a little bananna and a little clove. I usually keg mine and pull a couple of bottles off for competitions. It works out really well to naturally carbonate the beer in the keg using wheat spray malt.

I got myself into a little problem again as only one of my taps is currently running. I have a bitter and a Belgian pale ale conditioning but I would say they both need a couple of weeks conditioning to be ready. I am thinking about doing a dunkel weizen which I think I can turn around in about three weeks, anybody have a tried and true formulation for a dark one?

[mysterio]

I'm drinking Jamil's dunkelweizen at the moment, it's still a bit green tasting but i'll get back to you once it's carbed up. Probably not very authentic considering it has something like 8% crystal malts and no dark wheat but it still seems to have a nice chocolatey type flavour.

[Barley Water]

Yeah, I was checking out his formulation at home last night. According to the notes, he says he added the extra crystal because he noticed that the beer judges expected some caramel type flavors in this particular style although he also cautions that he thinks over doing that would cause problems. Actually, the grain bill he presents seems reasonable to me, I may well give it a try. I will also do a single decoction which may also increase the caramel type flavors just a little. Mysterio, my question to you is, do you think his formulation allows the yeast character to come through like it should or do you think the crystal tends to keep it in the background?

The thing I don't quite get is his recommendation of a low fermentation temperature, 62F (and he stresses that this is very important). I usually try to get as much bananna as I can, although I do expect some clove as well. What I want my dunkelweiss to taste like is a spicy chocolate/bananna milkshake. My experience has always been that if you ferment at higher temperatures, you get more bananna so I do my wheat beers at 68F (I think any higher that that and you risk fusels which will mess up the taste). I also usually underpitch in an attempt to get more esters. Jamil recommends using either two yeast tubes or grow up a starter then using the lower temperature. I also notice that fermenting at 62F is below White Labs recommended range for that particular strain. Anyhow, it would seem to me that doing it his way is going to give you a heck of a lot more clove than bananna, am I missing something here? Just for the hell of it, I may try it his way, after all, he has won a hell of a lot more metals than I could ever imagine winning even in my wildest dreams.

Just an aside but I have also noticed that you get a hell of a lot of both bananna and clove when using WLP500, the Chimay yeast. Of course that stuff will floculate pretty well so you couldn't use it as is in a weiss bier but I wonder what would happen if you mixed some WLP500 and WLP300 then went at it?

[mysterio]

I followed his recommended temps. It definately seems quite muted. It's hard to tell if the whole thing is in balance because theres still quite a pronounced yeasty 'tang' in the beer which is covering up some of the flavour. I can't tell if I F'd up or if i'm just drinking it too young - this is quite common with me, i'll drink one keg of beer a week after I brew it, tastes rough as hell usually, then by the time i'm finished the second keg tastes great.

Oddly enough i've noticed that both the clovey phenols & the banana ester increase as the temps go up. I tried fermenting at 21C and the clove was just too much.

[Whorst]

Barley Water, didn't you brew a Landlord clone? Wondering how it turned out.

[Barley Water]

Interesting, I suspect that if the typical bananna/clove thing was muted, it is because of a lower fermentation temperature. Most of the wheat beer experience I have is with the straight heffe so there are less malt/toasty flavors competing with the yeast expression. Although I don't think a dunkel is supposed to be quite as agressive as a heffe, I would really like to get as much yeast expression as I can. It may be that Mr. Jamil likes his wheat beers with a little less yeast expression which of course is in keeping with many of the German producers as many aren't as in your face as say Pauliner. I know of at least one of the other strains of weizen yeast that gives you plumb/vanilla rather than the heavy bananna/clove you get with WLP300 and many folks are fans of that. I got a 3rd place in a really big contest last year with a heffe that I fermented at 68F and although I am not against trying something different, I also hate to throw away something I learned the hard way (by screwing up alot). Finally, my experience with wheat beers is that they are much better young. I would say that after a couple of weeks conditioning, they should be ready to consume and they tend to start falling off relatively quickly. I try to do my wheat beers just before contest submission deadlines just for that reason. I also get a pretty good "tang" going in my weizen, I always thought it was due to the high carbonation but maybe it is just the yeast talking. Anyway, let us know how the second keg tastes to you, I tend to do 5 gallon batches so maybe we can all learn something here.

Yes, I did do a TTL clone a couple of weeks ago. My plan is to keg the stuff in the next couple of days so I am not sure yet what the final outcome will be. Initial tasting while transferring the beer to secondary was good. Pretty big Styrian aroma and taste but I also picked up the distintive bisquit taste many British ales have which I really love. I used MO rather than Golden Promise as my supplier didn't have the latter but I figured what the heck, how can I go far wrong? I also boiled down quite a bit of first runnings and frankly I didn't pick up the caramel/toffee I expected but I really need to do further research once I get the stuff carbonated in the keg. I really like the London Pride clone I do and it will be very interesting to see how this compares. If I am not careful, all I will end up making is bitters. I will update you further as I know more.

[mysterio]

This is starting to taste pretty good tonight, infact. It's actually got a really nice banana aroma which jumps out as soon as you pull the tap - only a hint of clove which is surprising. The special 'B' toffee-ish character is dominant, which I happen to like - but it's nothing like a commercial dunkelweizen. I'm not worried though, this is becoming a tasty beer.