So I have some (5.75 lbs) of wheat DME leftover, and a hefeweizen in the fermentor. I would like to brew up a weizenbock to use the leftover DME, and use the yeast cake from the hefe (wlp300). I have looked around at pretty much all of the recipes I could find, and came up with the following minimash (calculated with brewcipher): Original Gravity: 1.076 Final Gravity: 1.021 ADF: 73% ABV: 7.3% Tinseth IBUs: 28 (Modified Tinseth IBUs: 28) ----------Grain Bill---------- Pounds Grain, Fermentable, Other 3 Wheat Malt (German) 3 Munich (20L) 0.25 Simpsons Chocolate (430) 0.25 Biscuit 5.75 Wheat Dry Extract ----------Kettle Hop Additions---------- Hop Type Ounces Boil Time Spalt, German P 1 60 Hersbrucker, German P 1 60 Hersbrucker, German p 1 15 Any thoughts or suggestions? I am a little worried about it being overly sweet as 1.021 seems high for a FG to me. Will I run into any problems with lack of ester production if I just pour this wort onto the yeast cake which i assume is a massive overpitch?
1.021 is at the upper end of the spectrum according to BJCP. If you carb on the high side too, you should be ok as is. If you are all grain, consider mashing lower and longer. EDIT: Also, your ADF is 73%. WLP300 is good for 72-76%. Being that you're pitching on a yeast cake, you'll probably be closer to 76%. I'd just roll with it as is.
1.021 will be fine. You will really like the fullness and richness. Carawheat also plays very nice in a weissbock. It could be used in place of some of the Munich. I would also consider cutting out the biscuit. I use the same amount of pale chocolate malt in mine. I can't comment on the yeast cake. I have no experience repitching.
I was struggling with the specialty grains, pale chocolate seems to be standard across many of the recipes I reviewed, and there were also a lot with crystal or carawheat, or caramunich. I assumed these would add sweetness, which I was trying to avoid. I came across one or two that had biscuit and thought that sounded good. Is there a reason you would not recommend using biscuit?
I'm just not sure if the biscuit will come through as a player. I like carawheat at 50L in place of mid color crystal to reinforce the wheat, add crystal sweetness, and color. My specialty grains that I have settled on after 3 great batches is 4% breiss extra special, 3% carawheat, 1% pale chocolate malt. Base grains 54% dark wheat malt, 22% pils, 11% Munich, 5% Vienna.
So I have been away for a while, and now I am coming down to ordering grains, as I want to brew this next weekend so here are my final set of questions. You use dark wheat, my LHBS does not carry a "dark" variety, they carry chocolate, which I assume is too roasted to make up that portion of the grain bill, and caramel, and regular. Some of the online stores have a dark wheat, so I assume that it is something else, but I found the description lacking, does it have a significantly different flavor than regular wheat malt? I also read the description of briess special roast (not extra special) - and it seemed similar to the biscuit I included, am I missing a large difference there? If I were to replace the biscuit and .25 lbs of munich with carawheat, would .5 lb be appropriate? This will be my first mash, I haven't really figured out temps yet, what would you consider low and long?
There's white wheat malt and red wheat malt. Both of which are pretty pale and suitable as a base malt. 'Dark' doesn't sound right. Link? ETA: I think Weyermann makes a 'dark' wheat malt, which is kilned a little darker than their pale wheat. I think you could sub it for pale wheat malt in this beer if necessary. Maybe use a little more (dark) wheat and a little less Munich, if you're concerned about color.
That should be okay. They also have Rahr White Wheat malt in stock, if you don't mind domestic... http://www.midwestsupplies.com/maillard-malts-rahr-white-wheat.html
This is a recipe that started as the one in Brewing Classic Styles. It's since gone through some subtle changes to reflect malts that I can get online (I have no LHBS within 2 hours that has the selection I need) and what I like. I've never used chocolate wheat except to correct color so I can't speak to that. However I use dark wheat from northern brewer for the wheat component. It has a standard wheat breadiness, but with more of a richer wheat slightly toasted but not sweet flavor. The last batch I used extra special (I think because that's what NB had), but I didn't fine a significant difference either from memory compared to special. It's hard to go through and make a recommendation on your last point without knowing the other ingredients. I used the carawheat 50L in place of crystal 40 as 1:1. I mashed at 152 for 90 min (90 min is my normal for all styles).
I was comparing to scurvy311's recipee that called for dark wheat, and wondering what the flavor differences would be, the link I provided was the description I could find. My LHBS does not carry a dark wheat, so I plan to use a white wheat malt they use. I am not very concerned about the color, but I was wondering what a dark wheat would add.
There is a certain "toasted bread" quality/flavor to me that is welcome in wheat bocks. Regular pale wheat malt with maybe 3-6% of caramunich (which should be more readily available at your LHBS), depending on the remainder of your recipe would contribute that toasted bread melanoiden. But at the end of the day, just brew something well, drink it, and make changes from there. A well-made beer is like a BJ. The worst one you've had was still pretty good.
No doubt. I just have caramunich in my recipe, but I guess it was caramunich III. I subbed the caramunich for a pound of Munich for the toasty and the sweet. It's all based on the changes I've made for my tastes. It's just a suggestion.
Thanks guys, I appreciate your input. Based on your input, and what is available at the LHBS, I think this is what I will go with unless I get some new input. The numbers are calculated with brew cipher. By the way @VikeMan, while i have your attention. Whenever I try to save a recipe with brewcipher I get an warning that comes up saying it uses formatting that cannot be saved in the format i selected (which is the default .xls) and gives me two options one is another type of xls and the other is odf, which I am not familiar with. If I select .xls it crashes libreoffice the next time i try to open it, and if I use odf, some of the macro's don't work. Any ideas what is going on, or what format I should be selecting when I save? Weizenbock Original Gravity: 1.076 Final Gravity: 1.022 ADF: 72% ABV: 7.1% Tinseth IBUs: 29 (Modified Tinseth IBUs: 29) ----------Grain Bill---------- Pounds Grain, Fermentable, Other 3 Wheat Malt (German) 3 Weyermann Munich Type 2 (9 SRM) 0.25 Crisp Chocolate, 412L 0.25 Weyermann Caramel Wheat Boil Addition: 5.5 Wheat Dry Extract ----------Kettle Hop Additions---------- Hop Ounces Boil Time Spalt, German 1 60 Hersbrucker, German 1 60 Hersbrucker, German 1 15
Sorry, I don't know much about LibreOffice. I know that you can successfully save with OpenOffice (and not break the Scale macro). If you use OpenOffice, start with the .xlsm version of BrewCipher. (For whatever reason, OpenOffice doesn't like the true .xls version saved by my version of excel...that's why I make an .xlsm file also for download.) But when saving your sheet, save as Excel97/2000/XP (one of the .xls formats in the list), since OpenOffice doesn't offer .xlsm as a save format. When you reopen that .xls file in OpenOffice, it should work fine.
Well I just finished my first test beer from this batch, and while it's not quite ready, it is quite good. I missed my numbers by a fair margin, but I am not too concerned as it was a first attempt. With 4.5 gallons in the fermentor I ended up with OG of 1.085 and FG of 1.026. The hops flavor is more apparent than I expected, but I think the floral flavors mix really well with the banana flavors from the yeast. I expected a stronger malt profile, but I can taste a mild roasty flavor from the chocolate malt. It is creamy and smooth, tasty, and has just a slight alcohol heat. Carbonation is either low, or not quite done yet (10 days in the bottle), but it had essentially no head. In general I am really happy with this beer and will definitely make it again, though I might play around with the grain bill a little bit. Again, thanks to everyone who helped me put this recipe together.
