traas.org
The homepage of Aaron Traas — man of faith, science, and very bad humor
Experimental recipe: basic wheat beer
I'm going to do 2 different parallel batches, just to see what the flavor components are, and what I like. I'm trying to isolate the flavor that wheat malt brings to the party... My guess is the wheat/barley combo will be better tasting. At a later date, I need to do some experimentation with steeping torrified wheat, unmalted raw wheat, and flaked wheat.My target is 1-gallon batches. Here's what I'm thinking:
| Full-on wheat | Wheat/barley combo |
|---|---|
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I just watched a brewing video podcast about doing small batches of beer, and the target volume was .75 gallons, but the brewer used over a gallon of water, and just hit the target. Perhaps I want to up my water... I don't know. He also used a starter... I'm contemplating that. I have some erlenmeyer flasks...
I'm shooting for an OG of around 1.050 for a total of 1 gallon of wort of each. We'll see how it turns out...
Update 6/28/2008, 4:30pm
Brew happenned on 6/28/2008 as planned. No OG readings, because I broke the hydrometer 30 minutes into the boil. Don't ask. Everything else went as planned, except the job of getting both batches down to temperature quickly didn't work too well. I pitched 4g of dry yeast to both: the full wheat at around 85, and the wheat/barley at around 90. Both are bubbling away healthily in the basement, at a temp of around 75. I had to add nearly a half-gallon to each after racking in the carboys. What surprised me is the dark coloration... I'm used to wheat beers having a bit lighter color. No pictures, because my wife is borrowing my camera.
Update 6/29/2008, 12:03am
Both bubbling vigorously in the fermenter. There's lots of foam on top, which is nearly white - but has dark stuff floating on top of it. The airlocks look like they lost some water... I'll have to re-fill them at some point.
Update 6/29/2008, 9:27am
Both still bubbling, but not nearly as much. There is much less foam on top. The beer is starting to develop a whitish haze, much like I'm used to seeing in wheat beers. Moreso on the full-wheat. That was fast.
Update 6/29/2008, 1:24am
A large amount of the yeast has already flocculated. Did I perhaps pitch too much yeast?
Update 7/2/2008, 7:18pm
Finally posted some pictures. Click below to enlarge:
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The bubbling has slowed down significantly - down to every 30-40 seconds. It will probably be time to re-rack in the secondary tomorrow. There's a bit of odd-looking scum on top. I'll take pictures when I re-rack.
Update 7/5/2008, 8:29pm
Bubbling down to once per minute, so I re-racked to the secondaries. Took pictures of scum floating on top, as well as 1-gallon jugs that I re-racked into. The first two pictures are the greasy-looking scum on top of the all-wheat:
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The next two are the trub left over after re-racking:
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I didn't take similar pictures of the 50/50 because... I forgot to. And frankly, it looked kinda similar. Finally, we have the beer, re-reacked into 1-gallon carboys:
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I unfortunately got a lot of oxygen in the beer - had a hard time starting the auto-siphon with so little beer in the carboy, and the hose wasn't on tight enough. I need to get some hose clamps at the plumbing supply store. And probably a smaller auto-siphon. Maybe I should step down to 3/4 gallon batches, so I can do everything in the 1-gallon jugs.
Update 7/7/2008, 7:44am
Beer has visibly started to clarify. Not a whole lot - it's a hazy wheat beer - but it is noticeable. I also researched my auto-siphon, and found that the racking cane within is 5/16" rather than the 3/8" that my tubing is. That's the source of the air getting into the tube. I purchased a 10-pack of hose clamps - a $3 investment that should help a good bit.
Update 7/16/2008, 8:16am
Last night, the beer was bottled. The tubing clamp greatly improved the performance of the racking cane. My 6-gallon bottling bucket is not terribly efficient for this type of application; it's big and hard to clean. The yield was 10 bottles of the full wheat (labeled "FW"), and 9 bottles of the blend (labeled "HW".) Tasted the beer left over; the full wheat tasted rather blah but bitter and grassy, while the blend tasted a bit more beery and less bitter. I hope the hoppiness becomes more subtle with aging and carbonation. In both, the body was very watery. This definately makes me want to experiment with steeping unmalted wheat or torrified wheat. No other off flavors, which is good.
