Wonderweizen?

So this was the first all grain recipe I made using my new boil kettle, mashing bag and homemade wort-chiller.  Initial thoughts were that it was tainted in some way, but after a few weeks in the bottle the consensus appears to be that this is actually quite good, but a little on the weak side at 4%.

I was having a bit of fun trying a few different wheat beers / hefeweizens from local shops and I am lucky to have a local pub that has Weinhenstephaner Hefeweizen on draft (The Steamhouse), when I decided that this would be a good style to try and brew a small batch of all grain to see if I could make a stab at All Grain Brew in a Bag.

I got myself some wheat and lager malt with a little Vienna malt to mix it up a little and played around with some beer recipe sites, programmes and books (more on these another day!) to get a 13 litre batch into the fermenter:

In hindsight: my hop addition was too low because my Hallertaur was only 2% not 4%, my strike water was off temperature compared to the temp of the grain, I mashed at too high a temperature and the water to grist ratio was less than would allow for the full boil volume. This meant I had to add 3 litres or so back to the pre boiled wort. My pH was probably wrong too. Other than that – it was perfect!?

The only true success is my homemade wort-chiller…

The chill factor!
The chill factor!

This was really simple to make: I had a length of small gauge copper piping from various central heating repairs left over and coiled it round a paint can leaving one short straight inlet to the top and a longer straight outlet from the bottom. The inlet is the cold water and the outlet is the “waste” hot water. A few jubilee clips pipes and a tap connector and hey presto!

It can cool 20 litres of hot wort to 24 degrees centigrade in about 20-30 minutes. There are refinements I could make such as turning the inlets over so that it can rest on the edge of the boiler, but as a quick 30 minute project it was really easy and cools small batches really well.

After fermenting probably too hot (White Labs WLP351) and bottling I expected this to be a really estery brew. Turns out not so much. I would describe it as peppery / spicy, but it does lack banana like notes. It was also quite thin until the carbonation level improved.

If you are interested in the recipe here it is:

 

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout – http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Whitless Wonder
Style: Weizen/Weissbier
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
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Boil Size: 18.64 l
Post Boil Volume: 16.64 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 13.00 l
Bottling Volume: 10.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.061 SG
Estimated Color: 6.3 EBC
Estimated IBU: 8.4 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 91.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 112.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
————
Amt           Name                                                Type          #        %/IBU
1.25 kg       Lager Malt (3.9 EBC)                                Grain         1        45.5 %
1.25 kg       Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC)                           Grain         2        45.5 %
0.25 kg       Vienna Malt (6.9 EBC)                               Grain         3        9.1 %
15.00 g       Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] – Boil 60 minutes  Hop           4        8.4 IBUs
0.25 tsp      Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)                         Fining        5        –
1.0 pkg       Bavarian Weizen Yeast (White Labs #WLP351)          Yeast         6        –

Mash Schedule: BIAB, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 2.75 kg
—————————-
Name                Description                   Step Temperature Step Time
Saccharification    Add 20.32 l of water at 69.0  66.7 C           75 min
Mash Out            Heat to 75.6 C over 7 min     75.6 C           10 min

Sparge: If steeping, remove grains, and prepare to boil wort
Notes:
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Created with BeerSmith 2 – http://www.beersmith.com
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Definitely a style and recipe I will try again to improve upon.

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