D-Hutt

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Hi - I'm new here. Haven't been brewing long either - usually joining in with a group of guys that does it regularly and watching/helping.

I've been thinking about a way to brew two wheat beers at once and am wondering if this is possible:

1. End product would be a hefeweizen and a dunkelweizen each in a 3g carboy.
2. Method would be to match the base malt and wheat malt between each beer and mash in one large pot, while mashing specialty grains for the dunkel in a separate pot.
3. Combine darker and lighter wort in one carboy right after boil for the dunkel before pitching, and use the rest of the lighter wort for the hefe.

Would this be possible? Am I missing some kind of bonding reactions that would make a huge difference by mashing the specialty grains separate from the rest?

If anyone knows of a thread where this has been done before, I'd appreciate a link. I haven't yet formulated out a recipe because I didn't know if this would even be possible.

Gduck

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If you're doing an extract brew with speciality grains it would be no problem at all to do what you're describing. If you're talking about all grain the only issue would be lack of diastatic power in the speciality malt so whatever startches that are in them wouldn't convert to sugars, but that's not the biggest issue in the world with speciality grains.

Either way I think you should be able to do this with no problem.

JonK331

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Mashing specialty grains without base malt doesn't work because you need the enzymes in the base malt to convert the sugars. That said, I suppose you could steep some darker malts and add that separately. you'd need to boil it though and I'm not sure if it would come out well. If you have two separate pots going why not just do two separate mashes the right way?

D-Hutt

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I'm not doing two separate mashes because I don't have two pots that are large enough and I'd rather not buy another one if I can make this work. But good to know on the mashing specialty grains without base malt.

And I should have mentioned - I do plan to use wheat malt extract. But I'd like to use grain for the rest. And rather than actually mashing in a tun, I'll probably be steeping the grains this time.

What ratio base malt to specialty would I need in the second pot to provide enough enzymes to break down the starches in the specialty?

D-Hutt

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Can I steep wheat malt and base malt in the same pot?

Malticulous

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Wheat malt is a base malt.

You could steep something to change the color of one half. To me a dunkelweizen has much more munich malt too. You cant make both from the same base.

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D-Hutt

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Hmm. The recipe i have for the hefeweizen says to mash german 2-row pilsner malt and german wheat malt. I can steep both of those together, correct?

Malticulous

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You can mash them.

A basic hefeweizen is 60% malted wheat and 40% pilsner. A basic dunkelweizen is 60% wheat malt, 38% munich and 2% carafa special. It also has a little more hops.

You could just add seminar to half the batch. It should be boiled.

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D-Hutt

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Nice - thanks.

D-Hutt

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Just scored a nice deal on some used equipment. I'm on for brewing these beers this Sat!