Looking for advice on Wheat beer

Thanks in advance...

Brewed AHB's Rot Weis. Asked a buddy to pick one out for me during their "state" sale, so I didn't specify to him whether I wanted extract, partial, etc. I received the extract.

So--- the brew went well, everything sanitized, things smelled great, looked great... hit the OG spot on, etc.

Pitched the yeast (danstar munich wheat) and nothing happened for days (like 6-7) On the 7th day I went to LHBS and got another packet of "wheat yeast"... they didn't have the danstar- I believe they game me a Safbrew wheat dry yeast)

After pitching this yeast- it went gangbusters. After 15 days I went to check the FG to think about racking it. It was at this point that I noticed a VERY strong malty smell. One i'm very familiar with (one of my 1st homebrew batches was a Scotch ale... I was confused as to what Scotch Ale was, so I disappointed by its sweetness) I also tasted the beer and it was sickly sweet/malty.

However, the FG was spot on, so I went ahead and racked it- hoping it would mellow out. But after nearly 2 more weeks, it has mellowed- but still has a strong, distinct sweetness to it that I just don't enjoy.

Any thoughts? Creative ideas? It is possible this is exactly what Rot Weis was supposed to turn out like and I suppose I can just be disappointed. However, I don't get any typical Wheat notes from the smell or taste- and I was hoping the 'red' part of it would add a noticeable hopiness- but are NO hoppy notes to be found.

Here is the full recipe:

GRAINS
1/4lb Carawheat
1/2lb Red Wheat
1/2lb Crystal 120L
1/4lb Rye Malt

7lbs Wheat Extract

HOPS
1oz Cluster for 60mins
1/2oz Sterling for 15 mins
1/2oz Sterling for final 5

Welcome to the forum.

First things first. Your brew is too sweet for one of two reasons: either you used too much malt or not enough hops. It's that simple.

What was the AA % of the hops?

The waiting time from pitching yeast to yeast activity is called "lag time". One way to reduce lag time is to prepare a starter several days ahead of your brewing schedule. This way your active yeast will take off in hours instead of days.

Thanks for the response. I guess I wasn't very clear: I know it was too much malt or too little hops... I was just following the recipe and expected something different.

At this point, I'm asking- is there anything I can do? I've thought about dry-hopping, but would that only help w/ aroma? Is the beer pretty much stuck as-is?

The AA % of the Cluster is 7.5%
The AA % of the Sterling is 6.0%

Yeast usually isn't an issue for me, but the 1st yeast package was dead. I had to add a whole new packet of yeast b/c the 1st was just dead. Nothing, nada... no starter could have saved it.

Again though- thanks, and I appreciate any creative thoughts/ideas!

Hmm...that AA % with 1 oz of hops..it should be bitter like a normal wheat...probably in the low 20's for IBU's I'd think (no brew software here at work).

perhaps the hops were old, and thus had gone 'cheesy' and didn't impart much bitterness?

If it's not bottled/kegged you could take 1/2 gal out and boil it with more hops for 30 mins to get both bittering and flavor from the hops than add it back to the rest of the batch and wait for it to clear again.

If it's in a carboy then you could brew another more bitter batch and blend them together resulting in 10 gals instead of 5.

If it's already kegged/bottled then the only thing I can think of (short of putting it all back into a fermenter) is to blend it with a more bitter brew. Do this in a pitcher then serve it to your guests.

Many thanks for the ideas.

"If it's not bottled/kegged you could take 1/2 gal out and boil it with more hops for 30 mins to get both bittering and flavor from the hops than add it back to the rest of the batch and wait for it to clear again. "

This seems like my best bet. I have it in the carboy now, but only have 1, 5-gallon keg and would rather not spend the $ on an experiment for a whole other recipe.

Thanks again... let the experimentation commence!

Hm, I'm not sure that I agree with homebrewer99's diagnosis - although it's certainly true as a general principle.

Yeast doesn't consume malted wheat with the same efficiency as it does malted barley. That's why most wheat beers only include wheat as about 50% of their total grain bill. (Here's my Sarcasm & Dry Wit as an example.)

My theory is that your grain bill contains too much wheat, and you've got far too much sugars left in the wort. I worry that if you add additional hops, you'll end up with an overhopped wheat beer - generally the style has only a very small flavor and aroma of hops.

My suggestion is that you (1) boil an additional 3lbs of pale or pilsener malt in 2.5 gallons of water, adding half your original hop bill. (If you've already added more hops to your original recipe, then skip the additional hops. There's too much hops in your beer already, and this is a good opportunity to tone them down a little.) Then, (2) dump half of what you have now, and (3) add the new wort to the old. The existing yeast should be MORE than enough for the new sugars, given that you've already pitched twice.

Combining wort is a technique you can use to make some really great and interesting beers, so this could still turn out fantastic.

Hmm, that makes sense.

Considering I've already racked the beer- still think there's enough yeast in there to do the dirty work?

When you say you've "racked the beer," do you mean that you've racked it into the primary, and it's currently sitting on the yeast cake? Or do you mean that you've racked it to the secondary, and you've thrown away your yeast cake?

If your wort is still in the primary sitting on top of the yeast cake, you've got MORE than enough yeast to take care of the added sugars; two pitches of two different strains of yeast reproducing over three weeks is PLENTY.

If your wort is now in the secondary and you've thrown away your yeast cake, then I'm on the fence, but would ultimately suggest that you push forward with the remix. There's still a lot of yeast in the secondary (that's what carbonates the bottles) so it's not so much a question of whether there will be ENOUGH yeast, as it is a question of HOW LONG the remaining yeast will take to reproduce and convert the added sugars. Given that you're starting from such a small cell-count and given how long the wort has been in the fermenting vessels, there's also a slightly higher risk of autolysis.

Ultimately my suggestion is the same: rack the new wort over half the original, and take a gravity reading. Check back in a week or so, and keep checking back until the readings are steady.

P.S. - you mentioned a keg, but I wasn't sure if you meant it to mean an actual force-carbonation keg or if you were referring to your fermenter as a "keg."

If you ARE force carbonating, and the cost issue you're anticipating is related to kegging, then why not just bottle? I'm sure you can bum two cases of empties from friends if they're not already lying around the house, or else you can "invest" in two cases of your favorite commercial beers.

Yeah- its in the secondary, sorry for not being more clear. Yeah- we're creeping up on 6 weeks or so since brewing.

I'll give it a shot this weekend if I can find the time. Might have to wait till T-giving break.

pericles said:

P.S. - you mentioned a keg, but I wasn't sure if you meant it to mean an actual force-carbonation keg or if you were referring to your fermenter as a "keg."

If you ARE force carbonating, and the cost issue you're anticipating is related to kegging, then why not just bottle? I'm sure you can bum two cases of empties from friends if they're not already lying around the house, or else you can "invest" in two cases of your favorite commercial beers.

Click to expand...

I meant force carbonating keg. I guess my only fear is spending the $ on a new recipe, time spent, etc and have it just not work at all.

Normally not such a big deal... more of a deal to my wife now that I bought the keg stuff, bought stuff for converting a fridge- with holidays coming up, etc.

I'm wondering what is different about brewing a wheat beer kit vs an ale kit. My beer salesmen said there's a little more involved with procedure and I backed off right away since I'm still new to brewing (12 kits so far). If I do some kind of "Weizen" what should I expect to change after making wort? Thanks for keeping it mundane for me

Poolplayer:

Wheat beers are different from (most) ales because they contain wheat malt, and because they use special yeasts that are well adapted to wheat malt. Also, because the style calls for haze, the wort can be bottled without secondarying, and is ready to drink after a short conditioning period. Finally, you may choose to include spices, like coriander and orange peel in a wheat beer.

You can buy wheat malt in both liquid and dry extracts, so the procedure won't be "more involved" because of that. I'm not aware of a good weizen dry yeast, so you'll need to buy a more expensive ($7.99) vial of specialty yeast from either White Labs or Wyeast. Some people add an extra step by making a "starter" for the yeast prior to pitching it into the wort, but you don't have to do that - I rarely do, and even then I can't taste the difference. Maybe that's the extra step your LHBS owner was thinking of?

Alternatively, maybe he was thinking of the spice additions as the "extra step." It's really not that complicated: you throw some spices in at flameout. Boom. You're done. Think of them as an extra addition of hops, and it's not even really another step.

If you've secondaried your other beers, you can skip that step for your Weizen. Your bottles will be ready to go in a week. Wheats are some of the easiest beers to brew, and the hardest beers to get wrong.