Wheat Beer advice (using Brewferm Tarwebier kit)

Hi all, I recently adquired a new fermenting bucket with tap and lock, which will allow for brewing bigger batches. Until now I just made small mead and beer batches (around 2.5 gal). Now I will be able to make 5 or 6 gal batches wohoo! The bad side is that I don't have enough bottles for such amount of beer... yet!

My plans are to make a nice refreshing wheat beer. I love German wheat beers like Paulaner, Franziskaner, etc especially the Dunkelweizen variety. I got my hands on a Brewferm Tarwebier kit, which is supposed to be used alongside sugar to brew a Belgian-style Wheat beer. The whole kit is designed to make 15 liters of beer (around 4 gals). The kit contains syrup made with barley and wheat, oat flakes, hops and spices, as well as the yeast packet.

I am still gathering information on how to modify this recipe to get a beer with a nice body and flavor. I will be not using any kind of sugar. I will sustitute sugar with Munton's Wheat DME (which I believe is 60% wheat/40% barley or something like that).

The kit is designed for 15 liters (4 gal) but I will be probably scaling that up to 5 gal, taking advantage of my new brewing bucket. The Brewferm Tarwebier kit will be used as the base and then I will add the Wheat DME to get a decent OG. This will leave a probably low-hopped brew, and because of me liking hops a lot, I will add more when brewing this up, but probably for bitterness only. I usually don't get much hop aroma when drinking wheats, so that's what I want to achieve.

Summarizing, I want to try brewing a wheat "international" beer (it'll be international because it will have Belgian LME, English Wheat DME and probably German hops ). I'm still undecided on which yeast to use out of the 2 options I have.

I am still tinkering around this recipe, but for now I decided on this:

(For a 5 Gallon batch)

Fermentables:

Hops:

Yeast:


With this recipe, the estimated OG would be around 1.050, on par with the original OG the kit advertises, and I will be getting a better body sustituting the sugar with DME (or so I think!). So, now with the questions

What do you think about the fermentables, are they compatible enough to make a decent wheat beer?

What about the hops, do you think it can be too much? These are low bittering hops, but the syrup comes already hopped. Maybe using 0.5 oz instead?

And the most intriguing question for me: which yeast strain would be the best option, the no-labeled yeast which came with the kit or the Safbrew S-33? These are my only two yeast options to make this beer, so I'm really trying to dig which one would fit better. I know that most wheat beers rely heavily on the yeast for the flavoring, maybe more than other beer styles. But unluckily I won't be able to get any other yeast for a while, so it has to be either the Brewferm or the Safbrew. I don't want to clone anything, but rather make a decent wheat beer. If this experiment is successful I will probably try brewing a Dunkel variety afterwards

OMG this post has already became BIG! Sorry for my verbosity, thanks in advance to anyone who wants to comment, criticize or suggest. I'm all ears!

Best regards and good weekend!

Not really sure what to say as I have never brewed a pre-hopped, canned kit like what you have but in all the reading I have done i'm of the impression that these kits do not modify well at all and are best brewed as is.

What I might suggest is looking at the recipe wiki and finding a recipe for a traditional wheat that you want to brew and assuming you have access to individual ingredients and hops put the recipe together from scratch instead of trying to modify this kit.

Just my .02...

Thanks for your input duboman!

That's the point of my question. I can make the kit straight as it is, or use the ingredients I have available to "tweak" it a little. But I have a very limited amount of ingredients and no chance to get any more soon

The only fermentables I can add are the Wheat DME from Muntons and/or plain white table sugar (sucrose). From what I have investigated, most sources advice to substitute sugar with DME for a better flavor (avoiding cidery off flavors) and body.

The kit is made for 4 gal batches, and I wanted to make 5, so that implies: a). using even more DME to reach desired OG and b). adding more hops because the available hops will be more diluted than per the recipe.

Maybe the hops aren't really necessary, or maybe it can be done with a smaller amount. I don't really mind having a more bitter beer than the average Wheat beer (which is usually not very bitter IMO).

The hardest matter for me is which yeast to use. I will not be able to get my hands on anything but the included yeast and the Safbrew S-33. I also have some Lalvin D47 around here but that is a mead-making yeast so I don't consider using it. Any thoughts on which yeast to use?

Thanks, best regards!

I would add hops or the beer will be sweeter than desired and use the 33 strain as that will give you The profile the wheat beer should give you

Yes, that's probably what I'll finally do. Not sure about which hops and hop schedule though. I have some Hallertau (3.5%AA), Tettnang (4.9%AA) and Magnum (14.9%AA). The Magnum is much stronger, so I'm not sure if I should even consider using them. I'll give it some thought while I wait for me and my friends to collect enough bottles for a 5 gal batch. Right now I only have enough to bottle around 3 gal so I must wait before brewing this up. I'll try to keep this updated!

Mmmm seeing as the kit is originally designed for 15 liters (just about 4 gallons), I decided to go for it right now. I have enough bottles ATM (glass swing tops and pet bottles) so I will be brewing this tomorrow. I will use the can as-is, and substitute the amount of sugar required with wheat DME to get a more wheaty character out of the brew.

I will use the S-33 yeast. The yeast that came with the Brewferm Tarwebier kit is not labeled and that annoys me... I bought the can online so I'm not sure if that's the original yeast package.

I'll update with the definitive info after the brewing session

Well, I finally brewed this yesterday. These last weeks have been a bit busy with a new job and schedule (yay!).

I did the following:

First I made a starter for the yeast. I used a 1.5 liter water bottle with 1 liter of spring water at room temperature, a tablespoon of Muntons Wheat DME, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and 1 package of Safbrew S-33 dry yeast. I mixed and aerated it well and left sitting for the duration of the brewing process (about 1 hour until I pitched it).

I opened the clean extract syrup can (Brewferm's Tarwebier kit) and put it on a saucepan with hot water to allow it to flow better. Later I used the same water to rinse the inside of the can.

I took 1.5 gal of water to a boil. Before boiling, I dissolved the 3 lbs of Muntons Wheat DME (minus the tablespoon used in the starter). When the boil was rolling I added 0.5 ounces of Tettnang Hops (5% AA). I left it boiling for 30 minutes and then added 0.5 more ounces of same hops. After 5 minutes I removed the wort from heat.

The fermentor was filled with 1.5 gal of cool water, and then the wort was strained into it, aerating it well. I also added the contents of the syrup can and rinsed it well. I aerated this mixture well and topped with water up to the 5 gal mark, aerating it some more for 5 minutes.

After this process, the wort temperature was 34ºC (93ºF). I took a sample and the temperature-corrected OG was 1.055. I pitched the yeast starter right away because IMO that temperature was OK for the initial stage of the fermentation.

The bubbling started within 3 hours and has been really vigorous since then. The fermentor has a capacity of 30 liters (which equals to almost 8 US gal), and even though I only made a 5 gal batch, the kraeusen layer reached almost the top of the walls. The temperature it's fermenting at keeps around 20ºC (68ºF). According to hopville's calculator the FG should be somewhere around 1.015, yielding about 5 or 5.5% ABV.

From what I've read, wheat beers tend to have vigorous fermentation starts, and then proceed at a slower pace. I'll leave it on this primary for 2 weeks and check gravities, I think it will be probably be done fermenting then, and will bottle and age for at least 2 more weeks before sampling.

My main concern is the hop schedule used. I tried to give the wort some bitterness and aroma using 1 ounce of Tettnang hops as described, but I won't be sure of the result until the beer is done. The fact is, the Brewferm can is also hopped and spiced (I think it has oatmeal, coriander and dry orange peel), so let's hope the final result is pleasant.

I'll keep this updated so it's useful to anyone trying a kit variation. And it will also serve as a journal for me

Cheers!

Hi all! After 2 weeks and a couple of days, I took a sample and checked gravity. It was somewhere between 1.020 and 1.022 (the beer is so cloudy being a wheat that it is almost impossible to say more precisely). I was a bit concerned and took another sample 2 days after that - the gravity remained the same. During the whole fermentation process temperatures remained stable around 68F.

Considering the OG of 1.055, this means that the ABV is somewhere around 4 and 4.5%. The sample tasted great even flat and green, but now I'm worried about bottling the stuff. Do you think it is safe to bottle at this point? The yeast I used was Safbrew S-33 which I think is not a very attenuating strain, and I plan to bottle using swing-top style bottles. What worries me is that a FG of 1.020-1.022 looks a bit high.

Thank you, best regards!

Well I finally bottled the brew with a FG of 1.020. After 5 days of sampling the FG would not get any lower so I decided to go on and bottle. I used a small amount of sugar for priming and, at least for now (2 days after bottling) there have been no bottle bombs. The uncarbonated beer tastes really good so I hope this gets ready soon!. I plan to sample a bottle after 1 week (I read somewhere that wheat beers are usually ready within the first 1 to 2 weeks). After that I will give some bottles to friends who care about my beer making ventures

I'll upload some pics when it's ready. Cheers!

Well, the bottles have withstand the FG with no problems, and after popping one open and sharing it with friends I have to say this is a really tasteful beer, with a good body and flavour, and not much alcohol twang to it. Yesterday night was pretty hot around here so we chilled and drank a few bottles. I don't have any pic yet, but this recipe is something to remember because of its simplicity (at least if you are a lazy extract brewer as I currently am hehehe).

The yeast used definitely made this beer NOT TO taste like a typical wheat hefe. I wanted to get something similar to a Franziskaner or Paulaner but this does not have the typical clove and banana flavours. The beer tastes great, but not like I wanted to. Next time I need to get my hands on a real wheat beer dedicated yeast.

The S-33 did flocculate really well, and the final product was actually more clear than I expected it to be. I expected a semi opaque beer after using so much wheat, but it's way more clear than a typical Franziskaner or Paulaner.

I'll upload some pics in a while. Cheers!