'Merican Wheat IPA

This will be our second time brewing this IPA, the first was only 15g and the hop schedule was bit different using Warrior for bittering and had some Simcoe in there. Brewing this version tomorrow to see the difference.

Planning 80% efficiency
25# Canadian 2 row
25# Wheat malt
4# Caravienne
4# Flaked wheat
2# Melanoidin

FWH - 1oz Amarillo
FWH - 1oz Citra
60 min - 2oz Amarillo
60 min - 2oz Citra
30 min - 2oz Amarillo
30 min - 2oz Citra
15 min - 2oz Amarillo
15 min - 2oz Citra
5 min - 2oz Amarillo
5 min - 2oz Citra
0 min - 2oz Amarillo
0 min - 2oz Citra

Dry hop - 1oz each Citra and Amarillo per 5g carboy

This was one of those stressful brews. Things went great in the begining, nailed the mash temp, had everything ready, then...the dreaded stuck mash. Things just went downhill from there. Had to blow c02 back up into the tun and stir to get it going again, and I mean this stuff was turning to cement in there. What I was expecting to be an hour lauter turned into 2 and a half hours. Then, I accidently tried to move our keggle that was fresh off the burner, with my bare hand. Fail. We had 2 other kegs our there we were cleaning and my brain didnt register that this was a hot one until it was too late. Finally we get to boil and the tornado sirens start going off and we brew in the garage. With the door closed the garage hit over 100 degrees in like 2 minutes, and in all the chaos to get everything inside we boiled over pretty bad.

Not that that all wasnt enough, we take a gravity after the boil at room temp and it reads 1.080 making our efficiency 107%. We double and triple check the reading with 3 different hydrometers and they are all reading the same...turns out we weighed our grain wrong and also only took the gravity from the 20g blichman, not a mix of both so we were way off. lol After figuring this all out we were at 1.065 and we had 7lbs of extra grain in there so our actual efficiency was 78%. What a clusterf*$k!!

Hey, where did the top part of the recipe go with the gravities and srm and stuff?

Any idea why we got a stuck mash with only 6% Flaked Wheat? Anyone?

Have never had that issue before when using 3% with this same recipe, you think that little % of the total grain can get the mash to stick like that? Will def be using rice hulls next time.

i was hoping you might be dry hopping with a Big Mac, for that real 'Murica flavor

No, but ill drink it with bacon just to be safe!

If your water mash water was low because of the extra grain would that make a difference? I havent done an all grain yet just throwing it out there.

I dont think so, we compensated for the larger quantity of course. Im thinking its the shape of our mash tun. Its a 40g garbage can, so it is a bit tall and narrow, so this may be overdoing it with a wheat beer. Looks like we are going to have to start looking at upgrading or stick to 25g batches when using wheat or alot of flaked stuff. As least I am going to start adding rice hulls from here on out.

Wheat malt has no husk, so it was your 50% wheat malt that did you in on the stuck mash.

I always use rice hulls whenever I mash with Wheat malt ... just a nice cheap insurance policy to avoid the dreaded stuck lauter. I usually use about 1/2 lb rice hulls for 5 lbs of wheat grain... not sure if that is above or below the usuall recommends...

..and, It was good hear that I'm not the only one with occasional crazy brewdays..!

--LexusChris

Soak and rinse those ricehulls before using them.

Ahhh so the wheat malt can do this also, good to know.

Ill remember that about the rice hulls too, thanks!

Weird thing too about this brew, used wlp001, femented 9 days at 68 degrees and it dropped to 1.018. FG was supposed to be 1.016 so we transferred to secondary and dry hopped for another 7 days. Went to bottle/keg last night and it went all the way down to 1.009. We mashed at 154 degrees for 60 min, but then the lauter took about 2 hours, so did that cause the extra fementables? Why would it go this low this quick?

I guess I've been lucky, I use over 50% wheat malt in my wheat beers with a rectangle cooler and haven't had a stuck mash yet. (knock on wood)

Dang, really frustrated, 2 years brewing and just had my first keg that tastes like butterscotch! This beer should be a solid 65ibu ipa but it just tastes like a bland buttery mess. We dry hopped with an oz of citra and an oz of amarillo per 5g and there is little to no hop aroma. Now, it could be isolated to just this keg, or the fermentor that this came out of, but i have not tried the bottles or any of the other kegs yet. Since this beer fermented all the way down to 1.009 so you think i should add some corm sugar along with some more yeast to get these babys to clean this up?

The trick to avoiding a stuck mash when brewing a wheat beer is in loading your mash tun with grains. I use 1/2 pound of rice hulls, I've soaked them and used them right out of the bag and there's no difference at all in the finished beer. Put a cup of hulls then a cup of barley until the hulls are gone then put a cup of wheat and a cup of barley and add your strike water, leaving room at the top of the tun for your flaked wheat.


Screwy's All Grain Wheat Beer

Stir your grains until you hit your mash temperature and then just lay the flaked stuff on the top of the grain and add enough strike water to cover them. Screw on the lid and mash for an hour or so. Slowly vorlauf a few gallons recirculating the collected wort to the top of the mash tun, I use a single infusion mash and fly sparge. Then just add your strike water and lauter until you've collected enough wort for your boil. I've done this at least ten times and have never suffered a stuck mash.

For sure, from now on we are going to use the rice hulls, for the minimum cost its really worth not having another brew day like that. Never thought about keeping the flaked stuff on the top though, i guess that would help not gumming up the grain bed.

Any input on adding yeast and sugar to clear up my diacetyl?

I've never tried cleaning up a keg of buttery beer.. but it sounds like it might work.

I am not sure you need to add any sugar. You don't really need yeast trying to eat more sugar for higher ABV... you just want them in there to consume/convert the diacytel into better tasting componants.

Perhaps, just rehydrate some dry yeast in some sterilized water, and add that to your room-temp keg. Keep the keg in the upper 60's, low-70's range. That should keep them active, and happy to look for diacytel to convert.

I'd also be sure to keep some CO2 on the top of that keg, and otherwise minimize contact with plain air.

Just a few thoughts... Good luck!
--LexusChris

Didn't get a chance to check on here, but thats exactly what we did. Just pitched a small amount of cleaned wlp001 in each and hoping for the best.

Thanks!