American Wheat Extract Help?

Hey guys,

I am looking to brew an American Wheat beer soon and needed some help on what specialty grains I should steep with and also which dme I should use? I'm going for a light, hoppy,tropical refreshing beer. Here's my hop schedule:

Hallertauer 1oz @60
Galaxy .25oz @10
Mosaic .25 oz @10
Galaxy .50 oz @1
Mosaic .50 oz @1

Should I also do a 60 min boil or 90 minute?

Remember this is an all extract batch. Any input would be awesome.

Wheat DME. Wheat DME is typically 50/50 or 60/40 wheat and barley.

That beer will not have a lot of hop flavor. What commercial beer would match the hoppiness you are looking for? If you are shooting for Gumballhead or Little Sumpin' Sumpin' for example you are way underhopped.

If I remember correctly Hallertauer is a low AA% hop. If that is the case and you really want something with low bitterness but a lot of hop flavor I would recommend hop bursting. You do a 20m boil with a large amount of hops.

Something like

2oz Cascade 20m
2oz Amarillo 10m
1oz Cascade 5m
1oz Cascade 0m
45m rest before cooling
2oz dryhop Amarillo 5 days

Maybe a little bit of crystal for color and sweetness.

logan3825 said:

Wheat DME. Wheat DME is typically 50/50 or 60/40 wheat and barley.

That beer will not have a lot of hop flavor. What commercial beer would match the hoppiness you are looking for? If you are shooting for Gumballhead or Little Sumpin' Sumpin' for example you are way underhopped.

If I remember correctly Hallertauer is a low AA% hop. If that is the case and you really want something with low bitterness but a lot of hop flavor I would recommend hop bursting. You do a 20m boil with a large amount of hops.

Something like

2oz Cascade 20m
2oz Amarillo 10m
1oz Cascade 5m
1oz Cascade 0m
45m rest before cooling
2oz dryhop Amarillo 5 days

Maybe a little bit of crystal for color and sweetness.

Click to expand...

So are you saying to start adding all the hops in the last 20 min of the boil? Am I doing a total of 60 min boil or 90 like I usually do for IPAs? Sorry, new brewer here. Thanks for the help

Hop bursting would only be a 20m boil total. You only need to boil as long as your longest hop addition. Of course with a shorter boil you have less boil off so you don't need as much water in the boil kettle. Unless you are doing partial boils where you would have less top off water in the fermenter. You still want to end up with 5 gallons.

I don't see any need to do a 90 minute boil. Longer boils are typically used for bigger beers requiring more hop bitterness and additions (the longer the boil the more alpha acids you extract). Based on your hop schedule which shows a single ounce of Hallertauer I'd say you aren't looking for a lot of bitterness but more aroma and flavor.

I'd bump your 10 minute additions up to at least a half ounce each. You'll get better flavor and aroma plus the extract AA extracted will better balance your beer.

You could also try tossing some orange peel or something in the boil to get more fruitiness.

What commercial style are you shooting for. American wheat is a pretty poorly defined style. On one hand you have Oberon ale and on the other you have Gumballhead. Oberon is much closer to a pilsner or hefe while Gumballhead is more like an IPA but not as bitter.