Big Wheat Beer

Well, I'm back from two months of brewing purgatory. But I'm back with a vengeance and fresh from an 11 gallon bottling marathon.

I'm thinking about doing a big wheat beer. Something with an o.g. around 1.075 or 1.080.

I'm wondering, how much IBUs would be needed to balance it out. Should I aim for an IBU of 50, like a barely wine, or should I aim for an IBU of 25, like a Belgain Tripel?

Someone posted a chart here a while ago that had an OG vs. IBU table for balancing beers. Couldn't find it. But to approximate if the OG was 1.070, you'd just use the last two numbers to calculate IBU (70 IBU in this case). Might be a bit hoppy for you though, as you were looking at only using 50 IBU in a barleywine. Plus if you went with my recommendations, you'd basically have a wheat IPA.

I'd personally say that with a wheat beer I'd want something in the 30-40 IBU range, so that the wheat was the dominant player in the beer.

I'd go 30-35IBU, it's a wheat beer so it should not have too much hop flavor or bitterness. Lots of hops can interfere with the subtle flavors of the yeast. Style guidelines state that a Weizenbock should have a bitterness 15IBU to 30IBU, that is if you want to follow guidelines!

The chart I was talking about is in this thread. Scroll down to Biermuncher's most recent post.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=41149&page=2

Yeah, I was thinking anything over 50 would compete too much with wheat yeast esters.

I've seen charts like that before, just not with the pretty colors. I wasn't entirely sure where on the chart I should put this one.

I still haven't decided if I want to go weiss or schwartz with this one. I'm thinking I'll target 30 IBUs if I go weiss and target 35IBUs if I go schwartz.

Thanks.

One word: Weizenbock

Actually, I'm toying with the idea of a Roggenweiss.

Yea, I made a hell of a weizenbock once, great beer, good buzz. Just took a dunkel recipe and upped the wheat til I hit an og of about 1.070. Cheese recently made a huge wheat beer, maybe he'll chime in.

Ó Flannagáin said:

Yea, I made a hell of a weizenbock once, great beer, good buzz. Just took a dunkel recipe and upped the wheat til I hit an og of about 1.070. Cheese recently made a huge wheat beer, maybe he'll chime in.

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I just emptied my DoubleDunkle keg over the weekend. I did the same thing, ended up being 8 lb of DME and I added a half oz more EKG pellet hops than the Dunkle receipe called for. It was very popular amongst my friends. It was too sweet for my preference, by my friends all want me to make it again.