My next brew....

So after mulling over dozens of recipes and styles, I decided I'm going to try and brew one of my favorites. A Dunkelweizen. Here's the recipe that I've turned up:


8lbs Wheat LME
3lbs Light LME
1/4lb Chocolate malt
1/4lb Black Patent
1/4lb Crystal 80
1/4lb Roasted Barley
1oz of Hallertauer 60min
1/2 oz Hallertauer 30min
1/2 oz Hallertauer 5min
Heifeweizen ale Yeast

Seems like a fairly straightforward recipe. I'm going to do a 3.5 gallon boil with a 5 gal batch. I will steep all my grains together at 150-160 for about 45 minutes. Crank up the heat to a boil and add all my LME and start my hops.

How do I know what my OG/FG should be? I'm assuming 2-3 weeks in the primary should be sufficient. I would like to get about 6% ABV

Any comments, tips, or critiques would be welcome. Thanks

To estimate/calculate your OG/FG check out the beer calculator/recipator at http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe. Just enter the ingredients, select proper brewing volumes, hop alpha acids, etc. and you're golden.

As for commentary I can tell you from a guestimate that you've got too much roasted malt. Again punching in your #s into beercalculus will help guide you. A good guide, not God's law as some people treat it, but guide is to listen to 'The Jamil Show' podcast over at thebrewingnetwork, looking up the episode that deals with the style you want to brew. Otherwise you could go directly with an 'award winning' or otherwise trusted recipe as a guide.

Good luck.

There are a number of online resources for calculating OG/FG, IBUs, etc... here's a free one that is rather handy: http://hopville.com/

As for the recipe, a couple of comments. You have too much LME here for a 5 gallon batch to be 6% (you'd end up probably over 8%, making a weizenbock). And you have waayyy too much roasted malt in this recipe. Dunkelweizens really don't have that roasted character, you'd come out with stout like qualities. If any roasted malts go with carafa I-- but I'd still stay away from it. Use a dark crystal malt instead.

If I were you I'd go with something like this:

8lbs Wheat LME
1lb Crystal 80 (or 120 if you want it darker)

1oz of Hallertauer 60min
1/2 oz Hallertauer 10min

Heifeweizen ale Yeast

Special B malt or Caramunich would also work well as the crystal malt. Ferment this puppy for 3-4 weeks (no need for secondary or anything, since weizens should have plenty of yeast), then bottle.

edit: ah, MVKTR2 beat me to hopville...

jeburgdo said:

There are a number of online resources for calculating OG/FG, IBUs, etc... here's a free one that is rather handy: http://hopville.com/

As for the recipe, a couple of comments. You have too much LME here for a 5 gallon batch to be 6% (you'd end up probably over 8%, making a weizenbock). And you have waayyy too much roasted malt in this recipe. Dunkelweizens really don't have that roasted character, you'd come out with stout like qualities. If any roasted malts go with carafa I-- but I'd still stay away from it. Use a dark crystal malt instead.

If I were you I'd go with something like this:

8lbs Wheat LME
1lb Crystal 80 (or 120 if you want it darker)

1oz of Hallertauer 60min
1/2 oz Hallertauer 10min

Heifeweizen ale Yeast

Special B malt or Caramunich would also work well as the crystal malt. Ferment this puppy for 3-4 weeks (no need for secondary or anything, since weizens should have plenty of yeast), then bottle.

edit: ah, MVKTR2 beat me to hopville...

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+1 You really don't need any light extract in there, since there is a significant amount of barley in the wheat extract. For instance, I know that Briess DME uses 35% malted barley in their extract. I would probably keep the chocolate malt in though, but that is just me.

Thanks for the input. I was trying to make a little darker and stronger wheat version of Hofbrau Dunkel. I'm new to the experimenting stuff.

Something like this guy here;

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?group=50&item=5036

But then as I look through I see this

8 oz. American crystal 40L
4 oz. American chocolate
4 oz. American black patent
6.6 lb. Light malt extract
2 lb. Light dry malt extract
1 oz. Mt. Hood (5.2% AA, 45 min.)
.5 oz. Mt. Hood (5.2% AA, 5 min.)

I've never had Hofbrau Dunkel, so I can't say how a wheat version would pan out. With that said, it doesn't look like, from pictures and reading descriptions, that this is a beer with the amount of roasted malts you have. But, if you want to put some roasted malt in there, that is perfectly fine, and is done to style. (See: http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Dunkelweizen.html)

So unless you want something with a more than typical, or even more than "appropriate" for the style, roasty flavor, 8oz of roasted malt is too much. Especially the black patent, which imparts a sharp, bitter, and ashy flavor. My suggestion (and it's only one opinion) is if you go with roasted malts, go with up to 0.25lbs of Carafa I, and drop the others.

But, if you want to try for something different, don't be shy to do so!

Dunkels are traditionally not as dark as you'd think. They also should have very low hop flavor and virtually no roast. I didn't crunch the numbers but I think you're going to end up pretty dark and the 30 and 5 min hops additions may put you a little hoppier than the style. The yeast is the highlight.

I have this coming to a close in my primary right now. It's pretty close if not right on style. Like others have mentioned though. Don't be afraid to experiment. A darker, slightly roasty dunkel could be really good. Watch your patent though. The yeast will put off a little citrus flavor that might not jive well with that bright charcoaly bitterness of the patent.

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (G): 6.0
Total Grain (lb): 13.000
Total Hops (oz): 1.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.058 (°P): 14.3
Colour (SRM): 18.0 (EBC): 35.5
Bitterness (IBU): 12.9 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 72
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
7.000 lb Wheat Malt (53.85%)
3.000 lb Pilsner (23.08%)
2.000 lb Munich II (15.38%)
0.500 lb Chocolate, Pale (3.85%)
0.500 lb Special-B (3.85%)

Hop Bill
----------------
1.0 oz Hallertau Tradition Pellet (3.8% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.2 oz/Gal)

Misc Bill
----------------
Double decoction mash 123 for 45 min, 152 for 1hr, 168 mash out
Fermented at 68°F with WLP300 - Hefeweizen Ale

Argh so many choices. I understand what you're saying, but these recipes can't be terrible if people are making them haha. I'm worried I'm going to waste 6 weeks, $, and end up with crap.

Enf0rc3r said:

Argh so many choices. I understand what you're saying, but these recipes can't be terrible if people are making them haha. I'm worried I'm going to waste 6 weeks, $, and end up with crap.

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Best thing to do is to keep it simple for your first brew of any particular style. Then you can get an idea about how you would like to change it next time. You can evaluate hoppiness (bitterness and flavor), sweetness, mouthfeel, roastiness, etc.. you get the idea. If you make something totally whack, chances are it will be much harder to get it perfect (as in how you like it) next time.

When I first started making recipes, they always seemed to end up 'muddy' because I was trying for too many things at the same time, and had too many different flavors. It makes your beer lack any direction. You will learn as you make more recipes that the simple ones tend to be better than the really complex ones.

Enf0rc3r said:

Argh so many choices. I understand what you're saying, but these recipes can't be terrible if people are making them haha. I'm worried I'm going to waste 6 weeks, $, and end up with crap.

Click to expand...

All the more reason to take the advice that's being offered and brew a 'sure thing' until you sharpen your recipe kung fu. As someone else mentioned, grab the recipe from the dunkelweizen episode of the jamil show, and then go out and buy a copy of Designing Great Beers.

And btw, plenty of people are posting and brewing terrible recipes. Ask me how I know.

jwalker1140 said:

And btw, plenty of people are posting and brewing terrible recipes. Ask me how I know.

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This.

Agreed to everything said here. Essentially an extract dunkelweizen is enough extract to get you to a proper OG 1.048-1.055 iirc and medium-moderately dark crystal malt in the half pound range then 2-4 ounces of carafa special I or II.

Simple, straightforward. How you brew is more important than what you brew (unless you're just being silly/stupid). If you brew your original recipe and did it well it'd turn out quite nice. Would it be a dunkelweizen? No.

So if you're worried about $ & making crap beer cut out the darkest roasted malts and use the lighter roasted malts to the tune of 3-6 oz, can't remember if you had crystal in it-if so leave it in (8-10 oz). Finally cut out the non-wheat extract and get your gravity down to a more appropriate level.

What yeast are you fermenting with?

Just pulled this up.

Jamil's Dunkelweizen:
OG - 1.051
FG - 1.013
IBU - 15

6.6 lbs Weyermann Wheat Malt
3.3 lbs Weyermann Munich malt
8.8 oz (250 grams) CaraMunich malt -60L
2.6 oz Carafa Special II (430 L)
.75 oz (21 grams) Hallertau hop pellets (4% AAU) - 60 min
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen yeast - 2 liter starter

For the record wheat extract isn't 100% wheat, but is a blend 60/40, 50/50, not sure but something along those lines. Meaning it fits right into what most people blend for a weizenbier.

This is Jamil's recipe from BCS:

Batch size: 6.0 gal
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.014
IBU: 16
SRM: 16
Ferment at 62F

Extract (60 min boil):
6.8 lb wheat lme
2.2 lb munich lme

All grain (mash at 152F, 90 min boil):
2.0 lbs pilsner malt
6.9 lbs wheat malt
3.0 lbs munich malt

6.0 oz special b
6.0 oz crystal 40L
2.0 oz carafa special II
1.0 oz hallertau 4% at 60 min
wlp300 or wyeast 3068

Btw, I probably reference BCS by Jamil and Palmer more than any other brewing book I own. Definitely recommend buying.

Thank you all for the assistance. This forum is fantastic.