American Rye Wheat recipe help needed

Trying to formulate a simple tasty American style wheat with a bit of rye crispness/spice. Let me know what you think. Should I add a little more rye? Don't want to overpower it. Threw the Saaz in there because I have 1/2 oz. in the freezer and need excuse to use it. Thanks for any help.

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Recipe: Brian's Rye Wheat
Brewer: Brian Bell
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Wheat or Rye Beer
TYPE: Partial Mash
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.050 SG
Estimated Color: 4.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 18.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.00 lb Alexander's Wheat Liquid Extract (4.2 SRM)Extract 44.44 %
3.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 38.89 %
1.50 lb Rye, Flaked (2.0 SRM) Grain 16.67 %
1.00 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] (40 min)Hops 11.6 IBU
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.50 %] (15 min) Hops 3.7 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (10 min) Hops 1.2 IBU
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.5 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 6.25 qt of water at 168.2 F 152.0 F

Looks great. I like the rye component of my beers to be between 15-20%. Lower percentage on lighter beers and heavier percentage on heavier beers.

I just brewed an American wheat/rye this past weekend. Tasted great going into the fermenter.

It's basically Jamil Z.'s recipe, except I added a little caraway seed to the boil. Pay no attention to the two different 60 minute Willamette additions...just try to get to about 20 IBUs. I had two different packs of Willamette pellets and they were of different AA%.

(I'll leave it to you to convert to partial mash if you want to try the recipe...or I can get the extract recipe from the book if you might want to use it; just let me know.)

American Wheat Rye Caraway
Brew Type: All Grain
Style: American Wheat or Rye Beer
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Volume: 7.41 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Actual Efficiency: 81.22 %

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 3.77 %
6.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 45.28 %
3.75 lb Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 28.30 %
3.00 lb White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 22.64 %
1.00 oz Willamette [3.70 %] (60 min) Hops 13.8 IBU
0.38 oz Willamette [4.60 %] (60 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
0.30 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
0.30 oz Willamette [5.00 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.50 tsp Caraway Seeds, slightly crushed and toasted (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Wheat Ale (Wyeast Labs #1010) [Starter 2000 ml] Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.052 SG (1.040-1.055 SG)
Measured Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.012 SG (1.008-1.013 SG)
Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Color: 5.2 SRM (3.0-6.0 SRM)
Bitterness: 20.3 IBU (15.0-30.0 IBU)
Alpha Acid Units: 5.4 AAU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 5.21 % (4.00-5.50 %)

Mash at 152F. Ferment at 65F.

I'd add a bit more rice hulls next time.

So I know this is reviving a slightly older post but I'm dying to know how you felt about the caraway seeds. 1.5t doesn't seem like a lot to me, but that's because I'm a bread baker - there's 3 times that much caraway in one loaf of rye bread. Usually in caraway rye bread we use 1.75% caraway, and that's expressed in terms of percentage of the amount of flour in the recipe. If we use this same percentage applied to a beer with 10# of malt, we'd be using .17# of caraway, which comes out to around 3/4C of caraway seeds. That's a little ridiculous too.

I'm thinking we can take a lead from pumpkin beers, which generally use somewhere between 1T and 5T of spices. Caraway and cinnamon seem equally powerful as spices, though cinnamon seems to have more "drinkability" - I could imagine consuming cinnamon via beer over long periods of time but caraway is a bit more intrusive on the palate. So I'm leaning towards 1-2T on this one, probably added a couple times towards the end of the boil. I'm also thinking of making this some sort of dunkel or schwarz beer, so there will be some added roasty maltiness to compete with.

Any feedback and reports on your own experience would be appreciated.

I would at least double if not triple the amount of caraway seeds next time. I didn't taste them in the beer at all. So I think you're on the right track.

Incidentally, I had a weird problem with that batch -- it's in the keg now and the mouthfeel is just weird. It's thick like skim milk. I can't figure out why.