Dunkles Weissbier Weihenstephaner Dunkel Clone

Notes

I brewed this and compared it to the original Weihenstephaner Dunkel Weizen and it is dead on in color and taste. I can't tell you which one I liked better because they actually tasted nearly identical. If you want an authentic Dunkel-Weizen then this is the beer to brew. Happy brewing

Grain
5 lbs Pilsner Malt
5 lbs Wheat malt
1 lb Honey malt
.5 lb Special B
.5 lb rice hulls

Mash at 152-153° for 60 min

Full wort boil

Hops
1 oz Mt. Hood 4.5%AA for 60 min

Yeast
Weihenstephaner 1000ml starter

1 week Primary fermentation

Keg 12 psi serving pressure

Sounds interesting, especially with the Mt. Hood hops. Congrats & I'll have to try it.

Sounds good. I picked up a 6 pack of Weihenstephan Hefe Weissbier this week. I hadn't had it in a while and we're brewing a hefe this weekend with that yeast, so I needed a refresher on its taste. Man, that's a good beer. Now you've got me wanting to go pick up a 6 pack of their dunkel.

I thought the Mt Hood were interesting, too. What made you decide on those? I would think it would have Hallertau or Tettnang.

Mt. Hood is a great Noble Hop alternative. I use it for all my light beers, hefes, Wits, etc. I believe it's actually a derivative of the Hallertauer.

Actually it is... I just googled this info.....

Great interest was centered around the development, both in the United States and in Germany of new varieties to take the place of the traditional and highly desirable old German hop, the Hallertau Mittelfrüher. Intensive breeding research at the agricultural experiment stations at Corvallis, Oregon, Prosser, Washington and Moscow, Idaho resulted in the release of 4 Hallertau triploid varieties. The earliest released of those, Mt. Hood, has achieved substantial commercial success, and can now be counted as one of the United States' main aroma hops. Its sister Liberty has also gained good acceptance with micro-brewers.
Mt. Hood, resulted from a 1983 cross between the tetraploid female Hallertauer Mittelfrüher and the male genotype USDA 19058M.

Cool. Thanks for the info. It may come in handy with this year's hop shortage.

Gday Everyone

Im quight new to AG brewing, was hoping for this to be my first batch after much reading on the subject. I had a few lil questions though i was hoping somone might have an answer for.

5 lbs Pilsner Malt
5 lbs Wheat malt
1 lb Honey malt

Here in Australia when i check out the sites selling grain, there is many many variations of pilsner and wheat malt. I was hoping you could advise me on which type i should be getting for this brew ?

Also it seems like we may not get the honey malt, i was wondering if i could use a diffrent malt or maybe extra wheat and pilsner and use a honey extract type for the honey flavouring ? i know we can get that over here.

Thanks heaps for any help you guys can give me.
would be greatly appreciated.
Regards
Jordan

I made this tonight and my OG was a few points low (1.051) and I didn't have any DME on hand to boost it. It should turn okay, right?

Nope, 1.051 is way too low. It's ruined. Send me a PM and I'll give you the address to ship it for proper disposal.

GreatWhiteSlark said:

I made this tonight and my OG was a few points low (1.051) and I didn't have any DME on hand to boost it. It should turn okay, right?

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It'll be fine. I aimed for a smaller hefe yesterday, actually - 1.046 - and ended up at 1.053. Live and learn.

We'll both be fine.

edit: It looks like you were drinking this at ~8 days. How was it then?

Which kind of Pilser malt should I select (do you think)?
-Weyermann Pilsner
-Belgian Pilsner
-Briess Pilsner

I had a pint of the real stuff last night with my wings at a Taco Mac in the Atlanta burbs whilst watching the Jets beat the Patriots.

I brewed the Bee Cave Dunkel on Friday night and it has been percolating nicely for two days now at 68F. I'm definitely getting a little bit of that sulphur odor that the Wyeast-3068 can produce. I also had some issues during my brew and I did not get a good mash. My OG was a bit low (1.040).

Could you please provide a link to the Bee Cave Dunkel. I cannot find it via search.

11:39 PM. Just finished put the lid on the fermenter. Will report back with results.

Bmorebrew said:

11:39 PM. Just finished put the lid on the fermenter. Will report back with results.

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update?

Oh yeah, I forgot to update -
this was a very good beer. My mash ended up running 80 minutes and went from 152 down to 150. This made the body a little thinner, but for a summer slugger this turned out to not be a bad thing. I did not do a side by side, but the taste is just what you expect from a Bavarian hefe. My color was dead on for the hefeweissbier, not the dunkel. Didn't break my heart though.

perfect, did you follow the grain bill in the OP?

As far as I can tell. Unless I unwittingly ended up measuring short on something at the LHBS, I followed it as is.

I just gave this batch a whirl. It was my first AG recipe attempt and I'm afraid the newbie in me came out to rear it's ugly head. My SG is 1.031. I'm guessing that this is pretty much a throw out at this point - would you agree? Any advice for salvaging?

I mashed with 3 gallons at 155 for 60 mins. Brought the wort to a 60 minute boil (my stove doesn't seem to be powerful enough to get a full rolling boil but it bubbles), and then added to the carboy with 1 gallon of cold water and topped up to 5 gal with another gallon.

Thoughts? Thanks!

douggefreshvt said:

I just gave this batch a whirl. It was my first AG recipe attempt and I'm afraid the newbie in me came out to rear it's ugly head. My SG is 1.031. I'm guessing that this is pretty much a throw out at this point - would you agree? Any advice for salvaging?

I mashed with 3 gallons at 155 for 60 mins. Brought the wort to a 60 minute boil (my stove doesn't seem to be powerful enough to get a full rolling boil but it bubbles), and then added to the carboy with 1 gallon of cold water and topped up to 5 gal with another gallon.

Thoughts? Thanks!

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No sparge? That's probably the issue. I would not top off with AG just sparge with the amount of wort you need pre-boil minus you first runnings.

OK. Now let's say I did that - then I would have to wait for the wort to cool before putting it in the carboy right? Because I've heard a lot of horror stories about them breaking from thermal shock if the wort is too hot.

So I tried to fix my low gravity problem by adding some DME. I added 3lbs DME to .5 gallons of water and boiled for about 30 minutes, then added to the wort. The wort had just begun fermenting the night before but was looking pretty lackluster. After I added the DME it went crazy. However I checked the gravity after adding and it only increased from 1.028 to 1.034. So, either I can't handle taking a gravity reading OR it still isn't much better than before. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts about what I may have done wrong. Was really hoping an on-the-fly fix might straighten things out but I'm not sure I really improved the problem all that much.

Hi all-

I'd like to give this recipe a shot. I went to my LHBS's website and tried to find "Special B," but don't see anything coming up. Any suggestions? Is this a common thing that they should have there if I hand them my grain bill?

One other question...The yeast used in this was a starter. Can I just use a dry yeast packet? Can anyone recommend one please? Thank you!

JeffoC6 said:

Hi all-

I'd like to give this recipe a shot. I went to my LHBS's website and tried to find "Special B," but don't see anything coming up. Any suggestions? Is this a common thing that they should have there if I hand them my grain bill?

One other question...The yeast used in this was a starter. Can I just use a dry yeast packet? Can anyone recommend one please? Thank you!

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My LHBS is constantly out of Special B so I usually sub Caramel 120, it'll make up for the color at least though I don't think there is a sub for the flavor of special B. In small amounts I probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway. It may me worth ordering a bag to keep on hand, I see it in a lot of recipes (Jamil seems to add it to every remotely dark beer in Brewing Classic Styles)

I would use the darkest crystal you can find or something in the cara family - caravienna or caraaroma maybe. Special B is sweet but also fairly dark. You're only using a half pound so I don't think it would kill you either way. The dry yeast should be fine. It's not hard to make a starter. Most people are just afraid of it. I started doing them 4 batches ago and it makes a huge difference on starting and maintaining fermentation. If you want some tips send me a PM.

And just to circle back on my earlier posts, the adage RDWHAHB is so true. My beer came out perfect and tasted just like it should have. Dead ringer for Weihenstephaner Dunkelweizen. Sehr gut!

This came out AWESOME! Thank you so much for the recipe! I'll definitely be brewing this again. Great beer for spring and summer.

I really need to learn how to take better pictures of my brews:

Looks great man, nice work!! Did you end up making a starter or going dry? What malt did you sub for special b?

douggefreshvt said:

Looks great man, nice work!! Did you end up making a starter or going dry? What malt did you sub for special b?

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I only do 1-Gallon batches, so no need for starters. I just pitched from the Wyeast smack pack.

My LHBS had special B so no substitutions. Beer is delicious!

Still enjoying this. Very happy with the results. Will absolutely be brewing this again.

Brewing this up tomorrow. Couldn't find special B, so I subbed in Briess Extra Special Malt (supposed to be a decent sub).

The yeast smelled delicious when I was pitching it into my starter. Looking forward to trying this one.

Holy cow. So I made a 1500mL starter earlier today, and came back tonight to it having completely blown off the foil cap, and a decent sized chunk of yeast goo all over the outside of the flask. I've never had a starter have a foamover, ever. This yeast is crazy.

Haha. I had a similar experience. I had to put the fermenter inside a plastic bucket because I didn't yet have any tubing to use as a blow off. It all bubbled right out of the airlock and all over my wood flooring. SWMBO was not a happy camper. Turned out great though!

This recipe looks delicious...my next batch

Gonna make this my first AG attempt this weekend, super excited to see how it goes!

McTarnamins,

what temp did you ferment this at? I know jamil suggests fermenting this yeast at around 62. Is that where you went with it or did you go with old wisdom of hotter for hefe yeasts?

Ok so plugging this in to BrewR for android I'm getting
1.058 OG,
I changed the hops up to 12 ibu,
SRM around 14-15 and a final gravity of 1.015 for 5.7% ABV.

Should I go with this?

When I brewed this last fall with 1lb of honey malt, it was WAY too sweet. I'd drop the honey to half a pound, or drop it altogether.

I just double checked my recipe. Looks like those were my stats with only a half pound of honey malt to begin with. The maltier the better

If I missed it sorry, but if I am to bottle how much sugar are you using for 5 Gal? Thanks also I see you are carbing at 12 PSI how long are you leaving it at that pressure before serving?

JeffoC6 said:

I only do 1-Gallon batches, so no need for starters. I just pitched from the Wyeast smack pack.

My LHBS had special B so no substitutions. Beer is delicious!

Click to expand...

Ok, I'm a knuckle head. Could you post the recipe for the 1 gallon batch? Thanks!


-Kingboomer

Doing my 2nd batch of this right now should have a boil going within the next hour--this is awesome wheat beer 1st batch only lasted maybe 3 days--gotta throw Opal in instead of Mt. Hood it was either that or Tatt.--