Hoppy American Wheat recipe help

I've been thinking about using up some old stuff and this i what I came up with. Going for a refreshing summer beer with no banana flavor and a hoppy flavor. How does the grain bill look and what do you think about the hop schedule/combination?

I have rougly available 1 oz of Williamette and NB, and 2 oz Cascade.

American Wheat

Batch Size: 5.000 gal
Efficiency: 65%
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.013
ABV: 5.3%
Bitterness: 24.5 IBU
Color: 5 SRM

Fermentables
Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Wheat Malt, Ger Grain 5.500 lb Yes No 84% 2 L
Pale Malt (2 Row) UK Grain 3.900 lb Yes No 78% 3 L
Vienna Malt Grain 1.700 lb Yes No 78% 4 L
Total grain: 11.100 lb

Hops
Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Willamette 5.4% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Leaf 5.9
Cascade 6.8% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Leaf 7.4
Northern Brewer 9.4% 1.000 oz Boil 10.000 min Leaf 10.2
Cascade 6.8% 1.000 oz Boil 1.000 min Leaf 1.0

Yeast
Safale S-05

Certainly looks like a quick batch! With all those late additions, it won't have much in the way of staying power, but it should be tasty in its youth. I'm curious: what are you after with the Vienna addition? My gut reaction is that it seemed like a bit more than I'd expect, but I haven't brewed a lot of wheats.

smagee said:

Certainly looks like a quick batch! With all those late additions, it won't have much in the way of staying power, but it should be tasty in its youth. I'm curious: what are you after with the Vienna addition? My gut reaction is that it seemed like a bit more than I'd expect, but I haven't brewed a lot of wheats.

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This is my first wheat too, so all input is appreciated. So maybe cut back the vienna a bit? The vienna could also be subbed for pale malt and some caramel malt.

What do you mean with staying power? I've heard that with time the hop flavor/aroma fades, but does it really happen that fast? This batch is designed to be gone by fall, do you think it will last tasty that long (3-4 months?).

I figure the IBUs shouldn't fade away, and it shouldn't make any difference how I get the IBUs (all late addition vs. bittering addition), correct?

I've got my very 1st American Wheat in day 6 of primary fermentation. I can't comment on your hop schedule yet. BUT, as for yeast, if you can ferment mid 50F, I would recommend Kolsch yeast (Wyeast 2565) instead of US-05. At day 6, my ferment is extremely clean with very low esthers.

On my first batch I accidentally made a very bitter American Wheat, due to adding my malt late without reducing the hops.

The result was, of course, a beer that had the proper flavor and aroma hops, bit double bitter.

Initially, it tasted ok, but resulted in bile in the throat. The bittering faded quickly. After conditioning 2 weeks, it is not just drinkable but pretty good...despite still being very bitter.

Karbalos said:

This is my first wheat too, so all input is appreciated. So maybe cut back the vienna a bit? The vienna could also be subbed for pale malt and some caramel malt.

What do you mean with staying power? I've heard that with time the hop flavor/aroma fades, but does it really happen that fast? This batch is designed to be gone by fall, do you think it will last tasty that long (3-4 months?).

I figure the IBUs shouldn't fade away, and it shouldn't make any difference how I get the IBUs (all late addition vs. bittering addition), correct?

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"Staying power" is a reference to the short shelf life of wheat beers in general coupled with the low levels of isomerized alpha acids in your short-boil recipe. In other words: drink it quickly. Looks refreshing to me, so I doubt you'll have much of a problem on the consumption end. I'd replace 2/3 of the vienna with pale, as a toasty thing doesn't seem to be in line with the light, hoppy, wheaty, refreshing summer thing you're going for.

The big guy above captured my thoughts perfectly; if you're planning on having it gone by fall, I don't think you should have any problems with the hops fading enough that it'll be undrinkable.

Regarding the IBUs, no, the bitterness typically won't fade so much as the hop flavor itself will. I'd be willing to bet that the flavor right after conditioning will be significantly different than the same bottle come fall. In all likelihood, you'll find the ideal drinking point somewhere in the middle. Just try not to sit on it too long and you'll be fine .

Yeah, the reason I'm using safale-05 is because I can't controll the fermentation temperature. It will be roughly 66-68. Just to be sure: s-05 shouldn't produce any noticeable amount of esters (especially banana) at these temperatures?

After your input I'm thinking about something like:

5.5 lb Wheat
5.0 lb Pale Malt
0.5 lb Vienna

Mashed at 152 F for 75 min
Mashout 170 F for 15 min.

Karbalos said:

Yeah, the reason I'm using safale-05 is because I can't controll the fermentation temperature. It will be roughly 66-68. Just to be sure: s-05 shouldn't produce any noticeable amount of esters (especially banana) at these temperatures?

After your input I'm thinking about something like:

5.5 lb Wheat
5.0 lb Pale Malt
0.5 lb Vienna

Mashed at 152 F for 75 min
Mashout 170 F for 15 min.

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Looks great -- the 05 should be nice and neutral at those temps. Keep us posted.

Looks great, just made one of these myself @66F with S-05 and its delicious. If those are ambient temps, make sure to keep it in a tub of water or some other swamp cooler to keep it there, otherwise it'll rise about 5F

I would personally add a bittering hop addition. Otherwise your beer will smell and taste hoppy but have no bitterness. I recently wrote an American wheat recipe that isn't designed to be overly hopped. I posted it so maybe you can see if anything there gives you an idea. Have fun with it! I like to check the BJCP guidelines, research top rated beers of the style I'm making, and then email my recipe to some commercial brewers for their blessing and ideas. The recipes that pros told me looked great have by far been my best ones.

coming soon...to a fridge near you!

Theres no need to add a bittering addition if you don't want to. I've done a couple without and the bitterness lasts just fine. You'll get the same bitterness but it'll be softer which is more ideal for an american wheat.

dcp27 said:

Theres no need to add a bittering addition if you don't want to. I've done a couple without and the bitterness lasts just fine. You'll get the same bitterness but it'll be softer which is more ideal for an american wheat.

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I didnt mean to sound like it was absolutely necessary to have a bittering addition. I just meant that my personal opinion would be to add one. I like the bitterness of a long boil addition to balance out the malt.

coming soon...to a fridge near you!

Yeah, I checked the BJCP guidelines and some old recipes and formulated my recipe from there using BrewTarget. Asking the pros is a good idea, might give it a shot sometime. But I think I've got such good and fast advice from this forum that I think it's only necessary if the forum runs out of ideas

I was sort of inspired by Meine Hopfenweissen (though it's not the same style) and I'm trying to go for that distinct hoppy flavor and quaffability without too much bitterness. Even with these late additions I'm getting ~25 IBU which is on the high end for an american wheat (15-30 IBU). With long boils I'd get muuuuuch more IBUs and I'd have to cut down on the flavoring additions.

It's fun to talk to pros too! It's a great feeling to check your inbox and see "x" brewery in there. The tripel that I am fermenting now was looked at by Rob Todd of Allagash and Jamil Z. I felt super comfortable knowing they liked it. My American Wheat is in to Troegs for their opinion but I haven't heard anything back from them. Sometimes you get lots of help and sometimes nothing!

coming soon...to a fridge near you!

Right now I'm drinking a hoppy American Wheat that turned out pretty nicely - I was going for a refreshing Spring-y type beer. I can confirm that it goes very well with a little yard work.

My recipe:
Citra Wheat
6# Wheat Malt
4.5# 2-row
1# Crystal 20L

.5oz Simcoe 60min
.75oz Citra 20min
.75oz Citra 3min
.5oz Citra Dry Hop

OG 1.054
IBU 43

I wanted to try out Citra, looking for the tropical fruit notes - the end product is nice and fruity/juicy. I probably would have thrown a few more in at flameout or dry hopping, but had only one 2oz bag on hand.

I just did a Pale Ale with Citra and my god, everybody I know guzzled the 2 cases! Its a fantastic hop. The wheat I am about to make in 2 weeks is utilizing Southern Cross for bittering and Motueka for flavor. Im going for the "Saazy" lemon/lime characteristic. Im really looking forward to it!