Help: first Weizenbock recipe

I have been reading up on what makes a Weizenbock and made myself up a recipe, and it seems solid based on the other recipes I have seen. I downloaded Beersmith to double-check it and it has an incredibly low estimated OG & ABV, and unsurprisingly high Color. Here is what Beersmith says:
Est. OG: 1.018 --> Should be: 1.064-1.09
IBU: 29.6 --> Should be: 15-30
Color: 34.4 --> Should be: 12-25
Est. ABV: 1.8(!!!)-> Should be: 6.5-8

My recipe (5-gallon):
Dark Wheat Malt -- 10 lbs.
Munich Malt -- 5 lbs.
Chocolate Wheat Malt -- 1 lb
Northern Brewer -- 1 oz.
German Perle -- 1 oz.
Weihenstephan Yeast -- 1 pkg.


What. Have. I. Done?

You entered something wrong. I suspect your gravity will be around 1.075 or so just eyeballing it. A full pound of chocolate wheat seems like a lot to me, but to be fair I've never used it.

Thas weird, it's working perfectly now. I tried adding a little less chocolate malt (8oz), and now it looks like a balanced recipe.
Beersmith:
OG: 1.076
IBU: 22.8
Color: 25
ABV: 8.1

Thank you for the help!

Awesome. Sounds delicious!

Will the dark wheat self convert or be OK at such a high ratio? Weyerman has their dark wheat at a usage rate of up to 50% IIRC Just something you may want to explore.

way too much chocolate. You really shouldn't have more than 2 percent or so for color and a hint of flavor. Your amounts will be adding add substantial roast flavor.

YIKES! Good point TimT. I didn't even notice that. Psychonought, I looked on Weyerman's website and couldn't find a reference to the diastatic power of the dark Munich. HOWEVER, the Dark Wheat in the wiki is listed at 9 Lov color, while Weyeremans dark wheat is only 5.8-7.3. Perhaps their dark wheat is malted cooler, and therefore retains more conversion power.

http://www.weyermann.de/eng/produkte.asp?idkat=17&umenue=yes&idmenue=37&sprache=2

Psychonought, if you arent aware of what this all means (don't mean to insult you, but don't want to confuse you either), then you need to email Weyerman directly, or do some Googling to see if you can find the diastatic power of the Weyerman dark wheat (the brand matters A LOT).

In a pinch, the Munich will self-convert, and the Chocolate Wheat doesn't benefit from mashing, so you are only concerned about the Dark Wheat. So if you can't find satisfactory answers, substitute 50% of the Dark Wheat for normal Wheat (just make sure its malted, not flaked).

I am relatively new to brewing (i.e. I don't know much of the science behind it), but pretty much joined this site to learn about all of the ins and outs of brewing. Please do tell me what is going on with this diastatic power business.
So, I bought my grains from MidwestSupplies, and in their listings they have the Light Munich with a diastatic power of 47, and the Dark Wheat with a diastatic power of 76. Wikipedia tells me I need a diastatic power of at least 35 to self-convert. It seems this mash will indeed self-convert.
Now, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Ahhh its a good thing Psycho. You need "extra" diastatic power in your base malts above that 35 level in order to have them help mash certain specialty grains that don't have enough enzymes to mash themselves. If you don't have enough extra diastatic power, then your specialty grains are just 'steeping', not being 'mashed'. This means that you will have more unfermentable starches in your beer, and it means a slight to moderate difference in flavor and fermentability.

HOWEVER, in your case here, the only specialty grain you are using is Chocolate Wheat, which is a dark roasted grain (like regular Chocolate malt, Black Patent, etc). Those grains gain no real benefit from mashing anyway, since any sugars/starches in them have been roasted way past the point of fermentability no matter what you do to them. (In fact, you might be better off leaving them OUT of the mash and just cold-steeping them in water for a few hours. Drain, then the black water to the boil).

If you were using specialty grains like Victory/Special Roast/Crystal/etc, then you want to make sure your diastatic power of the base malts are well above that 35 threshold. How far above kind of depends on how much specialty grains you have in the recipe. A baseline is that pretty much any base malt besides Munich will have enough diastatic power to mash a pound or two of specialty grains in a standard recipe. So its actually pretty rare that you even have to worry about it. RDWHAHB!

I was thinking of preparing the Chocolate Wheat much like coffee, and adding it as late as possible to the mix (maybe even adding it to the carboy right before pitching the yeast).
Why do you think I should cold-steep the Chocolate Wheat?

I suggest cold steeping because of 2 reasons. (1) A full pound of a chocolate malt is going to radically affect your mash chemistry. If you don't routinely make stouts and such with your water, then it might be something that gives you problems. (2) A weizenbock isn't supposed to be overpoweringly roasty. In fact, it should barely be roasty at all. I'd be worried that mashing that pound of choc wheat will just make it too much like a Wheaty Porter or something. Cold-steeping makes for a smoother, more subtle roast character.

If you do add the chocolate wheat late, through whatever process, make sure you boil the sh*t out of it first. I couldnt tell from your post if you were going to throw the grains directly into the fermentor.

I always strain and sparge my grains, but now I think I won't add the chocolate at all. I got the chocolate thinking that it would balance out the high alcoholic content with a very wheaty flavor. I was thinking that the darker the grain, the more undigestable starches it has-->more wheaty flavor, but it seems like darker grains just means roastier flavor. I want to make as typical a Weizenbock as possible for my first batch, and then experiment later.
Thanks for all the help, I'll let you know how it turns out. Brewing this weekend...