AG #2: Bavarian Hefeweizen

Today I did my second all-grain batch; 5 gallons NB Bavarian Hefeweizen with Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen (cool yeast choice for me since I visited the Weihenstephan brewery in September). Approx 2 litre starter using wheat DME and pilsen DME in the same ratio as my malts. My Maltmill arrived about a week ago so ground my grains last night. Enjoyable process.

Once again wanting to make things harder than they should be, I selected the multi-step instead of single infusion. Mashed in somewhat stiff at 11 litres of water for 9.5 lbs of grain; 20 minutes protein rest at 122; 30 minutes beta sacch rest at 149 (missed it low and had to add extra boiling water); 30 minutes alpha sacch rest at 158 (again missed low and had to add extra water); then decocted 6 litres of stiff mash for 10 minute mashout, which I'm fairly sure again I missed the temp on.

Sparged with 1.75 gallons; pre-boil volume of 7 gallons; 70 minute boil w/1 oz Tettnang. Immersion chiller took five or ten minutes to get to pitching temp of 65. Added Irish Moss with 10 minutes to go in boil; got a ridiculous amount of cold break which unfortunated all seemed to end up in the fermenter. OG including the starter was 1.050.

Both my AG batches I've messed around with multistep; might change it up next time and do single infusion. It's frustrating to miss my temps, then have to add more water, which makes my other beersmith calculations out of whack, which leads to more temperature missing. My mash was damn thin by the time I mashed out. I'm not sure it matters but would like to have it go a bit more smoothly in the future. I do feel like I'm getting the hang of things.

When I do a step mash I do it right in the boil pot so I can direct fire the mash and hit my temps pretty much dead on, and then transfer to mash tun (Home Depot cooler). May be something to try for the next time you decide to do the step mash method.

Adding more water and thinning out the mash isn't the end of the world. In fact it somewhat works in your favor. While you will have a longer boil time to reach your desired volume, you're also getting better efficiency. The more water you have the better your extraction will be.

DrawTap88 said:

When I do a step mash I do it right in the boil pot so I can direct fire the mash and hit my temps pretty much dead on, and then transfer to mash tun (Home Depot cooler). May be something to try for the next time you decide to do the step mash method.

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Yeah I'll have to think about doing something like that. Very soon be too cold to do much but the main boil outside tho! I use a cooler for an MLT but there would be little reason I couldn't use a grain bag and mash in my kettle. Maybe for the winter I'll do smaller batch stovetop AG once in a while...but probably best to do some single infusion in the meantime. Thanks for the advice.