Cabin Fever International Wheat - Lightly Dark

I had some extra ingredients around and I've been seeing dark wheats showing up around here.I thought I'd try something different. I'm adding a little dark malt for color and flavor - hopefully not too much. I bought the wheat for this a while back and kept it in the freezer.

8-1/2lb American Wheat
3-3/4lb Canada Malting two row barley
1lb Briess Ashburne Midnight Malt #5355 Diastatic Power 65deg Lintner - Color 5.3deg Lovibond
1lb Briess Carabrown Malt #6461 Seasonal
1/4lb Briess Midnight Wheat Malt #6459
1/4lb Briess Dark Chocolate Malt #5444 Roasted Malt Color 420deg Lovibond

13.8lbs total
1-3/4 quarts water per pound of grain ~ 6 gallons, [8 gallons Edit - I ended up raising it.]
add about 2 gallons for loss to grain bed
Total equals about 10 gallons water.
I'm going to try to get closer to 158-ish for the mash about 40 minutes.
I'll probably run the sparges a little hotter - 165-ish with about a ten minute dwell.

60 min boil
1 oz Cascade at first wort hops (Place into fermentor as you take first runnings)
Start boil.
1 oz Willamette at 45 minutes flavor w/addition of sparge wort.
1/2 oz Cascade 30 minutes [flavor?] [oops - was supposed to be 15 minutes]
1/2 oz Cascade at flame out aroma*

Now - I have Safale 04 for yeast. How bad is that going to be?

-- 5 gallons initial Mash-in 40 minutes.
_____(First Wort Hop) Place the hops into the collector pot as you drain the initial mash.
_____Drain Mash Tun into collector Amount Item Type 1oz Cascade (60 min)
_____Start to heat collected wort while fininshing the sparges.
-- Batch Sparge Round 1: Sparge with 3gal of 180 F water.
_____(Sparge set in at about 158, about 10 minutes)
-- Batch Sparge Round 2: Sparge with 3gal of 180 C water.
_____(Sparge set in at about 158, about 10 minutes, it was running slower at the end)
-- Collected a boil volume of about _ gallons.


The sparge is running slow and steady....

I did the first wort hops addition with this because I did it with the Boddington's I also did today.
I thought I might get a little more usage from my hops too. I adjusted the hops above. A teenagers birthday party kind of got in the way. We picked up German foreign exchange student for a few months. He turned 17 and we had the party in half-time of my boil.

I'll be placing this out on the deck next to the Boddington's Pub Ale clone for chilling.

It looks like about 9 gallons of wort. It is a nice rick dark color with a hint of amber. The hops aroma seem quite subdued so far. I had hoped they would come out a little more.

I brought the wort in this morning. The temp was 48deg F and O.G. was 1.052.

That is a little heavier than I was shooting for, but ot will be beer. It looked about the same color as the Boddington's, just cloudier.

I measured the FG and it was at 1.014.

there were two buckets - one smelled like a bottle of beer that had been left open over night. I think it might have oxidized.

The other one smelled good, but heavy, chocolatey - not light like I think wheats should be. Maybe under hopped?

Oh well, we'll see what happens.

This was not good at all when it was green (a few days in the bottle). It has gotten to drinkable.

I need to refrigerate a few bottles - this will probably be good cold.

After weeks of bottle conditioning this has gotten quite good.

It was kind of sharp early on. It has mellowed quite well and is disappearing fast.

I will make this again.