Wheat Beers

My current batch is a wheat beer. An Oberon clone to be precise. I used 6 lbs. of 60% wheat, 40% barley DME. I've been told that wheat malt doesn't have much in the way of usable sugars. Is that 40% barley enough to ferment a good beer, or should I have added honey or some other such sugar? Would a couple of Beano tablets convert the sugars from the wheat malt into fermentable sugars? My current batch has only been fermenting for a couple days, so I could still add Beano if I wanted.

jettaman said:

I've been told that wheat malt doesn't have much in the way of usable sugars.

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Huh? News to me and every wheat/weizen/wit beer ever brewed. You're OK as-is.

Better go smack your source of info

Mikey said:

Huh? News to me and every wheat/weizen/wit beer ever brewed. You're OK as-is.

Better go smack your source of info

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Second that through Mikey. Wheat has plenty of fermentables. I only use wheat DME when I make my heffys.

Thats pretty close to the partial mash wheat beer I am drinking now. All fermented well and tastes great, it has one weird side effect though, if I drink to many I get light headed and giddy. Well I will have to see if my stout has that same effect.

Mikey said:

Better go smack your source of info

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Might be some good advice. White wheat has a diastatic power of around 160, which is higher than most pale malts, which are usually below 100, and higher than most 2 row malts, which are around 140. Red wheat is even higher with a diastatic power around 165.

mmm beer said:

Thats pretty close to the partial mash wheat beer I am drinking now. All fermented well and tastes great, it has one weird side effect though, if I drink to many I get light headed and giddy. Well I will have to see if my stout has that same effect.

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Funny, I always feel that when I drink my HB. Wonder what it is I am doing wrong?

Did you use malted or unmalted wheat?? Malted wheat has a typical extract of 81 to 85% (FGDB) and enzymes of about 50 alpha and 155 DP. This is like malted barley. If you used unmalted wheat then you will get starch in the beer and unless you have enzymes to break it into fermentable sugars, you maybe reducing your fermentables. Starch also can produce a haze, not a problem in wheat beers. The way to detect the lack of possible low fermentable sygars in your brew is the final gravity. It should be high (above says 1.015 or so).

Dr Malt

He was using DME, so it was a combination of 60% malted wheat extract and 40% malted barley extract. The mashing was already done.

Definitely smack your source.

Baron von BeeGee said:

Definitely smack your source.

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We will have ol Chuck Norris accomplish that for us!!

anthrobe said:

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DAMN!!! Is that Chuck bitchslapping Dharma??

Your wheat sounds good in my book.