Brewing my first AG Wheat beer tmw...Mash schedule help needed...

Tomorrow I will be brewing my first All Grain American Wheat beer. This is my third attempt at AG brewing. First attempt was messy, missed my target OG, but wound up with a GREAT beer. Second attempt was 2 days ago and it went really well. Could have used a couple more points in my starting gravity, but I was very happy with how it went.

I found one of Yoopers recipes on another forum while Googling some beers that can go from kettle to glass quickly. The recipe is below....

The recipe includes no information about mash schedule. I did some research, and it seems that Wheat beers sometimes require a multi step mash. Ive never done this, and Id love some help/input/suggestions on how to go about my mash and figuring out my water amounts....Thanks in advance, the switch to AG has been intimidating, but Im PSYCHED about it, and my beers have gotten so much better! Recipe below:

Yooper's Sooper Dooper American Wheat
All-grain
Contributed by erichonour

Brewed: February 5, 2005
Racked to secondary: n/a
Bottled: February 13, 2005
IBU predicted: 18.4
Color predicted: 4.48 °SRM
ABV predicted: 4.7%
Compliance w/style: 100%
Gravity post-boil: 1.046
Gravity pre-secondary: 1.010
Gravity at bottling: 1.010

Grains
4.0 lbs. American 2-row Pale
4.5 lbs. White Wheat Malt
0.125 lbs. Belgian Aromatic
0.5 lbs. Belgian Cara-Pils
0.5 lbs. Wheat Flaked
0.25 lbs. Torrified Wheat

Hops
0.5 oz. Mt. Hood (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 60 min.
0.5 oz. Willamette (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 40 min.
0.5 oz. Mt. Hood (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 20 min.
0.5 oz. Willamette (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 10 min.
0.5 oz. Mt. Hood (Whole, 4.5 %AA) boiled 1 min.

Yeast
White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen Ale

I'd mash around 152 for the wheat. Just stick to the single infuison(60min) mash. For the wheat I would also consider throwing in some rice hulls.

As far as your water amounts it will depend on your setup, ie deadspace, boil off.

Doing a step at 112 can create more chemicals that can accent the typical esters of a hefe. A step at 122 is a protein rest and can helps with sparging or something. But just do a single infusions at 152 for your first time and then adjust and go for more next time.

Full disclosure: I didn't pay much attention to the recipe, but if Yooper makes it, it's probably a damn fine beer. No step mash required. The wheat beer that many people say should have a step-mash is a Classical german Hefeweizen, which is a very narrowly defined style. Many people think they should be made with a traditional decoction mash (google and watch BrauKeiser's video to understand that term) which is the original step mash.

I'm not one of those people, but for ANY OTHER WHEAT BEER apart from a traditional bavarian hefeweizen, I think a single-infusion mash is 120% sufficient for making excellent beer. An American wheat NEVER needs a decoction (IMHO) and you should follow this recipe to the T to see what wonders "da yooper" has in store.

Super Mad 'spect for da yooper- IVE never been featured in BYO or Zymurgy. I totally dig this recipe but if you're feeling adventurous, I LOVE cara-munich with wheat beers of any stripe- you could sub it for the cara-pils in this recipe if you felt weird using someone else's recipe (I don't!).

awesome! thanks everyone! so Ill go 152 for 60 min as per you all. Then I just sparge at 170, correct? Should I let it rest a bit after adding my sparge water?

The goal is too heat the grain in the mt to 170. I usually add the sparge water at around 192-195ish.. As soon as you are done lautering add the sparge water.

mikesalvo said:

Then I just sparge at 170, correct? Should I let it rest a bit after adding my sparge water?

Click to expand...

Just get it hot. Temp doesn't matter much for sparging. And give it a solid stir, no need to let it rest. There are times for precise calculation; sparging isn't one of them.