Is anyone making great wheat beer with canned kits?

Just wondering...

I'm trying to make something like a Paulaner or Hoegarden clone by using canned wheat beer kits from Cooper and/or Muntons. I'm kinda too lazy to make completely from scratch:cross:


I tried using muntons wheat canned kit, and using WB-06 yeast.... started out tasting WONDERFUL... but ended up getting sour or funky.


Now I'm in process of Coopers canned Wheat kit, and using WLP300. The yeast was about 12 hours slower than the WB-06 to start fermenting....but its bubbling away great right now.



Back to the point.,.. is anyone else here making some great wheat/or hefe beer using the process I'm trying to use?

ApolloSpeed said:

I'm kinda too lazy to make completely from scratch.

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Then you'll never get a Paulaner or Hoegaarden clone.

With WLP300, you might get reasonably close to a Bavarian hefe.

It's probably impossible to create a Hoegaarden clone using canned extract. The color and texture will be completely off. Also, orange peel and coriander need to be present.

welll....I'm not saying it has to be an exact clone of either of those beers. I just want a good tasting german or bavarian wheat beer.

I was damn close on my batch with WB-06.....it was great the first few days in the bottle, unfortunately it went sour about after a week. And never got back to like it was.

I'm hoping the WLP300 will get me there.

I've had good results with 3068, which I understand is the functional (or real) equiviant of wlp300.

curiously, I notice alot of recipes for german and bavarian hefes call for alot of dried malt extract... But no mention of dextrose. Are they not putting in any dextrose for fermentation?

If so, what kinds of ratios of DME to dextrose should I be shooting for?

Most commonly-brewed ales do not use dextrose for fermentation, ApolloSpeed. There are really three places where dextrose is commonly used.
1. Introductory "kit and kilo" brewing kits, where you combine 1 can LME, 1# sugar, and water. The sugar ups the alcohol content with negligible flavor impact. Many brewers move past these kits because they don't like using sugar in their beers (I don't either.).
2. Belgian style beers, where Candi (invert) Sugar or Dememera Sugar are commonly used to dry out the finish of a beer. Dubbels, Tripels, Belgian Golden Strong Ales, and other similar styles commonly use sugar.
3. "Big" specialty beers, such as Double-IPAs or Barleywines, often use a small percentage of sugar to boost alcohol content while keeping the beer balanced, but also finish a little drier.

You will find that many brewers, once they settle into their routine, make beers with DME or LME as their primary/only source of fermentables, and skip the dextrose altogether. Either way, I wouldn't exceed 2# dextrose in any 5 gallon batch unless you're basing it off of a recipe that calls for more for a reason.

Belgian Wit is a notoriously difficult beer to make. You can't get reasonably close to a Hoegaarden clone without all-grain, since it is made with 50% raw wheat and wheat extracts are made with wheat malt.

You can make a decent Bavarian hefe with extract though.

I'm not sure ANYBODY is making ANY great beers with those canned kits...I never could anyway...

Can't help you on the specific style, but I would recommend a kit from one of the larger online homebrew shops (midwest, northern brewer) that contains all the stuff you need to make 5 gallons of beer and stop messing around with the canned kits. Just my 0.02...

I just made a great hefe-wizen from a canned kit. I did use specialty hefe-wizen dried yeast and added about 1/2 oz. of pellet hops at the end of the boil for some aroma/flavoring. I have had rave reviews on it and all my family is draining the keg fast!

Here is the post I made on it a few days back:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f37/you-can-make-good-extract-only-beer-82788/

Dan

fratermus said:

I've had good results with 3068, which I understand is the functional (or real) equivalent of wlp300.

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Skip the can kit...you're fooling yourself into thinking it's easier than putting ingredients together. I think if you got the AHS weissbier kit, added some bitter orange, and some coriander, upgrade to the 3068 liquid yeast, and ferment at or about 70 - 72 I'd think you'll have a great beer...maybe not a paulaner clone...but very good indeed.

so....you think get this kit?

Austin Homebrew Supply

or maybe their Paulaner or Hoegarden kit?

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_43_256&products_id=1119


and get which version? Minimash? Milled... or Unmilled grain? or what?

ApolloSpeed said:

so....you think get this kit?

Austin Homebrew Supply

and get which version? Minimash? Unmilled grain? or what?

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Do you have a grain mill? If you don't, the grain will have to be milled.

You can do a mini-mash if you want, or the extract kit will be good too. If you buy a grain bag, the mini-mash is easy and will probably be more satisfying to make.

I did the extract version (your first option) before I went AG, and it was a reasonably good beer! I think it could stand the additions, and the 3068 yeast would kick ass in it.

So go for mini mash....or extract.....cause I dont have a mill. And you guys think I should go with 3068 over the WLP300?

and How about their paulaner kit?

Austin Homebrew Supply

The Hoegaarden clone is, well, not a Hoegaarden clone for the reasons I mentioned. It's drinkable but to me, it's not a good Wit. Sorry.

Their Paulaner kit would be good. Go with the mini-mash, and follow their instructions, and you won't be disappointed.

Saccharomyces said:

Their Paulaner kit would be good. Go with the mini-mash, and follow their instructions, and you won't be disappointed.

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alllrighty then! I'll plan on getting that Paulaner mini-mash kit next go around.

they recommend the WB-06, Wyeast 3333 , or the WLP300....which should I get?


and about what size pot would I need to boil all this in?

ApolloSpeed said:

alllrighty then! I'll plan on getting that Paulaner mini-mash kit next go around.

they recommend the WB-06, Wyeast 3333 , or the WLP300....which should I get?

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I've only tried this from another homebrewer who used WLP300. It was very good. He did the PM recipe.

and about what size pot would I need to boil all this in?

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Minimum 3 gallon pot so you can get 2 gallons + extract in there?

Chriso said:

Most commonly-brewed ales do not use dextrose for fermentation, ApolloSpeed. There are really three places where dextrose is commonly used.
1. Introductory "kit and kilo" brewing kits, where you combine 1 can LME, 1# sugar, and water. The sugar ups the alcohol content with negligible flavor impact. Many brewers move past these kits because they don't like using sugar in their beers (I don't either.).

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OK Chriso I know this is a newbie question but I just don't get it. Yeast needs sugar to make alcohol and there is sugar in LME. But I got this Cooper's Wheat extract recently and it said that they "recommend" 500g DME and 300g dextrose.

So I don't understand. Do you NEED that stuff to get enough alcohol into the beer? Is the LME enough? Or does recommend really mean "you have to use it?" I mean we're talking almost a kilogram of added ingredients -- that's hardly a simple sprinkle. I ended up throwing in corn sugar (about 300g) and after 6 days the brew is tasting pretty watery.

WW

You need *something* to get more alcohol into the beer. They use sugar because it's cheap and easily available. Additional LME or DME will give you a more "beery" result because you're adding more fermentable malt sugars, and not just "a cheap kick" of fermentable table sugars or dextrose.

In the specific case of your Coopers' Wheat (and I'm guessing, as I've never brewed with canned extract), I have a hunch that they want both 500g DME and 300g dextrose so that the dextrose, when it ferments out, leaves it a little drier and lighter, since it's supposed to be a light wheat beer.

I would hypothesize you could replace it with simply 800g DME for an all-malt brew, or even just 1kg (don't know what increments you're buying in) for a little additional alcohol content.

From Coopers' site:

A pale, cloudy beer, refreshingly spritzy and tart with a delicious creamy frothiness, Thomas Coopers Wheat Beer is made from premium malted wheat, pale malted barley and selected hops. Wheat beers are a great summer refresher, low in bitterness and considered by many as the “champagne” of the beer world. Intended to be mixed with 500g Coopers Light Dry Malt and 300g Coopers Dextrose to 23 litres.
Colour - 65EBC, Bitterness - 300IBU

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I would be willing to guess that my above explanation is spot-on, they add the dextrose to make it a little drier.

Edit: In reading some more, all of their brews have the same 500g DME and 300g Dextrose instructions. So, um. I dunno.

I did one Coopers extract kit a few months ago for the heck of it since I already had an AG going that weekend and was running out of time to brew. I added 2# of X-light LME, threw away the kit instructions and yeast, and pitched my own yeast. It came out good. OG was 1.038 and FG was 1.008.

All right so, disregarding taste for a sec and just focusing on alcohol content, if I didn't add anything whatsoever to the canned extract, would that still produce beer? Crappy beer? Or would it just be far too low without, like you said, adding something else?

Because if so, I find the Cooper's can to be a little misleading. I'm very new to brewing but I thought that the entire point of a Cooper's kit was that you didn't need to brew AG just yet. I thought AG was for people who want to control their beer's taste and, to be honest, I just don't have that palette ability yet. Hoping to get it! But wanted to start small.

Maybe it's just my own beginner attitude to beer-making, but the can seems to suggest that's all you need to make beer. And now I'm thinking, well technically it makes beer but actually you need more ingredients. That's why I bought the corn sugar. But now it seems to be that corn sugar is kind of the...I don't know, "moonshine" of the sugar world!

Thanks for the 101!

WW

If you want to skip the sugar and produce an all malt beer of normal strength, make less beer. In other words, make a 3 gallon batch using nothing but the can of extract and yeast provided with the kit.

If you want to start branching out a bit, skip the Cooper's kits and start buying ingredients separately from a homebrew supplier and following recipes (many of which can be found in the HBT database). Look up "extract with steeping grains." You can produce a surprising variety of flavors and styles without making the jump to all grain.

How much are we talking price-wise here? The same costs or more?

Well.....I drank a six pack of Hoegaarden this last weekend..... and damn, I nearly forgot how much I love me some Hoes!!!

I decided to buy the Belgian White mini-mash and the Paulaner Hefe mini-mash kits from AHS. Now I need to get me some partial grain brewing experience. haha