Deep dark wheat

[OrthoBrewer]

Hey everyone, been reading Homebrew forums for quite a while now. This is the first time I have posted, so I thought I would post a picture of the brew I am doing today. It is the deep dark wheat extract kit from Midwest supplies. I am using a hop spider I built for the first time. It is a gorgeous day in Columbia, Missouri, and I thought I would share my joy at brewing with all of you.

John

 

[savannahvan]

That sounds delish! Welcome to the world of brewing! I'm quite new myself. Brew on my friend.

 

[OrthoBrewer]

Thank you for the comment. This is actually my eighth brew, all extract kits. I love brewing, but for right now don't have the time to get more involved with the all grain brewing.

John

 

[savannahvan]

Rad! You're ahead of me then! I've only done extract batches too. I need to do more research on brewing all-grain. After reading (on here) about it, I'm quite sure I need more supplies. I'll be sticking to extract for a while I think. 😁 You wanting to start all-grain brewing?

 

[savannahvan]

Duh. You answered that.

 

[jestmaty]

Nice.... I brewed the all grain kit from midwest a couple of months ago, my wife LOVED it! Hence, I brewed another deep dark wheat but used a different yeast this time. It's still in the primary after about 10 days.

Found out when we brew dark wheats, we're brewing dunkelweizens... I know you've heard that term before?

Here's a pint of dark wheat I drank while brewing a chocolate oatmeal stout from midwest.. all grain. Cheers!

 

[OrthoBrewer]

I discovered that having a hop spider is useless if you have a giant hole in your hop bag. I am using the 1 gallon paint strainer bags that you can get from Lowe's. They worked well but having a hole definitely introduced some hops into my brew. I am fairly certain that the pore size would have prevented any hops (from pellet) from getting into my wort. As it was with that hole, only about 5% of the hops got into my wort. I would say the hop spider was a success, and the best part is that the paint strainer bags cost 0.50$ apiece.

FG =1.063
6 lb wheat LME, 3.3 lb dark LME
One pound specialty grains, half carapils, half caramel 40L steeped at 155-165 F for 30 min
2 oz Tettnang hops, one at begin boil, other at 55 min into boil, 60 min boil total
1/4 tsp super Irish moss and 1 tsp yeast energizer at 15 min left in boil
Wort chiller from boil to 75 F in 10 min
4 gal boil volume, added just over a gallon to make it to 5 in primary
Pitched from yeast starter with wyeast Bavarian wheat #3056, two days of growth at 72 F
Trying blow off tube for first time from the get go

John

 

[jestmaty]

Man, that sounds like a good brew, except for the hole in the bag. I used the #3638 Wyeast w/ starter and got a phenomenal tasting beer.

How in the hell did you get your wort down to that temp so quickly with a chiller? Water temps down here in the Houston area are still in the mid-80's* temps! Hard to get it to 90* in 20 minutes, much less another 15*lower in half the time!

Not sure if Lowe's paint bags are sourced from the same supplier, but I use Home Depot bags and seriously have used the same 3-4 bags for the last 15 brews. If I recall, they're packaged 2 in a pack, for maybe $1.50? I just turn em' inside out at the end of each boil, wash with hot water, hang em' up to dry. Some of my boils call for 4 or more hop additions, so sometimes all 4 get used. Point is, mine are still intact after so many boil events.

Also, I use a piece of thin wire to close em up and hang the bag a few inches off the bottom of the kettle. Don't have a hop spider, but the tie-off to the side of the pot works just fine for me.

I just love midwest supplies for hardware AND their recipes posted online. I frequently browse their all grain kits, make notes of the ingredients/grain bill, and jot down the hop addition schedule. I'm trying like h*ll to support my 6-month-old local homebrew supply store by buying all the kit ingredients found at midwest locally.

good luck on that dark wheat!

 

[sweed]

A dark black wheat beer, why didn't I think of that! Sound great! Need to add that to my never ending list!

 

[jestmaty]

What it looks like in secondary... dark!

The top fermenter....

 

[OrthoBrewer]

How in the hell did you get your wort down to that temp so quickly with a chiller? Water temps down here in the Houston area are still in the mid-80's* temps! Hard to get it to 90* in 20 minutes, much less another 15*lower in half the time!

Not sure if Lowe's paint bags are sourced from the same supplier, but I use Home Depot bags and seriously have used the same 3-4 bags for the last 15 brews. If I recall, they're packaged 2 in a pack, for maybe $1.50? I just turn em' inside out at the end of each boil, wash with hot water, hang em' up to dry. Some of my boils call for 4 or more hop additions, so sometimes all 4 get used. Point is, mine are still intact after so many boil events.!

Hey jestmaty, I used to get like 17-22 min chill times with my wort chiller (stainless steel, Midwest supplies), which I was kind of disappointed with. Two brews ago, I started stirring the wort continuously while running the wort chiller and have gotten ten min chill times both times. I get a pretty good swirl going so that there is a much faster conductive heat transfer rate. I will measure my water temp too, and get back to you on that. Live in mid-Missouri so I expect my water temp is significantly lower than Houston.

The lowes paint strainer bags I use come two to a pack, and cost $1. I normally treat bags gently, but I think I stabbed the bag with my thermometer. It is one of those meat thermometers with the sharp end to penetrate the meat. I don't think I'll have problems with them again. The 5 gallon bag I used for grain steeping worked perfectly.

John

 

[OrthoBrewer]

I measured my water temp and it is currently 63-64 deg F. I'm looking to get a digital thermometer, can anyone recommend one?

 

[brigbrew]

The Deep Dark Wheat kit is sitting on my counter waiting for the start of brew day tomorrow. Someone gave me a growler of it a couple months ago and it disappeared in a day! Can't wait to get this beer bottled. Any reason why you chose to secondary? Did you need your primary back, or is that just how you roll? Looks like I'm just a week behind you on the brew schedule!

 

[sweed]

Since this is a wheat beer, do you drink it fresh, or can you age it at all?