Dunkelweizen Freak!

[DasSchlebach]

So a buddy and I have made the jump to all grain brewing (hooray for us!). The first was a good ol' fashioned pale ale and we decided to do a double brew in a one day, one was a Strawberry Blonde Ale and the second was a Dunkelweizen that a had a few changes in the grain bill that I don't think it can be called a Dunkel anymore. Dunkel-Franken-Beer???

The Dunkel came out super dark, we were calling it motor oil during the transfer to the carboy. It had a large amount of a dark grain called Midnight Malt, has anyone had any experience with this malt? During mash it had a strong smell of roasted coffee. It smelled amazing, but I'm curious as to how this will end up with yeast, WLP300. The wort itself wasn't very sweet though, 1oz of tettnang for the whole boil and that's it.

I'm letting it ferment for a full month before bottling, which will be in a bout two weeks. Any one have any ideas on how this might end?

Here's a few pic of the boil and carboy as well as one of the blonde ale after we added 10lbs of pulverized strawberries!

 

[benbradford]

The toastiness of the dark malt has covered up the sweetness of the malt when you tasted it earlier... Tettnang is the hop and adds no sweetness to the beer. The 1oz tettnang is correct for the style of dunkel. Usually the beauty of the dunkel is the fact that the yeast characters shine and are tasted with some light toasty and nutty tones from the darker mash profile. With this being really dark, I can't guess what it will be like... Good Luck!!

 

[DasSchlebach]

Well we bottled it up the other day and gave it another taste and....drum roll.....

It taste like coffee!?!?

Totally not expecting this. There's no hop flavor at all, however the yeast did give it an amazing aroma. I don't think the yeast was enough though, the OG was 1.040 and we ended at 1.024, we calculated only 2.10%. We'd figured this would be a good morning/breakfast beer.

 

[cockybitz]

perhaps your mash temps were off. usually 10 lbs of grain gets me to 1.050 or higher quite easily. Special B or Carafe special may be better fit than the midnight malt in your application, as the flavor is more subtle, yet it gives the color and as is likely useful (though not completely necessary) in Cali, a stabilization of the pH with hard water. I might also wonder regarding that low attenuation of the yeast. Perhaps your mash temp was too high or low, resulting in poor extraction and conversion. This would also contribute to a wort that was not as perceptibly "sweet."

 

[DasSchlebach]

Well after bottling and conditioning, this is a bunk batch. It taste like cold burnt coffee, not exactly enjoyable and blacker than the blackest black. Kept my notes and definitely not making the same mistakes. Thanks for the input. On to the next batch, an IIPA!

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Obviously way too much dark specialty malt there. It sounds like you were using some specialty wheat malt. Probably should have added just a hint.