Dark (American) Wheat Beer

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Shenanigans

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Hi All,

I'm going to brew one of the many White IPA recipes discussed on here.
I can brew 10 gallons but 10 gallons of the same beer is too much so I want to split it in two and make a dark wheat beer out of the second half.

The original grain bill for 5 gallons is as follows:

8.5lbs 8 oz Belgian Pilsner (2 SRM)
2.5 lbs White Wheat Malt
1 lbs Flaked Wheat
8oz Acid Malt
OG approx. 1.060

I have some carawheat and chocolate wheat I was wanting to use so my plan was to do a mini-mash with something like 1.5 lb White Wheat, 1/2 lb each of Carawheat and Chocolate wheat and increase the OG to about 1.070.

Then hop with some American hops to somewhere between 40 and 60 IBUs.

My fermentation chamber will be full with the White IPA so I will have to ferment at around 65F in my basement. Either with US-05 or SO4.
I could also harvest the yeast from a few Schneider Weizen bottles which is supposed to be quite easy but maybe 65F would be too cold for it.

I'll either mash at 152F or else do a 3 step mash by adding different amounts of boiling water:

Step 1) 125 F 15 minutes
Step 2) 145 F 15 minutes
Step 3) 163 F 20 minutes

Anyway anyone have any comments/suggestions and maybe some idea on what hops would fit good?

Is there a Dark Wheat Beer recipe in the database (that's not a traditional Dunkelweizen) I have overlooked that could fit the bill?

Thanks for your help! :mug:
 
Shenanigans said:
Hi All,

I'm going to brew one of the many White IPA recipes discussed on here.
I can brew 10 gallons but 10 gallons of the same beer is too much so I want to split it in two and make a dark wheat beer out of the second half.

The original grain bill for 5 gallons is as follows:

8.5lbs 8 oz Belgian Pilsner (2 SRM)
2.5 lbs White Wheat Malt
1 lbs Flaked Wheat
8oz Acid Malt
OG approx. 1.060

I have some carawheat and chocolate wheat I was wanting to use so my plan was to do a mini-mash with something like 1.5 lb White Wheat, 1/2 lb each of Carawheat and Chocolate wheat and increase the OG to about 1.070.

Then hop with some American hops to somewhere between 40 and 60 IBUs.

My fermentation chamber will be full with the White IPA so I will have to ferment at around 65F in my basement. Either with US-05 or SO4.
I could also harvest the yeast from a few Schneider Weizen bottles which is supposed to be quite easy but maybe 65F would be too cold for it.

I'll either mash at 152F or else do a 3 step mash by adding different amounts of boiling water:

Step 1) 125 F 15 minutes
Step 2) 145 F 15 minutes
Step 3) 163 F 20 minutes

Anyway anyone have any comments/suggestions and maybe some idea on what hops would fit good?

Is there a Dark Wheat Beer recipe in the database (that's not a traditional Dunkelweizen) I have overlooked that could fit the bill?

Thanks for your help! :mug:
Click to expand...

Nobody?
 
A White IPA is a cross between a Witbier and an IPA. Basically a wit with an IPA hop schedule. You'll need a Witbier yeast to make a white IPA. And citrusy hops work great in them because it compliments the witbier esters. Coriander and Orange peel are good too.

For the mash, I'd do one of two things:
-steady mash at 150 (want to have nice thin body for wits)
- ferulic acid rest at 112 for 15 min then up to 150 for 45. This will create compounds that wheat-type yeasts metabolize into the signature wheat beer flavors like banana and clove
 
m00ps said:
A White IPA is a cross between a Witbier and an IPA. Basically a wit with an IPA hop schedule. You'll need a Witbier yeast to make a white IPA. And citrusy hops work great in them because it compliments the witbier esters. Coriander and Orange peel are good too.

For the mash, I'd do one of two things:
-steady mash at 150 (want to have nice thin body for wits)
- ferulic acid rest at 112 for 15 min then up to 150 for 45. This will create compounds that wheat-type yeasts metabolize into the signature wheat beer flavors like banana and clove
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. :)

However I have already decided on the White IPA recipe.
I'm wanting to split the batch in half after mashing and brew one half according to the decided on White IPA recipe.

The other half I want to convert into a diferent Dark Wheat Beer by doing a mini-mash with darker grains (dark wheat, carawheat, chocolate wheat) and hopping differently using a different yeast than for the white IPA which will be WLP530.

Here's what I've come up with so far:

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 24.00 l

Ingredients

4.50 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 1 53.4 %
1.30 kg Chateau Wheat Malt (Trigo) (4.0 EBC) Grain 2 15.4 %
1.25 kg Chateau Wheat Munich (15.0 EBC) Grain 3 14.8 %
0.50 kg Wheat, Flaked (3.2 EBC) Grain 4 5.9 %
0.25 kg Acidulated (Weyermann) (3.5 EBC) Grain 5 3.0 %
0.25 kg Carawheat (Weyermann) (98.5 EBC) Grain 6 3.0 %
0.25 kg Chocolate Wheat (Weyermann) (817.5 EBC) Grain 7 3.0 %
0.12 kg Melanoidin (Weyermann) (59.1 EBC) Grain 8 1.5 %
25.00 g Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - First Wort 90.0 min Hop 9 22.9 IBUs
15.00 g Aurora (Super Styrian Aurora) [8.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 10 8.4 IBUs
1.0 pkg Bavarian Weizen Yeast (White Labs #WLP351) [35.49 ml] Yeast 11 -


Est Original Gravity: 1.071 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.6 %
Bitterness: 31.4 IBUs
Est Color: 42.1 EBC
 
Nobody out there with a decent Dark American Wheat recipe?
I looked a bit more at the style and I'm thinking of using a neutral yeast like US-05 and using some of hops generally used in an American brown and one of Amarillo or Summit for a different twist.
 
Since you're not getting any traffic I will take a stab. Of course you may want to take my comments with a grain of salt, as I'm trying to remember if I've ever even had a dark American wheat ;). I would definitely go with the 05 over the German yeast if you're looking for a clean American style. The grainbill seems a little complicated to me but I think the percentages look okay for what you want. I do tend to prefer hops like northern brewer and willamette in American browns rather than the citrusy stuff but that's totally personal preference.

Good luck with it!
:mug:
 
chickypad said:
Since you're not getting any traffic I will take a stab. Of course you may want to take my comments with a grain of salt, as I'm trying to remember if I've ever even had a dark American wheat ;). I would definitely go with the 05 over the German yeast if you're looking for a clean American style. The grainbill seems a little complicated to me but I think the percentages look okay for what you want. I do tend to prefer hops like northern brewer and willamette in American browns rather than the citrusy stuff but that's totally personal preference.

Good luck with it!
:mug:
Click to expand...


Hey thanks for the advice :mug:

Well I went a bit crazy in the end a bittered with Taurus and added an ounce each of Amarillo and Summit at 5 mins. Then I let it stand for about 45 mins when I went for a walk with the dog.

I also used a totally different yeast - a local liquid Altbier yeast which is supposed to be a like WLP029/WY1007.

I had an OG of 1.063 because I did a mini BIAB with the dark grains and got 7 quarts of 1.058 wort and added it to White IPA to get about 6 gallons.

Anyway it's blubbing away in my basement for the last 3 days now.
Really curious how this one turns out - probably my most experimental beer until now or there abouts with the Brown Belgian IPA I made from an ESB wort. I'll skip the dry hopping with this one though.

I'll report back in a week or so when I take a gravity sample :rockin:
 
So it's been fermenting at about 18oC (65 F) in my basement for 17 days now and it's gone from 1.063 to 1.016.
I have no idea what the final SG should be but tonight my temperature controlled chamber will be freed as I'm going to take my white IPA out of there and dry hop it at room temperature. So I'll put the dark wheat in there at about 22oC to see if I can squeeze a few more points out of it. Then the alcohol content will indeed be in the Weizenbock range. :drunk:

BTW it doesn't taste like anything special yet a bit bready and a light roasted taste, very dull actually . Hopefully in two weeks time or so I have a nice beer to report back on. :ban:
 
So after 4 days at 72 F it finished at 1.014.
I bottled it 4 days ago and tasted a sample today.
Still tastes very green and hardly carbed.
I'll report back in another week or so.
 
So almost two weeks in the bottle now and I'm starting to think it would have been better use some traditional German hops rather than the Summit and Amarillo. The White IPA I brewed on the same day tastes fantastic.
Maybe this one is still unbalanced because of the dark/roast malts. I'll give it another month to see if it mellows out. Luckily I have 6 or 7 other beers to keep me occupied until then :D
 
So I didn't wait a month but 2 weeks later and this beer is much, much better.
Liking it a lot now but very difficult to describe.
I can taste a little bit of everything. :pipe:
Maybe a wheaty altbier with a mild fruity twist is a good description.
I think it still hasn't reached its peak yet so I'll report back again in a few weeks. :mug:
 

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