Advice for Coopers wheat beer kit

Hi,

After excellent luck with many batches of Cooper's Stout, I've decided to try the Cooper's Wheat Beer kit. Basically, I'd like to do something close to a Weihenstephaner or Paulaner clone.

I'd like to do a 23 litres batch that will reach between 5.5 and 6% ABV and keep it 'reinheitsgebot'. So my question is what else do I need to buy? I don't want to use two kit cans because it might turn out too hoppy.

My LHBS has Muntons LDME and various other unhopped malt extracts available.

Any suggestions as to achieve my goal?

 

Get some plain (un-hopped) wheat DME,like a 3lb bag. That's the size I usually use with Cooper's cans. And some Hefe yeast. Also some hops with floral qualities,as that's what I taste in Paulaner Hefeweisen.

 

So if I add 1.5kg of Munton's wheat DME and pack of WB-06, what about the hops? The extract in the kit is already hopped and I don't know much about using hops.

Which type of hops would you suggest, and how to use them? Just throw them in the fermenter and close the lid?

 

Use the plain DME in the boil for hop additions. Do a partial boil of at least 2.5 gallons (if you PB your beers). As for hops,the floral ones should get you there. Like maybe horizon,Mt rainier,nugget,palisade...any kind of floral/herbal hops.

 

OK, based on advice here and other readings, I've put together my recipe:

1.7kg Coopers Wheat kit (hopped)
1.5kg Coopers Wheat malt extract (unhopped)
500g Muntons Wheat spray malt
11.5g WB-06 yeast
20g Hallertau Hersbrucker pellets

Recipe is simple:

Warm up the extract cans in a sink full of hot water, rinse them into the fermenter with a couple cans full of boiling water to get all the extract goodies out of the cans. Stir in the spray malt. Top fermenter up to 20 litres and pitch the yeast dry at 20c. Fermentation chamber (my sauna) is set to 22c. Add 20g hallertau in a cheesecloth with some marbles after 3 days.

The goal is to get a weissbier with good mouth feel and about 6% ABV, aber natürlich nach dem Deutschen Reinheitsgebot. This is meant for a party with a few of my friends, so we probably just take the fermenter straight into the backyard and fill our glasses straight out of the spigot. From my experience, the beer will already be well carbonated right at the end of fermentation but if you let it sit for another few days then it loses it unless you prime. And hey, weissbier is meant to be drank young!

I'm about to put this together in half an hour or so. Any final advice or tips?

 

OK,first of all,hopping in the fermenter is dry hopping,& is only for aroma. You'd need to use the Un-hopped malt in the partial boil to get flavor,adding them in the last 15-20 minutes of the boil. You can use muslin hop sacks,cheese cloth,etc in the boil if you like. I like to use DME (dry malt extract) in the boil to keep color lighter than with LME (liquid malt extract),which darkens easier than DME. And the beer straight out of the fermenter will be virtually flat. It'll need to be bottled or kegged to get any carbonation. Primed with a sugar solution to carbonate in bottles. Here's a priming calculator I use; http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

 

Thanks. I don't have equipment to do any boiling and I don't want to add more hop flavor, only aroma.

I'll have to see if one of my friends has a keg so we can fast carb it.

 

Btw, og: 1.060

 

Then dry hopping will give plenty of aroma. Wait till the beer's at FG & clearing. Then dry hop 7 days. Your FG should be about 1.012.

 

Thanks, my sauna is already starting to smell like a vat of Erdinger

Airlock is blup blup blupping away...

If it ferments down to 1.012 then it will be slightly stronger than I was shooting for, but not a problem anyway.

 

Well, it seems that after 8 days in the fermenter it has reached 1.015. There hasn't been any airlock activity for 4 days now, but it has been continuing to drop gravity. Only dropped one point since yesterday, or maybe not at all (my hydrometer only has marks for every 2 points and it's hard to tell). Seems that it's probably done and tastes pretty good as well, albeit completely flat at this point. I think I'm going to be bottling either today or tomorrow and hope to have some proper carbonation within a week and a half, or so.

 

1.015's pretty close. It should be 1.010-1.012 in my experience. Just make sure it's at a stable FG before bottling.

 

Just checked it again, still 1.015. I think it's done. I'm bottling into PET anyway, so it really doesn't matter too much. I've tested them - they won't explode.