Have you brewed a 100% wheat beer?

I was going through some old Basic Brewing Videos and I came across the 100% wheat beer episode. I started wondering if anyone on here as tried to brew one or even tasted a 100% wheat beer. If you have brewed or tasted one, what's your opinion?

Here's the episode for your viewing pleasure:

pretty interesting video. i've never personally gone over 50% of the grain bill with wheat, but i'm not a huge wheat beer fan to start with. you think all the crazy decoction stuff is that important to doing this with 100% wheat or could he have done a normal 1hr mash ~152 or whatever and gotten similar results?

The decoction probably helps with lautering later.

rockfish42 said:

The decoction probably helps with lautering later.

Click to expand...

Hmmmm why would decoction help with lautering? Decocting adds melanoidins which you wouldn't get from 100% wheat without the decoction. You could however, skip the decoction and add some Vienna or Munich to get some melanoidins. But then it wouldn't be 100% wheat.

It lowers the viscosity of the mash helping avoid stuck sparges. In a traditional hefeweizen you'd do a protein rest to knock out some of the stickiness of the wheat and then a decoction to increase the fluidity. I don't have my copy of brewing with wheat handy ATM, so this is from memory

What if you were to do extract with some grains?

I was thinking an imperial wheat. Ever been done?

#9.3 wheat extract to a 3 gal batch.
I have various amounts of leftover specialty grains from previous a.g. batches.
Using noble hops.

Or maybe a 4 gal. Just looked over my numbers, a 3 gal would be overkill, but I love to experiment. But who doesn't right.

good idea jewsh. a wheat wine would be interesting to taste. 100% seems like a horrible stuck sparge, extract seems like an awesome idea for this brew. Just keep in mind that most wheat extracts are around 50% wheat, 50% barley.

Do a BIAB. You won't have to worry about stuck sparges and with 100% wheat the beer will be clearer than if you used say 20% wheat. This is according to Stan Hieronymous and the episode from the Brewing Network. He says when you have that much wheat, the protein content is so high that it actually becomes heavy and the protein particles settle out much faster than if you use less wheat.

I will give it a shot and post my recipe. I'm thinking a large pitch us necessary. I don't do starters yet. I have a wheat smack pack, and some t-58. Would a combination pitch be offsetting do you think? My og is estimated. 1.095- 1.126 depending on batch size. I intend on oxygenating the hell out of it at pitch and 8 hours after, before it takes off. Thanks for the tip on the extract also.

I actually have a razzberry brown done with primary. I don't usually secondary, just leave it sit on the cake for a couple weeks. Would it be a good idea to transfer that then throw my wheat on top of the cake? I am very anal about sanitation, so I don't think contamination should be an issue.

I added the rasberry extract in the whirlpool, would I impart many of those flavours in the wheat? I used 1056 for the brown....

I have brewed few weeks ago using 100% white wheat as base malt and had no issues, no stuck mashing, just brewed as usuall.
I'm not sure if my mash tun is "stuck mash" proof, here a link to see it
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32962250@N05/sets/72157616691318369/

Anyways, just added few specialty malts to give some flavor and body, and it is a very refreshing summer beer.

Here's the recipe:

8# Briess White Wheat Malt
1# Briess Carapils Malt
1# Briess Vienna Malt
1# Briess Aromatic Malt
1# Rice hulls

Mashed at 154F for 1h
1.65oz Hallertauer boiled for 20min
2.55oz Goldings boiled for 5min

Fermented with S04 at 65F. I know, not a wheat type yeast, but I love this yeast

OG=1.045
FG=1.009
ABV%=4.6
SRM=7
IBU=25

The color and texture came out like a Bluemoon, without the orange and other spices of a belgian wit.

I give you two horns up on the mash tun, That is a great setup. I may have to try this recipe

How was the"wheat wine"?

So I brewed a one gallon batch. I didn't want to do ten gallons in case I didn't like it and then after I was done, I thought "what was I thinking, I love beer!" I decided I wanted to go with an ale yeast instead of the traditional wheat yeast.

2 lbs malted wheat

mash
doughed in 2.5 gallons at 155. equalized to 150.
did a ten minute decoction at 1/2 hour of mash

preboil grav 1.026 (it was 2 gallons)
boiled down to 1 gallon -> 1.052

boil
0.2 oz saaz hops at 60 min
same at 30
same at 15
same at 5
dry hopped a few hours (not sure what a few hours would accomplish but I thought "rdwhahb and throw it in there, it can't hurt")

fermentation took only about 3 days at 70 degrees F.
FG is 1.010

I drank a partial bottle that was left at bottling. My thoughts were almost exactly as Steve Wilkes in the video. It was very light, almost watery. Of course it had no effervescence yet and it wasn't as tart as a traditional wheat beer. I would suppose because I didn't use a wheat yeast. I will be making 10 gallons of this come spring, but I think I will do some other things to make it better in my eyes (not winning any competitions mind you, just my preferences for my beer).

1. cascade hops instead of saaz.
2. dry hop with more hops and longer
3. secondary at 50 degrees to get a clearer beer
4. use irish moss to clarify further
5. probably won't do a decoction

I am very new to mashing, and actually had no idea that wheat beers are not all wheat. And I can see why. I brewed a mint beer with mostly wheat grains:

5 pounds white wheat
0.14 pounds carapils
1 pound carawheat
3.15 wheat LME (65% wheat, 35% pale)

I also used 0.6 pounds rice hulls.

I had a stuck sparge, and not knowing what to do, I scooped the grains out of the mash tun and put them through a strainer into the kettle. The beer turned out just fine.

If I did it again (which I might, minus the mint), I would use more rice hulls and do a mash-out step at 170 for 10 minutes.

I stumbled upon another Youtube video about 100% Wheat, so I figured I would add it to this old thread.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-Izvb5j-pc[/ame]

I believe Grodziskie is brewed with 100% wheat malt (oak smoked).

I have brewed a 100% wheat beer. It was a grodziskie that I smoked the wheat myself with Jack Daniels barrel chips. It's pretty good but next time more smoke. I used a half pound of rice hulls in the 10lbs of malt, had no issues with sparging. Also did a wheat wine awhile back. It came out at 9.5%abv, 75% white wheat 25% 2 row. No rice hulls in this one and didn't no issues. It was great when it was young but hasn't aged well.