100% wheat extract?

[BetterSense]

I have heard that when you make all-grain wheat beers, you have to include about 20% barley to help convert the wheat.

If you make a wheat beer from extract, does that mean you also use 20% barley extract just to match?

 

[WoodlandBrew]

Most "wheat" extract is really 40% wheat and 60% barley already.

 

[BetterSense]

Interesting. That makes it easy.

How bitter are wheat beers? I'm trying to make a ~1.050 Sierra Nevada Kellerweis clone. I have an ounce of Perle but I'm not sure how many IBU I should be going for, because I've never brewed a wheat beer.

 

[bottlebomber]

Wheat beers are not bitter, usually around 10-15 IBU

 

[highgravitybacon]

I have heard that when you make all-grain wheat beers, you have to include about 20% barley to help convert the wheat.

If you make a wheat beer from extract, does that mean you also use 20% barley extract just to match?

Wheat is more powerful than barley malt. It has more conversion power than a hydrogen bomb.

You can use 100% extract. Barley is already in your extract.

 

[BetterSense]

I was told there is not enough enzyme to protein ratio in wheat to break everything down, thus you "have to" add some barley.

Do people really make all-grain beers with purely malted wheat and no barley?

 

[bottlebomber]

Do people really make all-grain beers with purely malted wheat and no barley?

Not typically.

 

[Qhrumphf]

I was told there is not enough enzyme to protein ratio in wheat to break everything down, thus you "have to" add some barley.

Do people really make all-grain beers with purely malted wheat and no barley?

The problem with wheat isn't its lack of enzymatic power, is the lack of a husk that makes lautering and sparging impossible. The only way to do 100% wheat that I know of is to do brew-in-a-bag, where that isn't an issue. You could also do it with a ton of rice hulls, but then I don't know if you could call that 100% wheat.

It can be done. The folks at Basic Brewing have done both 100% wheat and 100% rye beers. I think they were doing it to do it, I don't think it'd taste very good, and it's certainly not a common practice. In my wheat beers, I usually go 55-60% wheat, the rest barley.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I brewed a gratzer a couple years ago and got hooked. It's 100% wheat. Modern wheat is so well modified it outperforms almost all barley. A really good wheat will out-convert six row barley. As Qhrumphf points out, lautering and sparging is rough so you either need a lot of rice hulls or BIAB. BIAB is way easier but it can be done with rice hulls.