all grain wheat beer

[triskelion]

Hey all,
I've just bottled my wheat beer and was a little surprised at the taste at this stage. It's more like a light pilsner, it has little body and its dominant flavour is hops, although not an over powering amount. Not a bad beer for my first attempt at brewing but no wheaty taste at all. So this is how I went about it, hopefully somebody will have some advice for improving the next batch.

-whole pale barley malt 680g
-whole wheat malt 340g
-hallertau hops 40g
-wyeast 3068
-sucrose 170g

-gristed grain finely in mill
-boiled grain and sugar in 5L of water, moved to bottles and kept warm over night.
-moved back to pot and boiled with 20g hops for 1h45
-boiled with another 10g hops for a further 15mins
-poured into demijohn through sieve
-topped up with 2L water boiled with last 10g hops to bring back to 5L
-added yeast when it got down to 23°C
-stored in dark attic at 19°C
-bubbled furiously for first 5 days before settling down
-moved to secondary fermenter after about 1 week
-added gelatine after another week and moved to fridge
-bottled with priming sugar after another week


This is where I am at the minute, the beer looks about as clear as its going to get, not cloudy at all and no sediment. But as I mentioned it doesn't taste very wheaty. First time brewer so I don't really know what I'm doing yet, any criticism would be helpful I'm sure.

 

[iambeer]

I have limited experience but the wheat recipe I have used has over twice as much wheat than barley, and about 75% less hops than your recipe of the Hallertau thrown in at the 60 minute mark. And it tastes perfectly like wheat beer. I wish I could draw out the clove taste more but maybe that's a yeast issue.

 

[gray7103]

Give it time.....it will taste completely different once it has carbonated/bottle-conditioned.

 

[ChessRockwell]

But as I mentioned it doesn't taste very wheaty.

Wheat, in a beer, doesn't really taste like much.

http://beer.about.com/od/wheatbeer/a/WheatGuide.htm

Is it yeast character (clove/banana) that you're referring to?

Either way, this:

Give it time.....it will taste completely different once it has carbonated/bottle-conditioned.

+1

 

[basilchef]

With wheat beers its usually the yeast that is the shining star not the hops. All my wheats get a single addition at 60 mins. Give'r time mate

 

[triskelion]

Maybe it is the yeast that is the missing taste, the banana and clove flavours are not there. I didn't really measure it out that accurately, the packet was for 5 gallons and I was making about 1 gallon so I just poured in 1/5 of it. I always associate a cloudy translucence and a full body with wheat beers, which mine doesn't have.

I'll give it time to carbonate/explode and I'll keep yous posted.

 

[gwdraper4]

I usually think of wheat beers having a 50/50 ratio with pale malt and only go up in wheat percentage from there. I noticed your ferm temp was a little low, which will hold back that bannana or clove character you were looking for...consider going around 21-22 Deg C next time. Cheers!

 

[DPBISME]

I have limited experience but the wheat recipe I have used has over twice as much wheat than barley, and about 75% less hops than your recipe of the Hallertau thrown in at the 60 minute mark. And it tastes perfectly like wheat beer. I wish I could draw out the clove taste more but maybe that's a yeast issue.

Mashing, Yeast and Temp issue....

MASHING: I read somewhere that if you do a REST at the 113 mark the enzymes produce the precursers to the clove taste.

YEAST: Some Yeast are noted for the Clove taste over the Banana/Bubble Gum tast

TEMP: I also read that lower temps were responsible for CLove while higher temps Banana...

 

[triskelion]

It has really changed in the two weeks that it's been in the fridge.

It came out a very clear golden colour, I filtered it while pouring just to be sure as there where a few floating bits in the bottle. The initial taste is of a pretty typical lager, closest comparison would probably be miller. Then there's a strong hop bitterness and it has a warm dry alcoholic after taste.
Its not quite delicious but it's a lot better than some beers i've tried (cough* carlsberg). I estimate that its roughly around 5%. Not too bad for my first attempt at brewing I think.
also there's absolutely no head

 

[FuzzeWuzze]

It has really changed in the two weeks that it's been in the fridge.

It came out a very clear golden colour, I filtered it while pouring just to be sure as there where a few floating bits in the bottle. The initial taste is of a pretty typical lager, closest comparison would probably be miller. Then there's a strong hop bitterness and it has a warm dry alcoholic after taste.
Its not quite delicious but it's a lot better than some beers i've tried (cough* carlsberg). I estimate that its roughly around 5%. Not too bad for my first attempt at brewing I think.
also there's absolutely no head

As most have noted, to be a true 'wheat' beer you typically need 50% or more of your grain bill to be wheat as far as i know, you were only at 33%

 

[triskelion]

As most have noted, to be a true 'wheat' beer you typically need 50% or more of your grain bill to be wheat as far as i know, you were only at 33%

I have another batch in the primary at the minute, I used about 70% wheat and about half the hops.

 

[gray7103]

Home dish detergents will kill almost any head on homebrew. Put the glass in freezer for a while before pouring, that will help. Not sure why it does, but it does.

 

[buttcord]

-gristed grain finely in mill
-boiled grain and sugar in 5L of water, moved to bottles and kept warm over night.
-moved back to pot and boiled with 20g hops for 1h45
-boiled with another 10g hops for a further 15mins
-poured into demijohn through sieve
-topped up with 2L water boiled with last 10g hops to bring back to 5L
-added yeast when it got down to 23°C
-stored in dark attic at 19°C
-bubbled furiously for first 5 days before settling down
-moved to secondary fermenter after about 1 week
-added gelatine after another week and moved to fridge
-bottled with priming sugar after another week

This seems like a very bizarre process to me. Out of curiosity where did you get this recipe?

 

[triskelion]

This seems like a very bizarre process to me. Out of curiosity where did you get this recipe?

I used the very vague instructions in 'the Alaskaian bootleggers bible' and adjusted quantities for a smaller batch. It says to use a 3:1 ratio of barley to wheat, it specifically says to use barley in the majority, which I later discovered that every other recipe disagrees with.

 

[triskelion]

Home dish detergents will kill almost any head on homebrew. Put the glass in freezer for a while before pouring, that will help. Not sure why it does, but it does.

I suspect that my yeast died off before botteling, making the priming sugar pointless. maybe I didn't add enough, I only estimated the amount to be honest
I always rinse and freeze my glasses. With better beers I can clearly taste the detergent if I don't.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Okay, I'll ask. Which yeast did you use?

 

[triskelion]

Okay, I'll ask. Which yeast did you use?

wyeast 3068

 

[kingwood-kid]

I'm told you get more cloves if you do an acid rest at 111 degrees F. That yeast at that temp should have given you bananas, but the gelatin may have knocked some of that out. Hefes are not a style you should use gelatin in; you actually want to keep as much yeast as possible in suspension. Finally, regardless of what beer you are brewing, at no point should you boil the grain for maybe a dozen reasons. I would advise that before brewing anything else, you read www.howtobrew.com all the way through.

 

[triskelion]

I'm told you get more cloves if you do an acid rest at 111 degrees F. That yeast at that temp should have given you bananas, but the gelatin may have knocked some of that out. Hefes are not a style you should use gelatin in; you actually want to keep as much yeast as possible in suspension. Finally, regardless of what beer you are brewing, at no point should you boil the grain for maybe a dozen reasons. I would advise that before brewing anything else, you read www.howtobrew.com all the way through.

Thanks, I'll have a look at It. How does filtering rather than using gelatin sound? I hear that a coffee filter will remove all of the lees but let the yeast pass through.