Critique my Wheatwine Recipe Please

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TheMadKing

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Thoughts and comments welcome! I've never brewed one before and only had 2 commercial examples. I'm intending to brew this in January to enter into a competition in September.

Harvester of Sorrow Wheatwine

OG: 1.107
FG: 1.017 - 1.025 (happy within that range)
IBU: 56
Color: 13.5 SRM
ABV 12.2%

13lb white wheat malt
6lb 6-row malt
2lb munich malt
2lb golden naked oats
2lb rice hulls

Mash at 149 for 120 minutes (recirculating E-HERMS)

Boil for 120 minutes

1lb invert sugar #3 (65 SRM) @ 120 minutes
1.25oz Magnum @ 60 min
0.5 oz Chinook @ 5 min
0.5 oz Mosaic @ 5 min

2 packs of Nottingham yeast

Ferment at 65 for 14 days

1oz Huell Melon @ dry hop for 2 days (I might scrap this, but was hoping for some interesting fruity notes to linger for 8 months or so)

Keg and store cold for 8 months before tapping
 
Your recipe looks good. I'm not sure dry hopping would add anything since its going to age for a bit.

I'm brewing a wheatwine Saturday tentatively using 15 lbs wheat, 5 lbs pilsner, 3 lbs munich and plenty of rice hulls. I was planning on magnum for bittering and cascade/centennial for flavor& aroma.
 
Your recipe looks good. I'm not sure dry hopping would add anything since its going to age for a bit.

I'm brewing a wheatwine Saturday tentatively using 15 lbs wheat, 5 lbs pilsner, 3 lbs munich and plenty of rice hulls. I was planning on magnum for bittering and cascade/centennial for flavor& aroma.

Awesome thanks for the feedback and keep us posted on how it goes. I had a recipe similar to that at first but I keep tweaking it the more I read
 
I'd be scared of Nottingham, especially with higher gravity stuff. Even fermented on the lower end of its range, it always gave me a bit more fusels than for example us05. I expect this problem to show itself even stronger the stronger the beer gets.
 
I'd be scared of Nottingham, especially with higher gravity stuff. Even fermented on the lower end of its range, it always gave me a bit more fusels than for example us05. I expect this problem to show itself even stronger the stronger the beer gets.

That's really good to know, I used nottingham in an american stout recently and it came out great - so I've never experienced that but fusels are a direct result of high yeast cell growth so in a big beer they would definitely show up more.

Is there a strain you like better for high gravity beers that's fairly clean?
 
That's really good to know, I used nottingham in an american stout recently and it came out great - so I've never experienced that but fusels are a direct result of high yeast cell growth so in a big beer they would definitely show up more.

Is there a strain you like better for high gravity beers that's fairly clean?
I have not much experience with higher gravity brews, but I would choose a kveik. If it should be clean, I would use opshaug. If it shouldn't, I would use something different. I have made higher abv beer with Voss, which turned out good, but you really need to like the voss related flavor. I would actually try hornindal, if it is not supposed to be clean, as I'm personally quite curious about this one.

Anyhow, I think all the are good choices.
 
I have not much experience with higher gravity brews, but I would choose a kveik. If it would be clean, I would use opshaug. If it shouldn't, I would use something different. I have made higher abv beer with Voss, which turned out good, but you really need to like the voss related flavor. I would actually try hornindal, if it is not supposed to be clean, as I'm personally quite curious about this one.

Anyhow, I think all the are good choices.

Thanks!
 
Floral and fruity hops are good in a wheat wine, don't want to cover up that wheat taste with overly aggressive ipa hops.
 
Wheatwine is kind of all over the place as a style. Sometimes they come out supersweet, othertimes like a wheaty barleywine and still others are like double IPAs with a lot of wheat. Not really sure what your target is here to advise what you might want to tweak.

That said, I am generally more of a fan of red wheat for both malted and unmalted purposes. It has a more aggressive flavor than white wheat which has a softer flavor. White wheat is great when you want to add wheat malt for protein and a little wheat flavor but red is better IMO when you want to clearly taste wheat.
 
Wheatwine is kind of all over the place as a style. Sometimes they come out supersweet, othertimes like a wheaty barleywine and still others are like double IPAs with a lot of wheat. Not really sure what your target is here to advise what you might want to tweak.

That said, I am generally more of a fan of red wheat for both malted and unmalted purposes. It has a more aggressive flavor than white wheat which has a softer flavor. White wheat is great when you want to add wheat malt for protein and a little wheat flavor but red is better IMO when you want to clearly taste wheat.
What is wheat taste?

I am under the impression that wheat is kind of the most neutral grain available. If it wouldn't be for the haze that comes with it sometimes, I wouldn't be able to find it in any of my beers, no matter if I use 10% for head retention (I almost always have at least 10% in my beers), or if I use 50% wheat.

I really never ever had the experience that I thought that the beer tastes Wheaty, whatever that might be.
 
What is wheat taste?

I am under the impression that wheat is kind of the most neutral grain available. If it wouldn't be for the haze that comes with it sometimes, I wouldn't be able to find it in any of my beers, no matter if I use 10% for head retention (I almost always have at least 10% in my beers), or if I use 50% wheat.

I really never ever had the experience that I thought that the beer tastes Wheaty, whatever that might be.

Wheat flavor is best described as bread or flour as opposed to barley which is sweeter and malty - they are very similar and the difference is subtle

Wheatwine is kind of all over the place as a style. Sometimes they come out supersweet, othertimes like a wheaty barleywine and still others are like double IPAs with a lot of wheat. Not really sure what your target is here to advise what you might want to tweak.

That said, I am generally more of a fan of red wheat for both malted and unmalted purposes. It has a more aggressive flavor than white wheat which has a softer flavor. White wheat is great when you want to add wheat malt for protein and a little wheat flavor but red is better IMO when you want to clearly taste wheat.

I'm going for a balanced beer most akin to a wheat barleywine of those descriptions you provided.

I want dried fruit, very smooth bready and light toast malt flavor with a little complexity, low caramel, no cloying sweetness, velvety mouthfeel, and some interesting fruity esters on top of everything, for the hops I would like balancing bitterness with no piney resiny flavors, but some citrus, fruit, and earthiness would be good
 
Awesome thanks for the feedback and keep us posted on how it goes. I had a recipe similar to that at first but I keep tweaking it the more I read
Brewed mine Saturday using:

15 lbs white wheat
5 lbs pilsner
3 lbs munich

I did not use rice hulls, but had no issues with a stuck mash.

mashed at 155 for 90 minutes

boiled for 90 minutes

1 oz Magnum 60 min
.5 oz Centennial 15 min
.5 oz Cascade 15 min

I was shooting for 6 gallons, but didn't account for the extra 30 minutes of boil time. I ended up with approx. 4.5 gallons at 1.105.

Pitched 3 packets of US-05 and put it in my basement, ambient temp 60 degrees. It was starting to ferment 5 hours later!
 
Brewed mine Saturday using:

15 lbs white wheat
5 lbs pilsner
3 lbs munich

I did not use rice hulls, but had no issues with a stuck mash.

mashed at 155 for 90 minutes

boiled for 90 minutes

1 oz Magnum 60 min
.5 oz Centennial 15 min
.5 oz Cascade 15 min

I was shooting for 6 gallons, but didn't account for the extra 30 minutes of boil time. I ended up with approx. 4.5 gallons at 1.105.

Pitched 3 packets of US-05 and put it in my basement, ambient temp 60 degrees. It was starting to ferment 5 hours later!

Awesome! Glad to hear your mash went ok, I'm worried about that on my system so we'll see how it goes. I'm not planning to brew mine until January but I may just do it a little sooner

I think I'm going to go ahead and substitute red wheat for white wheat for a more intense bready flavor too
 
I was going to attempt this using a pseudo-no boil and DME, 2.5 gallon volume. 3lbs wheat dme 1 lb Pilsen, then rice, flaked oats and munich malt (1.5lbs combined) for steeping grains. Add .5 lbs brown sugar and hope in 1oz Simcoe. Use 2 packets of D47 white wine yeast. Or I have Us05 but don’t know max abv.

Thoughts
 
I was going to attempt this using a pseudo-no boil and DME, 2.5 gallon volume. 3lbs wheat dme 1 lb Pilsen, then rice, flaked oats and munich malt (1.5lbs combined) for steeping grains. Add .5 lbs brown sugar and hope in 1oz Simcoe. Use 2 packets of D47 white wine yeast. Or I have Us05 but don’t know max abv.

Thoughts

I would drop the brown sugar personally as it will only serve to boost abv and may result in a hot alcohol taste in a beer this big.

And the wine yeast is not a good idea, wine yeast can't ferment maltotrios (unless that strain is one of the rare exceptions) meaning that it will leave a high FG than a brewers yeast

I would recommend Scottish ale yeast, or just US05 if you want clean and dry
 
I would drop the brown sugar personally as it will only serve to boost abv and may result in a hot alcohol taste in a beer this big.

And the wine yeast is not a good idea, wine yeast can't ferment maltotrios (unless that strain is one of the rare exceptions) meaning that it will leave a high FG than a brewers yeast

I would recommend Scottish ale yeast, or just US05 if you want clean and dry
Is that enough malt to convert to the higher abv? I’ll drop the sugar and work with the US05.
 
I am going to get enough conversion for the DME to abv

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're asking

Are are you just wanted to know if thats enough DME to reach 12% ABV in a 2.5 gallon batch?

I just plugged it into beersmith and it's estimating only 8.3% ABV without the brown sugar and only 10% with the brown sugar.

So no, I think you need more malt, and I would recommend using a brewing calculator like BrewersFriend or something similar to see how much you need to hit your desired Original Gravity.

"conversion" normally refers to the process of converting grain starches into simple sugars during mashing, so that's why I'm a little confused.
 
I know BW and WW are different, but the one BW I brewed had way more hops. It used more bittering and flavor hops than some of my IPAs. My understanding is that with big beers you need more hops to balance the high FG. I would not bother with dry hopping due to it aging, but I'd definitely use more bittering hops and increase the 20-30 min additions as well. JMHO. :mug:
 
I know BW and WW are different, but the one BW I brewed had way more hops. It used more bittering and flavor hops than some of my IPAs. My understanding is that with big beers you need more hops to balance the high FG. I would not bother with dry hopping due to it aging, but I'd definitely use more bittering hops and increase the 20-30 min additions as well. JMHO. :mug:

Very true for american barleywine

Wheatwine is far less hoppy and more malt forward typically. There's nothing saying you can't do that though and make a crazy wheat IPA!
 
Very true for american barleywine

Wheatwine is far less hoppy and more malt forward typically. There's nothing saying you can't do that though and make a crazy wheat IPA!
Mine was supposed to be an English version and the recipe I used there was something like 6 ozs of hops, but they were typical Brit hops fuggles EKG and not very high AA. Anyway hope your brew is awesome. I was thiniking about doing a BW and freeze distilling it for fun. :mug:
 
Mine was supposed to be an English version and the recipe I used there was something like 6 ozs of hops, but they were typical Brit hops fuggles EKG and not very high AA. Anyway hope your brew is awesome. I was thiniking about doing a BW and freeze distilling it for fun. :mug:

Well considering I brewed it 2 years ago thanks! 😁 . It came out really good actually, and the mosaic addition in the whirlpool ended up giving it a very pronounced berry/wine like quality. It was definitely a hit and a very dangerous 12% beer
 
Well considering I brewed it 2 years ago thanks! 😁 . It came out really good actually, and the mosaic addition in the whirlpool ended up giving it a very pronounced berry/wine like quality. It was definitely a hit and a very dangerous 12% beer
LOL, missed the original post date. Doh!!!. Did you medal?
 
Looking to brew this in a month for a competition in November, and targeting the American sub-style of BJCP 22D. Struggling with the yeast choice! Seems Wyeast 1318 is a popular choice, and US-05 is certainly an easy one. My local shop carries everything but Wyeast. Any thoughts on yeast choice?

To go after the 'fruity' character mentioned in the BJCP description, I was wondering about something like White Labs 008 East Coast Ale or Lalbrew Verdant. Any thoughts very much appreciated!
 
If you choose verdant, you'll have plenty of fruit. Might be even too much, I would pitch it 50/50 with Us05 in a high Abv brew.
 
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