Dark Cherry Wheat

[Jason82]

Brewing a cherry wheat beer for my brothers wedding. Wanted something pretty accessible and enjoyable for all, but I have also recently brewed two fruit-wheat beers that were very light in color, so I wanted to try something different.

Does this recipe look any good? I plan on using wyeast 3333 and mashing above 152 for fuller body.

Looking for rec's on recipe, yeast, mash temp. Anything you'd add/delete, ratios you'd change in the grist%. I was especially unsure about the percentage of carawheat and if other ingredients should be used such as flaked wheat. Thanks. (also, haven't decided about how to add the cherry flavor yet, recently did a raspberry wheat with frozen raspberries in secondary, turned out good so might try something similar).

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Dark Cherry Wheat

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Dunkelweizen
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.038
Efficiency: 65% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.053
Final Gravity: 1.013
ABV (standard): 5.25%
IBU (tinseth): 16.71
SRM (morey): 18.85

FERMENTABLES:
5 lb - American - Wheat (44.9%)
4 lb - American - Pale Ale (36%)
2 lb - American - CaraCrystal Wheat Malt (18%)
0.125 lb - American - Midnight Wheat Malt (1.1%)

HOPS:
0.3 oz - el dorado, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 40 min, IBU: 16.71

 

[BeerLoverHere]

It seems like your crystal malt is a bit high @ 18%. I usually keep mine in between 10-15%. Maybe take some away and add it to your base wheat malt.

I recently had a wheat in a beer competition that was underscored because my wheat malt used was not high enough; it could not be tasted (it was 50% of my grain bill). If you want it to be a "wheat" perhaps adjust to get a bigger percentage of wheat malt and less pale.

I think adding flaked wheat is a good idea.

Maybe add some rice hulls so you don't get a stuck sparge with all the wheat malt?

I'd add the frozen cherries like you did the frozen raspberries since that turned out well for you.

I've never used the 3333; I'm not a fan of the clove/banana esters, but sounds like it is spot on for a german wheat.

If you wanted it to be a true dunkel use some noble hops and add some vienna/munich malt instead of the pale malt.

Hope this helps and the wedding goes well! Sounds like this will be a great gift/surprise for everyone to help lower the stress of weddings and families!!!

 

[Jason82]

Thanks, great feedback. I can dial back the crystal-wheat slightly and up the wheat malt vs the pale. I've never used cara-wheat but I assume the effect is similar to crystal 40-60 with a wheat flavor. I have rice hulls but forgot to list them here. I guessed on the hop based on a byo chart, but I sort of assume the hop flavor doesn't really show much in this style, and I just want to hit my ibu's for balance (could be wrong).

 

[BeerLoverHere]

Yeah, hops don't show much with this one so you can use whatever; that's the beauty about home brew! Use what u got on hand. Your yeast and cherries will dominate this one for sure! Sounds good


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[Jason82]

ok so I'm now planning on reducing the carawheat to 1.5 lb, adding 1 lb flaked wheat, and using wyeast1010 (making more of an american than a german style). One question I have though is when reading recipe rec's on % wheat malt to use in a wheat beer, do I just count my base malt or do I count things like crystal wheat and flaked wheat as well? My current percentage of pale malt is around 35, so the rest of the malts are all some type of wheat product. I would think the wheat flavor would feature at that point?

 

[BeerLoverHere]

I'm not expert, but I would think anything with "wheat" in the title would have to count as a percentage of wheat in your total grain bill. I've used the 1010 and personally like it better than the German strains used in wheat (but I'm not a clove, banana, spicy wheat sort of guy either). The 1010 will feature your malt bill and cherries in this one now since nothing exciting is going on with hops.