Dark fruit notes in Aventinus

[blizz81]

I haven't found a ton on a locked-down Aventinus clone all-grain recipe - poked around a bit on here and elsewhere on the internets. The recipe I will probably go off of from here was:

58.5% 9.00 lbs. Wheat Malt
14.6% 2.25 lbs. Munich Malt
16.3% 2.50 lbs. Pilsener
10.6% 1.63 lbs. CaraMunich 40

Aventinus definitely has some dark fruit going on to me. The color seems darker than that grist would provide as well. I've used Special B to attain some dark fruit-type flavor in other beers - will probably give that a go unless anyone else has any other ideas? It seems separate of any ester / phenol character I've ever gotten out of hefe yeast, so I'm looking at grain for the flavor.

 

[Vale71]

One word: decoction mashing.

OK, that was two words...

 

[monkeymath]

I'm quite certain they use a dark crystal malt to get that flavour. Special B is a bit too much burnt-bread-crust to me, CaraAroma seems just right.

You can find a (German) recipe for a smaller version of the beer here MaischeMalzundMehr

However, the yeast is still the most important aspect for this beer. Schneider's yeast has a very subdued banana character and strong phenolics. Brew the beer with 3068 and you won't get much of that driedfruit character, but lots of banana instead.
If you can get

 

[blizz81]

However, the yeast is still the most important aspect for this beer. Schneider's yeast has a very subdued banana character and strong phenolics. Brew the beer with 3068 and you won't get much of that driedfruit character, but lots of banana instead.

I was gonna shoot for WL380, a ferulic acid rest, and probably low 60s ferm temp. I've failed to get good clove phenols out of my hefe attempts so far, so was going to use this brew as another stab. I've tried a step mash with the whole grist before re: a ferulic rest and had issues with my RIMS and gummy protein mess so I'm going to rest with just the barley portion of the grist and mash in the wheat after adding the remaining water to get me up to normal mash temp.

 

[monkeymath]

I was gonna shoot for WL380, a ferulic acid rest, and probably low 60s ferm temp. I've failed to get good clove phenols out of my hefe attempts so far, so was going to use this brew as another stab. I've tried a step mash with the whole grist before re: a ferulic rest and had issues with my RIMS and gummy protein mess so I'm going to rest with just the barley portion of the grist and mash in the wheat after adding the remaining water to get me up to normal mash temp.

If you can get your hands on some relatively fresh bottles of Schneider Weiße TAP7, I'd strongly recommend culturing up the yeast from bottle dregs. They use the same yeast strain in all their regular beers (not necessarily the TAP X series) and for bottling. It's not hard to do and gets you much closer to the real thing than any combination of mashing techniques ever could.

 

[riceral]

If you can get your hands on some relatively fresh bottles of Schneider Weiße TAP7, I'd strongly recommend culturing up the yeast from bottle dregs. They use the same yeast strain in all their regular beers (not necessarily the TAP X series) and for bottling. It's not hard to do and gets you much closer to the real thing than any combination of mashing techniques ever could.

Also, make sure you pitch a sufficient amount of yeast. If you under pitch, in my experience, even with everything else being right, you will get more banana notes. YMMV

 

[blizz81]

Final recipe ended up:

(Ferulic Rest Grist)
4lb pils
2.5lb Munich (5L)
2lb Munich II (10L)
1.5lb Cara Aroma (thanks for the hint on this)

(Remainder of grist)
6lb wheat

Ferulic rest with no wheat went fine in the RIMS, probably could have recirculated but started a bit on the higher end of temp and didn't really lose much so just let it sit. Didn't have time to find & build up yeast from a Schneider bottle, so stuck with WLP380 (3L starter decanted). The first day or two of ferm (62*F) the aroma was alllll clove, then it turned into normal hefe sulfur bomb. Samples didn't taste very clove-y but the finished product is more clove than ester.

 

[monkeymath]

Oh wow, that's a whole lot of CaraAroma.

Are you happy with the beer? Are you getting the "dark fruit notes" you were looking for? Also, what was OG/FG?

 

[blizz81]

I'm happy with it so far (we're about 5 weeks out from brew day). 1.080 OG, 1.020 SG, the latter of which was a bit higher than what Beersmith and myself were expecting. Sacc rest portion of the mash done at 151*F, which we were low on temp after step infusion, so it had to build to that 151*.

It's maybe not as dark fruit-ish as a Belgian quad, but the combo of malt complexity and phenols achieved was fairly successful for my tastes. Need to try a Schneider Aventinus next to it for an adequate comparison.