First crack at an American Wheat

[Wrathbone]

Alrighty, I'm new to recipe formulation, so what are your thoughts on this mini-mash?

5 Gallon batch

3 lb. Pale LME
3 lb. Wheat LME
1 lb. American 2-row
.75 lb. Munich
.75 Carapils

30 min - 1.5 oz. Mt. Hood (5.0%)
15 min - 0.5 oz. Tettnang (4.5%)
00 min - 0.5 oz. Tettnang (4.5%)

Safale S-05 Dry Yeast


Beercalculus has that at 1.052 OG, with 17 IBU's.

 

[mkling]

I don't think you've got enough wheat in there. Wheat LME is made with 50% wheat & 50% pale malt. So with just your extract you've only got 25% wheat. With your minimash you've even got a lower percent of wheat. Hardly seems like an American wheat with 15-20% wheat.

 

[Bob]

3 lb. Pale LME
3 lb. Wheat LME
1 lb. American 2-row
.75 lb. Munich
.75 Carapils

I agree. Too little wheat. First, make all your extract Wheat. Second, you're mini-mashing. Good. Drop the CaraPils and replace it with twice that amount of Wheat Malt. Better yet, round off all your weights to a pound:

1 lb 2-row
1 lb Munich
2 lb Wheat Malt

The Munich is a good idea. Vienna is even better; it'll give you a malt-forward presence without too much emphasis.

At its most basic, American Wheat is Bavarian Hefeweizen fermented with a non-estery American Ale yeast. That's it. No need to overcomplicate.

30 min - 1.5 oz. Mt. Hood (5.0%)
15 min - 0.5 oz. Tettnang (4.5%)
00 min - 0.5 oz. Tettnang (4.5%)

Safale S-05 Dry Yeast

Good. I'd use an American flavor/aroma variety like Cascade and reduce it by half, but your hops schedule looks pretty tasty. Matter of fact, I'd still consider reducing the flavor/aroma hops by half, or simply eliminating the flavor addition.

Beercalculus has that at 1.052 OG, with 17 IBU's.

Even with the increase in the mini-mash, I don't think you'll be that far off. Unless you've really got your mini-mash system dialed in and know the efficiency, of course; then you might go over.

Cheers!

Bob

 

[Wrathbone]

Thanks, guys, that's super helpful. My new recipe will be:

6# Wheat LME
2# Wheat Malt
1# 2-Row
1# Vienna

30 min - 1.5 oz. Mt Hood
15 min - 0.5 oz. Cascade

S-05 dry yeast

My OG might be a little high here.. but I really like the way it looks - so I'll stick with it.