First time brewing

[chasemandingo]

Hello everyone,

My name is Chase and I am new to brewing. I have been making wine for two years now and have finally decided to come over to the dark side! I was thinking for my first brew I should do an all extract hefeweizen. So I thought I would run this by you all. It is my understanding that a partial mash really wouldn't be beneficial for hefeweizen so an all extract should be good. 6-7 lbs of Wheat DME, 1 oz hops for 60 mins, and a good German wheat beer yeast. Here are my questions. I only have a 5 gallon pot so I'm assuming that putting 2.5 gallons in would be fine. The volume would increase when the DME is added and hopefully would prevent a boil over. Then I could pre-boil water and store in fridge in sanitized vessel for topping up in carboy. Next question is whether to add all the DME at once or should it be added in steps? I do not have any noble German hops but do have 1 oz of Mt. Rainier hops that claim to have noble hop characteristics. Would this suffice for a hybrid weizen like I am attempting? The alphas on the Mt. Rainier are around 6%. Also, what yeast do you recommend? Fermentation temp? And now for the biggest question. Being a winemaker, most of my wines finish below 1.00. If a wine finishes above that it is safe to assume that a stuck fermentation has occurred and the yeast have given up! Now I see all these beer recipes that have beer ending at 1.014 and the like and I say to myself, how can they bottle carb that beer when the yeast have given up? After all there is sugar left in the beer and they can't seem to ferment that. Then it occurred to me that the final gravity may be due to unfermentable sugars. Is this the case? Just curious. Anyway, wish me luck on my new found hobby. Just hope this doesn't compete with my wine making lol!

 

[unionrdr]

Beer is different in that it has long chain sugars in it that give it it's flavor & color. so FG's in the 1.008-1.014 range are completely normal & not a sign of a stuck fermentation. I've done PM wheat beers before. I don't know why anyone would say it's not a good thing to do? Your way this time will be fine though. I use the same 5 gallon (20qt) SS kettle I started with. I've boiled a maximum of 4 gallons in it. But I'd recommend staying at no more than 3 1/2 gallons boil volume. Add about 2-3 pounds of the DME for the boil, do your hop addition. Then add the remaining DME @ flame out. This keeps colors lighter & gives cleaner flavor. Moreso with LME. But I do it with all extracts as part of my process. The wort is still boiling hot right at flame out. And since pasteurization happens in seconds at 160F, it'll work fine.

 

[chasemandingo]

K so I'm assuming boil temp should be at 160. Also being new to brewing I am not up on the lingo. Is flame out when you turn off the burner? Also I do not have a wort chiller so I will be putting it into an ice bath in the sink until I get around 60F? I've read that is a good temp to start a fermentation with this beer.

 

[chasemandingo]

BTW I went on a spending spree and ended up buying 2 lbs of caramel 60 L, 1 lbs cherrywood smoked malt, 1 lbs english coffee malt and 1 lbs of flaked wheat. Was thinking of trying to make some graf since the cider is coming in but any other ideas would be greatly considered!

 

[planetscott]

K so I'm assuming boil temp should be at 160. Also being new to brewing I am not up on the lingo. Is flame out when you turn off the burner? Also I do not have a wort chiller so I will be putting it into an ice bath in the sink until I get around 60F? I've read that is a good temp to start a fermentation with this beer.

Boil or mash temp? Water can only boil at 212.....At least on Earth.

 

[planetscott]

BTW I went on a spending spree and ended up buying 2 lbs of caramel 60 L, 1 lbs cherrywood smoked malt, 1 lbs english coffee malt and 1 lbs of flaked wheat. Was thinking of trying to make some graf since the cider is coming in but any other ideas would be greatly considered!

That's a lot of caramel malt for a 5 gallon batch. At most, you need .5 lb....Maybe .75. Using 2 lbs will overpower the flavor profile. Same with the coffee malt.

 

[unionrdr]

K so I'm assuming boil temp should be at 160. Also being new to brewing I am not up on the lingo. Is flame out when you turn off the burner? Also I do not have a wort chiller so I will be putting it into an ice bath in the sink until I get around 60F? I've read that is a good temp to start a fermentation with this beer.

No. 160F is when pasteurization takes place in seconds. Since the wort at flame out (when the boils over & you turn off the heat source), is still boiling hot, it'll pasteurize any late additions of extract. I too use an ice bath to get the wort down to 75F or so, doing partial boils. I strain the wort into the fermenter with a dual layer, fine mesh strainer to get the gunk out & aerate the wort. Boiling drives off dissolved oxygen, & aerating replaces it. 60F is good too. Anyway, I top off to recipe volume with spring water I've chilled in the fridge a day or two before brew day. This gets my wort down to 65F or so. Colder if you chill the wort down further. Some yeasts get sluggish below 64F or so, like Cooper's ale yeast.

 

[chasemandingo]

Planetscott, I am brewing in vacuum duh! lol. I just realized what I had said. Ok I think I got it. I was not considering that I wasn't doing a partial mash were I would be steeping grains, sparging, and then the boil. I have done a small amount of research on brewing. Soon I'm sure it will consume me like my wine making! I would be shooting for around 60 degrees pitching temp and then allowing the temp to rise since my ambient temp in the house is around 70. So for a partial mash beer, .5 lbs caramel, .5 coffee and .5 smoked. Steep and sparge, then add some dark malt extract boil add hops and go on my way? Would it be an abomination? lol

 

[planetscott]

Planetscott, I am brewing in vacuum duh! lol. I just realized what I had said. Ok I think I got it. I was not considering that I wasn't doing a partial mash were I would be steeping grains, sparging, and then the boil. I have done a small amount of research on brewing. Soon I'm sure it will consume me like my wine making! I would be shooting for around 60 degrees pitching temp and then allowing the temp to rise since my ambient temp in the house is around 70. So for a partial mash beer, .5 lbs caramel, .5 coffee and .5 smoked. Steep and sparge, then add some dark malt extract boil add hops and go on my way? Would it be an abomination? lol

OK....Hope my remark did not come off as snarky...It was not meant to be.

These additional grains are for the hefe?

 

[chasemandingo]

No it did not come off as snarky. No the additional grains were basically impulse buys! I got the caramel and flaked wheat so I could make a graf as per Brandon O's recipe. The coffee and smoked barley were impulse buys. I figured they would be ingredients in stout and I love a good stout. Figured it would be a good style to get brewed up for the winter. What's your favorite cold weather brews everyone? Would want the hefe to be traditional. Something akin to Paulaner's.

 

[rodwha]

I don't necessarily choose my beers by season, but I suppose a Christmas spice beer would be in order…

IPA's and stouts are my two most favorite beers, though I enjoy most styles.

 

[chasemandingo]

Christmas ale would be nice. I have heard that the mineral content of water has a lot to do with the quality of beer. Should I be using distilled water with added minerals to brew beer?

 

[rodwha]

I'm only barely now understanding water, and my reference has been the free online How To Brew, which I'm told is outdated thought. What's not exactly correct is beyond me though, and so I'll have a brewing book on my Christmas list…

If you are brewing only with extract it was made properly. However you may need a little calcium or magnesium for yeast health. The top off water shouldn't matter.

What does matter is chlorine and such. I used filtered tap water with good results, and prior to using salts, had been using 1-2 gals of RO water to dilute my filtered tap water depending on darkness of style, and my beers are generally good (comparable to average beer on the shelf) to great. My bad beers aren't due to water but errors for the most part.

HowToBrew

 

[pcampo]

Christmas ale would be nice. I have heard that the mineral content of water has a lot to do with the quality of beer. Should I be using distilled water with added minerals to brew beer?

If you are doing any kind of mash, then yes water is very important. If just doing extract then i would use your regular tap water. If you know whats in your water you can also use your regular tap water for mashing too.

If you are mashing, you can use distilled water and minerals, that would be fine. But add the right amount of minerals according to style and malt that you are using. pH level is what matters in mashing. You want a range of 5.2-5.4 pH during the mash. There are lists online that show appropriate salt additions to distlilled water, but ultimately the mash pH determines your salt additions.

 

[pcampo]

An easier and less complicated way to figure this all out is to know whether your water is hard or soft. If you have hard water, you can generally brew dark beers just fine ( how dark depends on how hard your water is) but will run into problems with light colored beers. Soft water is generally better for light colored beers....The roasted malts of dark beers acidify the hard water enough to bring your mash to the desired pH.

Note: Im talking about mashing here. None of this applies if you are using extract.

 

[chasemandingo]

I knew that the mineral content would be beyond me at this stage. I will learn eventually. I do have a p.H. meter for wine but haven't used it yet. Was going to use it for the first time to adjust my apple wine this year. Anyway, I have only 5 gallon carboys which really hold about a 750 ml bottle extra. If i rig up a blow off will this be good for brewing? The yeast I plan on using is Wyeast 3068 which claims in the description that it should have 33% of the vessel's capacity as headspace. Will I really lose all that much beer?

 

[dobes]

Def use a blowoff. A couple things you can do to keep the fermentation activity down is ferment at the bottom of the temp range for the yeast you are using and you could also use fermcap.

 

[pcampo]

If you have more than one carboy/bucket/fermenter then you can split the batch into two fermenters to leave the required head space. If not then you will have to have a blow off tube.

 

[unionrdr]

I knew that the mineral content would be beyond me at this stage. I will learn eventually. I do have a p.H. meter for wine but haven't used it yet. Was going to use it for the first time to adjust my apple wine this year. Anyway, I have only 5 gallon carboys which really hold about a 750 ml bottle extra. If i rig up a blow off will this be good for brewing? The yeast I plan on using is Wyeast 3068 which claims in the description that it should have 33% of the vessel's capacity as headspace. Will I really lose all that much beer?

WY3068 produces a lot of krausen, thus the need for 1/3 headspace from the total volume of the fermenter. That's what they mean. The AG/AE recipe for Dampfbier in BYO used that yeast. It turns out to be the incorrect one for the German Dampfbier. WY3638 turns out to be the yeast needed for the bubblegum esters the beer is known for. Anyway, that 3068 definitely needs the space! I brewed it to 19L (5.016 USG) in my Cooper's Micro Brew Fv, which is about 27L total, giving the proper head space.So a 5 gallon carboy will be a bit too small. a 6.5 gallon or a bit larger would be better.

 

[rlmiller10]

Or just do a slightly smaller batch to give you more headspace. I do 4 gal batches in 5 gal carboys. As long as keep the temp under control there is plenty of room. Just scale your recipe.


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[chasemandingo]

True, how bout for the hops? I just picked up some hallertau. Should I add .8 oz for an hour boil instead of the whole ounce?

 

[rlmiller10]

I have no experience with Mt Rainier hops but your description sounds like they would work.

That is part of the fun, trying things just to see if they work.


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[metanoia]

I have to commend you, Chase, for being so courageous with your initial ingredient buys, thinking about ways you could use them in future brews. Before my very first homebrew I spent months and months researching the entire process front to back, reading through How To Brew multiple times, and making sure I had everything set just perfectly for brew day.

Keep us updated on the hefe and whatever comes after. My hefe is certainly the most popular of my brews with the family, so I can't wait to make another batch next weekend!

 

[WouldBeBrewmaster]

Definitely use a blowoff tube for that strain. All extract should work. In my experience whenever I use all Wheat LME my beers always finish brown. For a first batch don't get hung up on it. A simple extract recipe with one hop addition is a good way to get your feet wet. Mt. Rainier IIRC is a noble hop descendant so it should work just fine in a hefe.


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