Help modify extract to specialty recipe (hefe)

[shamouza]

Hi guys, its been about a year since I've homebrewed. Shame on me. I'm a little out of touch with malt compositions.

I found this simple hefeweizen recipe around here, posted by HOOTER:

Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: Danstar Munich
Yeast Starter: Rehydrate
Batch Size (Gallons): 5 gal
Original Gravity: 1.045
Final Gravity: 1.011
IBU: 14
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 4
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 days @ 68f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): N/A


5 lbs. Briess Bavarian wheat DME

8 oz. Carahell

1 oz. Tettnanger (4%)

Danstar Munich

Steep grains for 20 min. @ 155f. Bring to boil and add 2 lbs. extract and Tettnanger hops. Add 3 lbs. extract with 10 minutes remaining in the boil. Ferment for 10 days, keg at about 4 volumes (or bottle) and enjoy. (Full boil recommended). Nothing fancy here, just a very easy and quick Hefe that manages to disappear rapidly. It's almost too simple to post but My friends and I dig this beer so much I figured it might be worth sharing. Fermenting in the mid 60's makes for a very clean American style Hefe but my last batch fermented around 70 and is much closer to a true Bavarian style. This yeast has always fermented very vigorously for me so use a blowoff tube. Enjoy


HERE'S WHAT I WANT TO MODIFY
I want to cut back on the DME and replace some of it with some light Munich and Pilsner malt (I know, it'll get a little bock-ish). I also want to drop the carahell, since I'm adding Pilsner and Munich, and add carapils.

SO can someone help me out calculating new malt weights? I'm thinking 60% wheat, 30% Pilsner, and 10% Munich. and what amounts should I use for the carapils?

Next, I want to use a real nice liquid yeast that I can reuse for my next batch. Any suggestions? I understand yeast quality is one of the major determinants of a nice wheat beer.
EDIT: I found YS3638 Bavarian Wheat from Wyeast that seems perfect.

hops, I want to change the hop schedule to 1 oz Hallerteau (bittering) and .5 oz Liberty (flavor)


any and all feedback will be greatly, greatly appreciated. thanks y'all!

 

[chickypad]

How much DME are you wanting to replace and do you know what efficiency you expect? DME provides about 45 gravity pts per lb, so at 75% efficiency you would need about 1.66 lb grain per lb of DME. Replacing wheat extract with 60/40 wheat and pilsner sounds fine, I would decide what overall percentage of your recipe you want to be munich and calculate that separately. I don't think you really need the carapils with the wheat but up to you.

 

[shamouza]

How much DME are you wanting to replace and do you know what efficiency you expect? DME provides about 45 gravity pts per lb, so at 75% efficiency you would need about 1.66 lb grain per lb of DME. Replacing wheat extract with 60/40 wheat and pilsner sounds fine, I would decide what overall percentage of your recipe you want to be munich and calculate that separately. I don't think you really need the carapils with the wheat but up to you.

Thanks for your input, I'm still a little lost and feeling newbie - so if I could ask you a couple more questions... specifically about calculating weights:

If I'm aiming for a 1.045 OG and I'm settling on a 60% DME wheat / 30% pilsner / 10% munich, how do I calculate how much for each?
about the carapils, the last time I brewed (a year ago), I felt it really did something for the head (and it was a wheat).

 

[chickypad]

I'm a little unclear - do you want 60% of your recipe to be wheat or 60% of your recipe wheat DME (wheat DME is made from about 60% wheat and 40% barley). When trying to figure out percentages I find partial mash brews to be confusing because you need to account for efficiency with the grains and not the extract. I calculate as an all grain then convert to whatever percentage extract is desired. So if you are saying you want 1.045 beer that is 60% wheat/30% pilsner/10% munich and assuming 75% efficiency the all grain version would look something like:

5lb wheat malt
2.5 lb pilsner
13 oz munich

A manageable partial mash with a little over 4 lb grain and half the fermentables from extract would be (this is calculated by replacing 4 lb of grain with 2.5 lb DME - in a ratio of about 65% wheat to 35% pilsner, close to the make up of your typical wheat extract) :

2.5 lb wheat DME
2.5 lb wheat malt
1 lb pilsner
13 oz munich

You could throw in a half lb carapils if you wish but the wheat malt should provide head retention. Is that what you were looking for? Do you know how to do the mash?

 

[shamouza]

I don't have the equipment with me at college to run a partial mash yet. My original intent with the thread was to steep some grains in addition to the wheat dme (which I did not know contained barley, but after reading up on it - it makes sense). You spurred me on to do some more research to figure out this confusion and I just learnt that both Pilsen and Munich malts need to be mashed, as they wont convert when steeped.

My next bit of research taught me that Munich LME is a 50/50 blend of pale and munich malts. Considering this, I might as well drop the Pilsen DME.

back to the drawing board
shooting for 1.0435 OG @ 75% (1.050 would be nice, but the weights split nicer this way)
3lbs Wheat DME
1/2 lb Munich LME
1/4 lb Carapils (steeped for 20 mins @155F)
and I'll probably chuck some Irish Moss in
-------------------------------------------------

Wow, I was really confused for a couple posts. Thanks for working through this with me. I'm satisfied with this grain bill, what do you think?

edit: Would anyone care to double check my calculations? For some reason, I feel as if that is not a whole lot of malt.

 

[chickypad]

You were correct you don't have enough extract. The original started with 5 lb DME, and LME has a little less fermentables than DME per lb because of the water. I would go with this, it will give you about 1.048 and I think gives you good percentages of your ingredients:

4.5 lb wheat DME
1 lb Munich LME
.5 lb carpils

Also, just for the future a partial mash is really just a steep at a more controlled temp with a defined amount of water for a little longer. So you don't really need any more equipment than a bag and a pot as you can wrap the pot in blankets to keep it warm.


edit: corrected the numbers and that was munich LME not DME

 

[shamouza]

Thanks for getting back to me. I was tripping about this all night and redid the math in the morning and ended up with 4 lbs wheat dme and 2 lbs Munich lme. I decided to drop the carapils to save the half hour time steeping (which is why I'm avoiding a simple partial mash for this brew).

I've been putting off brewing for a year, and I really regret. I used to partially blame my roommates. We've already postponed two brew dates and they wanted to push this one back too (Thursday).

I've got a short timeframe between class and work, but I know I'll have enough time to do just and extract beer. Next week, though...