Lagunitas Doppel Weizen

[Gear101]

Just opened one of this after a day of brewing, wish I would have bought a couple more of them, very good beer. But it falls inside of the beers that I like.

 

[Gear101]

http://www.lagunitas.com/beers/doppelweizen.html

 

[Poobah58]

I had one today. Good stuff. I'm working on a recipe. I'm thinking of pitching a Hefe yeast, let it go for a few days, then pitch a Belgian yeast...

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I wasn't really impressed but my wife likes it.

 

[Gear101]

I had one today. Good stuff. I'm working on a recipe. I'm thinking of pitching a Hefe yeast, let it go for a few days, then pitch a Belgian yeast...

You might have something there, it tasted like a bret b or something?

 

[Poobah58]

You might have something there, it tasted like a bret b or something?

It was kinda fruity. Also had some banana/bubble gum to it.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I definitely did not get any brett flavor. I'm pretty sure it's fermented with a hefe strain alone. Some of those can tolerate up to 10%.

 

[Soma]

Definitely weizen yeast, not brett.

 

[Gear101]

Definitely weizen yeast, not brett.

something like that, every interesting favor from a wheat.

 

[idjeffp]

It was my understanding that the yeast sent to Lagunitas was a special strain, so instead of trying to match what was used, I just captured the yeast from the Lagunitas Doppelweizen itself (like we did a looong time ago)... and made a few batches earlier this year with this yeast. Lagunitas lists 1.084 OG and 34.2 IBU' on the bottle so those are some good guidelines to start with. Mine were coming in around 8.8 to 9.3% ABV... makes for some pretty happy times! Just resurrected some of this washed yeast and made another double batch with a friend. Turned out to be the best so far. All my wife's lady friends love this stuff... The yeast posts some banana / gum notes during fermentation but this is not a lasting dominant note in the final product... definitely no Brett flavors. My first recipes were more Munich malt focused... with traditional noble hops. I recently reprofiled the recipe away from the Munich a bit as I've gone to longer 90 min boils. Fermentation was VIOLENT with this last batch peaking at ~ 36 hrs with a decent sized starter.
I emailed Lagunitas recently and they said they currently have no plans to release any more of their Bavarian Style DW I still have one bottle left that we're planning on sampling against the current batch of DW...
Cheers Jeff

 

[Marquez]

I finished a bottle of this fantastic beer and was really sad to learn that it was not going to be restocked at my local store.

Has anybody come up with a decent recipe for this?

 

[TryonBeer]

Lucky guy. I was fortunate enough to buy 2 cases of 22 oz. of this excellent brew. It didn't last long though. Should have been less generous with friends, but oh well. So there is a new brew club in Tryon, NC called YEAST (Youthful and Elder Ale Sippers of Tryon). Jay Adams is the founder and he's pretty well known in this area and up into Asheville as a brewer and winemaker, having been named NC Winemaker of the Year a while back.

I'd very much like to take the recipe for Lagunita's Doppel Weisen to the club meeting and make this one of our initial projects. I called, emailed and basically shamed myself to the folks at Lagunita's repeatedly to convince them this beer needed to be in at least their seasonal rotation, but you guys know how well I did with that.

So, is there anyone that has been able to replicate this amazing brew? Any help would be much appreciated. I'll be letting the guys in the brew club know about this site and will likely become a supporting member now that I've found you.

Thanks and take care.

 

[TryonBeer]

Well,

I made a shameless, begging appeal to the folks at Lagunitas yesterday and wouldn't you know it, they sent me the recipe for their Doppel Weisen. The yeast strain was confirmed to have been a special import but suggestions of substitutes were provided. Here is what I got from them:

"Do ½ malted white or red Wheat, 3% Carahell and the rest malt; all noble hops (Tettnag, Saaz, Hallertaur, etc) and if you don’t want to pay 2500 euro to ship the yeast from Germany and purchase a phytocertificate, then ferment with Wyeast Weinstephan Weizen. It was about 20 Plato and 28-30 IBU—you know your homebrew set-up better than anyone, so fill these guidelines and do not filter it!!!!

Cheers!

Jeremy"

So there you have it. Can't wait to try it.

 

[Marquez]

Appreciate your hard work.

Going to start working on my recipe with your guidelines.

Maybe we can keep this thread going by posting the recipes we come up with, including tasting notes.

Too bad I don't have the original for calibration...

 

[TryonBeer]

Not a problem. Good idea on keeping the thread going. I'm going to work on the precise physical measurements to get a 5 or 10 gal batch going and will share once it's refined. Hopefully others will do the same and we'll nail this one.

Take care.

 

[Marquez]

Did they mention mash temp?

According to "CYBI," Lagunitas Brewery tends to mash high. I think that helps in mouthfeel for this beer.

 

[booherbg]

They mash most of them high - like 158F high. They also love their wheat but that's normal for this style. What does "3% Carahell and the rest malt" mean?

 

[booherbg]

maybe "the rest malt" means pale base malt.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

They mash most of them high - like 158F high. They also love their wheat but that's normal for this style. What does "3% Carahell and the rest malt" mean?

50% wheat
47% 2-row
3% carahell

 

[cval]

What does "3% Carahell and the rest malt" mean?

50% white or red malted wheat
3% carahell/crystal 10L
47% pilsner malt

I do a 6.5lb white wheat + 4.25lb pilsner malt hefe that rounds up to 6.0% abv.

My best guesstimate for 5G is:
8lb white wheat
7.75lb pilsner malt
.25lb carahell

 

[idjeffp]

I've still got the original Lagunitas DW yeast culture going... and one bottle left
I've made 5 DW's with this yeast now - originally using 6 lbs of the Briess Bav Wheat LME + partial mash, then switched over to all-grain @ 55% white wheat... and the latest and best so far uses 65% white wheat - almost creamy and my wife's favorite. Not using Carahell but an assortment of Vienna, Munich 10/20 and CaraMunich. This is my most requested beer from my friends. I'm not trying to replicate the Lagunitas DW but do try to maintain the general style.

Not sure what to advise folks here for yeast - maybe WLP320? The Lagunitas Freitag Bros yeast has none of the clove/phenol in the finished product... so Wyeast Weinstephan Weizen would be tasty - but a deviation from the Lagunitas DW... just my $0.02. I emailed White Labs today asking about yeast recommendations... I'll post here when I get an reply.

JP

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I would guess the base malt is pale malt/2 row not pilsner.

 

[TryonBeer]

Jeremy Marshall at Lagunita's has been really helpful and replied directly to me this time instead of through a forward. Here's what he said about the temp and more detail on the yeast strain.

"It was a temp programmed mash with a lot of ferulic acid rests—if only an infusion is possible then 60 min at 150F mash is sufficient to replicate. No spices, let the yeast do that. It was an easy beer to make, the costly yeast had nothing to do with not doing it—I just make the beer and do not control the flow of seasonals—we could very well do it again in the future. The yeast cultured from the bottle is Hefebank #68, the one you want."

 

[TryonBeer]

Hi guys. I've been working on this recipe and think I've got the malt profile and the mash schedule down pretty close. Hops are a different matter. This is what I've been doing. Anyone game to work on this?

4 lb Cracked Wheat
4 lb Flaked Wheat
7.5 lb American 2-Row Malt
4 oz Carahell
4 oz Crystal 40

Start the mash at 112F for a ferulic acid rest and hold for 30 minutes. Bring up to 156F and hold for 1 hour. Use your brewhouse calculations to get 4 gallons of wort. Sparge 3 gallons at 170F for a total boil volume of 6.5 gallons for a final of 5 - 5.25 gallons.

Current Hop Schedule:

1 oz Hallertauer for 60 minutes
.5 oz Saaz for 60 minutes
.5 oz Tettnang for 60 minutes

.5 oz Hallertauer for 5 minutes
.5 oz Saaz for 5 minutes
.5 oz Tettnang for 5 minutes

The yeast used in the LDW was Hefebank 68. This is what idjeffp was able to culture from the bottle of LDW as he mentions above. Wyeast 3068 will do the trick.

Lagunitas is known to use Chinook, Simcoe, Apollo, Summit, Nugget and HBC342 hops (this from another HBT Thread where they provided this info). The flavors of their DW were far too complex to just be the 3 noble hops I mention above. I tried a dry hopping of .5 oz of Cascades in the last batch but it was barely noticeable. Problem is, it's been so long since the last tasting I'm losing the memory of it but remember citrus, a bit of a pine taste and definitely some of the bitter of Simcoe - or so I think. The dry hopping schedules are also complex. Look at the Hop Stoopid dry hoppings from any of the clone recipes on the forum and you'll see what I mean.

Please let me know if you area able to crack this one. Thanks to CVAL for his tips and definitely to idjeffp for EVERYTHING.

 

[idjeffp]

Hey TryonBeer!
Thanks for posting this... looks like a tasty recipe. I still have that one bottle of LDW left in the fridge... sure wish you were here and we could sample it! Whenever it's opened I'll take some notes... Another batch of DW is on my To-Brew list
Cheers!
Jeff Pfeifer

 

[TryonBeer]

Jeff,

The thanks go to you for the help and the Hefebank 68 starter. I have the 20 slants in the fridge and plan to keep the strain viable for a long time. I REALLY wish we could lobby Lagunitas to make this beer again.

After posting the recipe I thought folks may wonder why the split in the cracked and flaked wheat. Going 100% flaked created a "head monster" in the 2nd batch, like Guiness Stout on steroids. The cracked wheat resulted in a very small amount of head, so I split it up with the 3rd batch and the beer comes off with a head and retention something like Old Speckled Hen. Perfect balance of a creamy head, nice mouth feel and lasting power without becoming a pain to pour.

Wish we could get together to celebrate and mourn that last torpedo too!

Let's continue working on this and figure out those complex flavors whatever Jeremy is doing gives to this beer. BTW, have you gone to the Lagunitas website and looked at the Rolec brewing setup they have? It's the whole reason this beer ever saw the light of day.

Terry