Partial Mash German Hefe idea.... thoughts?

[KettleCorn]

Ok. I am going to try a partial mash hefe for the next batch.
Here is the recipe I came up with.

Heat to 155F and Steep for 60 min.:
32 oz Wheat Malt (2 SRM)
12 oz Carmel Mheat Malt (46 SRM)
8 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM)
1.5 oz hallertauer (60 min)

Then add to the boil (for additional 60 minutes):
1.5 oz Hallertauer (60 min)
0.5 oz Cascade (60 min)
16 oz Corn Sugar (30 min)
8 oz Light Brown Sugar (30 min)
3.0 LBS Barvarian Wheat Extract (30 min)
0.5 oz Hallertauer (5 min)

WPL-300 (with a starter to get more banana and clover from yeast this time)

OG 1.053
SRM 8.9
IBUs 13.7
ABV 6.0%

What do you think?

 

[KettleCorn]

Doh! I foprgot my questions:
- Am I using too much sugar?
- how abot my wheat to barley ratio?

My kettle is not too big. I mix and divide the grains into two pots and have ~1.3 gal of 155F water in each and run them side by side. Two little pots equal one bigger pot - kinda.

The key here is I can't have much over 3 lbs of grain (1.5 lbs in each pot) or else there is no room for any water

Let me know what needs to be tweaked.
thanks.
PS Beersmith can become a time warping device....

 

[jeremybrown9]

Your IBU's are going to be about 50 (style says 8-15) and the ABV will be a little high (6%). In my opinion it looks like the final outcome will be a highly hopped, sweet tasting, American Wheat beer. I say go for it and see what will actually happen. It could be something awesome.

 

[KettleCorn]

Brewsmith says I shoul dget 13.7 IBU's
Why do you think it will be 50?

I'll try to figure out how to post a photo so I can show the screenshot....
It is very possible that I dont know what I am doing so I am not saying that 50 is wrong, I just dont want IBU 50 beer. My desired target would be in the low teens instead.

working on getting the screesnhot...

 

[KettleCorn]

Here we go, let's see if this works:

 

[KettleCorn]

Let me know what I am doing wrong. The goal of this is to be relatively close to the virtual beer with the actual beer.

I need the "wifesmith" version of this software, I'd like to make a few tweaks there too

 

[brewit2it]

Good idea going partial mash. For me it really improved my beer. I see a few problems though.

One is that since you are doing a partial mash you no longer are simply steeping. You will want a higher strike temp than 155 and want to keep the temp steady for the entire 60 minute mash so should have a way to insulate your pot (unless you have a cooler mash tun you didn't mention). Direct firing is tricky unless you have a pump and recirculate which I'm assuming you don't considering this is your first PM. Best is to shoot for the upper end of your mash temp at the start and wrap your pot up good and accept a few degrees drop over the 60 minutes. I use this program to calculate my strike water temp. You'll also want a way to rinse/sparge your grain which could be as simple as dunking them in 170- 175 degree water after the 60 minutes. I think your spreadsheet said 83% efficiency which is probably way higher than you will actually get. Id set it at 70%.

http://www.brewheads.com/strike.php

Looks like it will be too bitter. I wouldn't put any hops in the mash for a Hefe and probably just use the 1-1.5 oz hallertauer for 60 minutes and save the rest.

What are you trying to achieve with the sugar? I definitely wouldn't add any sugar in a German style beer. You already have plenty of wheat between your grain bill and wheat extract but you could add 1-2# light DME if you wanted the higher ABV in place of all that sugar. I'd probably go no more than 1# to keep the ABV closer to 5 than 6.

Good luck!!

 

[Tinga]

I like to make my hefes simple. half wheat half pilsner. for the grain. hallertau to get about 12 IBUs and either 300 or 3068.

I wouldn't add any sugar or cascade hops. I normally only use a single ounce hallertau for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[KettleCorn]

Ok...

Deleted the Barley flakes, lt Brown sugar and the Cascade.
Added the Pilsner Malt Grain
Lowered Hallerau from 1.5 oz to 1.0oz
Raise sugar from 8oz to 16 oz

I am trying to keep the LME at 3lb to use only 1/2 the container and then have another half for the next brew. I guess I am being conservitive here...

Do I just really want to delete all the sugar and just add LME until I get the ABV up to 6%... Trying for a little more potent beer, but dont want to sacrific taste.

Thanks for all the help so far...
all opinions

welcome

Fun stuff!

 

[KettleCorn]

Oh, I dont know how to change the Mash Eff....

 

[KettleCorn]

Adjusted agian to meet Tinga's suggestion of 1/2 and 1/2 Wheat and Pilsner Grains.
Reduced Caramel Wheat to 4oz
Added Smoked Grains 4oz- just becuase it sounded good.

I think I can hold this much grain in the pot and make it work.

I'll use a pot of sterile water to top off the carboy to "rinse" the grain bags to get out as much as possible. So the (2 bags of) grain get "squeezed" then dunked into 1 gallon of water for first rinse then dunked into another "clean" 1 gallon of water for a second rinse.
Hope that helps.

Here is the latest and greatest:

 

[slarkin712]

I'd be against adding sugar of any kind to a German hefe. It will only thin out the flavors and dry the beer out some more. I'd just use more LME or DME. Curious as to why you're using sugar?

 

[brewit2it]

Adjusted agian to meet Tinga's suggestion of 1/2 and 1/2 Wheat and Pilsner Grains.
Reduced Caramel Wheat to 4oz
Added Smoked Grains 4oz- just becuase it sounded good.

I think I can hold this much grain in the pot and make it work.

I'll use a pot of sterile water to top off the carboy to "rinse" the grain bags to get out as much as possible. So the (2 bags of) grain get "squeezed" then dunked into 1 gallon of water for first rinse then dunked into another "clean" 1 gallon of water for a second rinse.
Hope that helps.

Here is the latest and greatest:

You snuck some smoked malt in there and thought we wouldn't notice didn't you

I liked your first recipe minus the mash hops and cascade, and minus the sugar. For some reason now your efficiency is down to 58% which is why your ABV is down even though you still have the 1 lb sugar in there.

This one looks fine also but I'd lose the smoked malt and the sugar. Don't worry so much about getting the 6% ABV. Thats out of style anyway and you will probably like it better at around 5% ABV, then you can always drink some Jagermeister along with it if you find it isn't getting you intoxicated enough

 

[KettleCorn]

Brewit2it, Made me laugh when I read the

You snuck some smoked malt in there and thought we wouldn't notice didn't you

Felt sneaky, and caught...

Ok. Deleted the Smoked Grains, Deleted the sugar. Upped the LME from 3 to 4 to get from 3.7% to 4.5% on the ABV and some color back.


Any other ways to get the ABV up slightly (another .5%) without sugar?
I liked the Jagermister Shot idea too...

I think the answer here is get a bigger pot and add more grains....
Hmmm.... what if I made 4 gallons instead of 5, that is kinda the same thing but backwards.. right?

I tweaked the 5.0gal to 4.5gal and got 5.1% abv, 7.4 SRM, 11.1 IBU, and OG at 1.051
What do you think?

Here is the 5 Gal. version

 

[KettleCorn]

I'd be against adding sugar of any kind to a German hefe. It will only thin out the flavors and dry the beer out some more. I'd just use more LME or DME. Curious as to why you're using sugar?

my goal here was to bump the abv 1/2% or so