Weizenbock recipe comparison

[Frenchy]

I'm planning an all grain weizen bock. My goal is to get a beer with around 8% ABV, and color around 24. I've come up with 2 recipes that accomplish this, the difference is the ratio of malted barley to malted wheat. What would the be the differences in these 2 recipes as far as flavor, mouth feel, etc?

Recipe 1
Golden Promise 10.0#
Wheat Malt, White 3.0#
Wheat Malt, Dark 1.5#
Wheat Malt, Chocolate 0.5#
Crystal 40 1.5#
This recipe comes to 1.079 OG, 7.76% ABV, color of 23.60, IBU 23.9

Recipe 2
Golden Promise 5.0#
Wheat Malt, White 7.5#
Wheat Malt, Dark 1.5#
Wheat Malt, Chocolate 0.5#
Crystal 40 1.5#
This recipe comes to 1.078 OG, 7.66 ABV, color of 23.4, IBU 24.1

This is for a 5.5, both recipes use:
Saaz 3.1 alpha 60 min, Hallertau 4.41 alpha 10 min, Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen.

So, what will the differences be in the final product of these 2 recipes?

 

[Frenchy]

Anybody have any input on this?

 

[mlg5039]

I spent all spring brewing these ha. I think 50/50 wheat/barley works best. You really need to use munich or vienna malt though and a decoction mash if you can in order to get the maltiness aspect you want.

Try:

8 lbs Munich malt
8 lbs wheat malt
4 oz. Chocolate malt

18-20 ibus from a noble hop. 60 minute addition only.

Ferment around 67 with a good hefe yeast for 3 weeks then crank down slowly to 45-50 for another few weeks. Shoot for high Carb levels when you bottle.

 

[Patirck]

Weizenbock is my super all time favorite #1 style. I agree with the previous post you need some Munich or Vienna (I use Munich or dark Munich). If you don't want to do the decoction mash - add .5 - 1 lb of melanoidin. The lovibond for melanoidin is around 30 so it will affect your color but the flavor you get is well worth it. 50/50 wheat/barley is the minimum for me - I do up to 70% wheat for this style sometimes. I also think a flavor or aroma hop addition is unnecessary for this style. The hops are there just to pull back on the malt a little to keep it from being to sweet in the finish. It is probably the hardest part of making a good weizenbock - finding the balance between cloying and bitter that allows you to taste the malt.

 

[Frenchy]

I order my ingredients from Midwest Brewers, and they have the Munich and Vienna listed as 'color" malts. Is that correct? I would have thought 50+% of a color malt would be too much.

The decoction schedule I found was 5+ hrs. Is that normal with what you guys are doing? What does the melanoidin do for the flavor?

Also, Midwest has white wheat, red wheat, and pale wheat. Any recommendations as to what goes better in this style?

 

[Patirck]

I'm not sure why they call it color malt. Both can be used as base malts - they have plenty of diastic power. You can go 100% with either - I have done a munich smash and it came out fine. Lots of people use these as they're base malt. Lately I have found myself using vienna and pilsner to make a german pils style with lager yeast - it is quite tasty.

I did a decoction once - you can read about it in a thread called decotion disaster. I think unless and until I have some more automation I won't try it again. The idea of decoction is to (among other things) pull out melanoidins from the mash. You can accomplish the same thing by addiing some melanoiding malt - for a 5 gallon batch - .5 - 1 pound should do.

While I'm sure Midwest is a find place to order from, there are other vendors that have the malts mentioned - Northern brewer for one. You may want to try dark wheat and dark munich. As for choosing between white, red and pale - I guess I'd go with red or pale but I don't think it will make much difference.

Another thing I'll mention is the yeast - I love wlp380 / wyeast 3333. It is very much a matter of personal taste but I think it is head and shoulders more interesting flavor wise than the other wheat yeasts available.

 

[Frenchy]

Ya, I was planning on using either 1.5# dark wheat, or crystal 40, and 4# of dark Munich.

 

[Frenchy]

Another thing I'll mention is the yeast - I love wlp380 / wyeast 3333. It is very much a matter of personal taste ...

I noticed that in several threads about weizenbock that ppl have stated their preference, but nobody has mentioned the 3068 strain that I'm planning on using. Have you ever used that strain. The description of it sounds very unique, and quite tasty...which is why I'm planning on trying it.

 

[jeffjm]

My preference is more or less 2/3 wheat, 1/3 pils, plus a bit of carafa II to bump up the color. I ferment with 3068. This is essentially my weizen plus some chocolate malt, scaled up a bit to get the gravity up to bock range.

 

[Patirck]

I noticed that in several threads about weizenbock that ppl have stated their preference, but nobody has mentioned the 3068 strain that I'm planning on using. Have you ever used that strain. The description of it sounds very unique, and quite tasty...which is why I'm planning on trying it.

To me, the 3068 is a kind of blah. Just not very interesting. I've used it in hefeweizens when I first started brewing but as soon as I used 380, I've not used anything else. Actually I used american wheat once after that for a fruit beer but I doubt I'd use that again.

 

[Frenchy]

So here is my recipe as I've adjusted it so far.

Red Wheat Malt 8.0#
Dark Munich 4.0#
Dark Wheat Malt 1.5#
Melanoidin 1.0#
CaraWheat 0.5#
Chocolate Wheat 0.5#

Also, I've dropped the flavoring hops. Am I trying to get too complex of a grist make up? I thought about droping the CaraWheat, and adding .5# of Dark Wheat.

 

[Patirck]

That looks good. I've never used chocolate wheat or cara wheat - I think I'll give it a try next time. Let us know how it turns out.

One other thing -the mash temp on this style should be on the high side. I usually do 155.

 

[Frenchy]

Thanks for the tip on the mash temp. I think I'll go ahead and leave the recipe as is then. I can't wait to try this out.