Wheat test batch?

[onipar]

I have about 1 pound of wheat DME and I was thinking of throwing together a quick 1 gallon extract batch. Thing is, I don't know my styles well enough to formulate something. If you can, take a look at the miscellaneous ingredients I have on hand, and let me know what I can do with them for a 1 gallon batch.

~1 pound (maybe more) wheat DME
.5 ounces cascade hops
.25 ounces Mt Hood
.5 ounces Hallertau
bitter orange peel
coriander
brown sugar
honey
rolled oats (Quaker oatmeal)

I was thinking the DME and maybe a touch of honey with something like .25 ounces of the cascade and the coriander and orange peel. But I could use any help.

Thanks!

 

[Kaz]

Looks like the makings of an American Wheat. I say go for it.. I would do...

1lb of wheat DME
4oz Oatmeal
.25oz Cascade for 60 min.
.25oz Mt. Hood 15 min
.5 Hallertau 5 min
add 4 oz of Honey at flame out or to secondary.
I would add the coriander and orange peel at 5 mins and keep it pretty low like .25 oz of each.

That will give you about 1.059 OG, 32IBU, 5.6SRM and an ABV of about 6.6%

 

[onipar]

Looks like the makings of an American Wheat. I say go for it.. I would do...

1lb of wheat DME
4oz Oatmeal
.25oz Cascade for 60 min.
.25oz Mt. Hood 15 min
.5 Hallertau 5 min
add 4 oz of Honey at flame out or to secondary.
I would add the coriander and orange peel at 5 mins and keep it pretty low like .25 oz of each.

That will give you about 1.059 OG, 32IBU, 5.6SRM and an ABV of about 6.6%

Nice! That sounds like a good mix. One question: How do I treat the oatmeal? Do I boil that or just steep?

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I'm gonna go with this.

 

[Kaz]

I think I would steep the oats before the boil, you won't get much in the way of fermentables out of them without doing a small mash but I think you would still get the benefit to mouthfeel with a steep. Maybe someone else will chime in, as I'm not the oatmeal expert.

 

[onipar]

I think I would steep the oats before the boil, you won't get much in the way of fermentables out of them without doing a small mash but I think you would still get the benefit to mouthfeel with a steep. Maybe someone else will chime in, as I'm not the oatmeal expert.

Right on. I may just skip the oats. I read a few things and it seems like it's best to mash them...something about too much starch/protein from just steeping. I don't know much about it though, so it seems safer to skip it for now.

Otherwise, I'm going to take a stab at your recipe there with maybe one less hop addition to leave room for the orange and spice flavors.

 

[onipar]

My final recipe was this (American Wheat 1 gallon batch):

1lb of wheat DME
2 oz vanilla sugar
.2oz Cascade (5.5%) for 60 min.
.25 Hallertau (3.6%) for 5 min
4 oz of Honey at flame out.
1 1/2 ts each coriander and bitter orange peel at 5 mins
Saffale US-05 (reused from previous test batch)

1.050 OG
26 IBU
3 SRM

After boiling I strained through my grain bag and topped off to 1 gallon (boiled off nearly 2 quarts).

Looked and smelled pretty good. Should be an interesting test batch. I'd like to start doing 1 gallon AG test batches, but this was basically to get rid of the wheat DME.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[twelvelookslikex]

If your going to steep oats make oatmeal with them first

 

[Kaz]

Sounds good, let us know how it turns out. I have a 1 gallon jug fermenting about 1 week now of some extra AG Hefe wort from a 5 gallon batch. Trying to decide what to do to it to make it 'special'.

 

[lumpher]

imo, a little hefty on the ibu for a wit. next time might want to back it down to 15-18. another suggestion: you might want to keep a little wheat dme around for starters if you start doing bigger batches or bigger beers. just a thought. doing 1g batches does help to learn what you like

 

[onipar]

imo, a little hefty on the ibu for a wit. next time might want to back it down to 15-18. another suggestion: you might want to keep a little wheat dme around for starters if you start doing bigger batches or bigger beers. just a thought. doing 1g batches does help to learn what you like

Thanks for the suggestions. I was actually surprised to find that the style guidelines for "American Wheat" is 15-30 IBU's, so I'm right in the wheelhouse in that respect. I used the Hopville recipe calculator to check my numbers before brewing. Since it was a test batch, I sort of wanted to push the numbers to the style's limit too.

Yeah, I actually thought of keeping the DME around for starters, but this DME is already months old, and all my planned beers for the next months are regular gravity brews with dry yeast. I figure once I'm ready for some big beers or I'm using liquid yeast I'll get some extra DME to keep on hand.

Kaz, will-do. I'll raise this thread from the dead once I have some tasting notes. On the Hefe, not sure there's much to do. Hefe's are usually pretty straight forward, right? Or did you want to try and go outside the style guidelines? Might be cool to just try something crazy.

One thing that may *totally* warp this test batch of mine (which is fine since it was a "throw together") is the yeast I used. I mentioned that I was reusing yeast. What I didn't mention is that the US-05 was first used for a spiced graff! Yeah...it'll probably impart some interesting flavors that wouldn't normally go with American Wheat. But hey, that's half the fun of a test batch.

 

[onipar]

Update for this test batch. Took a hydro reading and it's around 1.011 at the moment. It is very cloudy with an interesting yellow/orange color to it. Here's my sample glass:



Aroma is complex, with hop, coriander, and orange all present. Taste is equally complex. It starts sweet and finishes slightly bitter. In the middle you get hints of coriander, bitter orange, and a slight alcohol bite. Body is medium.

So far so good. Looking forward to seeing how this matures. I expect the bitter backend to mellow out and allow other spice notes to come forward after bottle aging.

EDIT: Nearly forgot. I reused a yeast cake that had spiced graff on it, and I'm trying to decide whether or not I taste some of those cider/spice notes coming out in this. Undecided at the moment.