Wheatwine Wicked wheatwine

[TurnipGreen]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

WLP 090

Yeast Starter

Yeast cake from a APA

Batch Size (Gallons)

6

Original Gravity

1.093

Final Gravity

1.012

Boiling Time (Minutes)

90

IBU

48 (calculated)

Color

10 (calculated)

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

3 weeks

Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

5 weeks

Tasting Notes

Nie full wheat flavor yet still dry easy to drink. Honey malt shines through nicely.

Grain bill:
14# Maris Otter
10# German wheat malt
1# red wheat
1# honey malt
2# sugar

Hops:
1 oz Citra (12.7%) @ 60 min
1 oz Citra. @ 10 min
1 oz Citra @ 0 min

2 oz Citra for dry hop.

Yeast: WLP 090

Batch sparge it all at 148 to keep it dry and fermentable with this giant grain bill. I tried to keep fermentaion around 65 but one this started going it jumped up to the low 70s on me.

I dry hopped for a week, but I wish I would have gone a little longer or maybe doubled the dry hops to 4 oz.

This is a really good wheat wine. Between primary and secondary it tasted really hot but that fades if you age it a bit. The honey malt is fantastic in there. This is just a nice silky wheatwine/barly wine.

Enjoy!

I also made and american wit out of the second runnings. Thus I really don't know what the efficiency would be, but I usually get around 80ish on a standard brew day.

 

[TurnipGreen]

This turned out really well. I’m making it again this weekend.

I’ll be using a little more white wheat, 12#s and just 12#s of maris otter. I’ll also be using cascade hops cause they were on sale and I like them for other beers.

 

[Oldskewl]

Love a good wheatwine. May have to try this one later this year

 

[TurnipGreen]

Well, life and kids got in the way last weekend....mostly kids. Shooting for this weekend. I'm really looking forward to trying this with plain old cascade. The more I brew the more I like plain old cascade more than all the super citrusy or super grassy green hops. That said citra is my second runner up for pale ales.

On a somewhat related not apple cider was on sale so if there's enough life left in the third running I'll be able to cut it with a pile of cider. I was able to do a little three gallon batch with frozen apple juice concentrate last time with this wheat wine.

 

[madscientist451]

Looks interesting, I think I'm going to try brewing it. I'm wondering though what is the point of the dry hops. If you age it to let the "hot" alcohol notes fade, won't most of the dry hop flavor fade as well?

 

[TurnipGreen]

That's exactly what happened with the last iteration. Although, the hop forward note I was shooting for stuck around for maybe eight months or so. Way longer than I was expecting.

This go around I plan to bulk age it for that eight months before i dry hop and then bottle. I also have better tempature control now too. I'm hoping that too will make it less hot when it's younger.

 

[madscientist451]

cting.

I also have better tempature control now too. I'm hoping that too will make it less hot when it's younger.

I've noticed I get the hot alcohol note when using refined sugar. Increasing the grain and cutting back or eliminating the sugar may help.

 

[TurnipGreen]

I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a really good point. I haven’t brewed a lot with simple sugars. I still plan to use some sort of simple sugar to ensure this ends up on the dry side. Maybe I’ll use honey this time.

Do you think better temperature control will help with that? I’m assuming the hot flavor is just fusels. If it’s just a result of being young and stout aging will do the trick.

The recipe above stopped at 1.012. I prefer my beers on the dry side. I don’t know how that lines out with style guides but that’s how I like it.

 

[TurnipGreen]

All done. Yielded three different beers. 5.5 gallons of wheat wine, 6 gallons of a light-sort-of-American wheat and 5 gallons of cider/beer thing. I used honey instead of sugar in the big beer. The second running will give me a nice kolsch yeast cake. That'll give me an excuse to make a kolsch. That's my dad's favorite so it'll be fun to make for him. For this third running I used a gallon of cider and two cans of frozen apple juice, that brought it up to five gallons. Everybody is showing a little fermentation activity and I'm gonna go to bed......after I finish this beer.

I'll give the second and third runnings and orange peel tincture at bottling. That was nice last time. Kinda summertime-ish.

I'm wondering if I can leave the big beer in the primary for the whole six to eight months or if I ought to rack it? I really don't like racking. I left a braggot on its yeast cake for ove six months and it was fine, maybe I'll try it with this too.

 

[TurnipGreen]

I took some samples and bottled the second and third runnings this weekend. For the wheatwine, temperature control definitely helped the “hotness”. I mashed a little higher and the gravity is sitting at 1.016. It’s definitely fuller bodied and the higher percentage of wheat is obvious. I feel like it over powers the honey malt. I don’t know if i’m sold on higher mash temp for this beer, but i’m going to hold judgement until it’s dry hopped and bottled. I do prefer my beers on the dry side. After tasting I will definitely dry hop with citra as opposed to cascade.

Second and third running’s came out nice. Looking forward to those when the sun comes out. I also bottled a Pilsner that came out great.

 

[TurnipGreen]

I cracked open a bottle of the second running with the kolsch yeast. Turned out great. It still needs a bit more time to carb but it’s a nice American-wheat-kind-of-flavor.