Tips for improving a wheat beer

[Matplat]

Righto, tried my first one last night, it was pretty disappointing to say the least, none of the flavours that i could smell during fermentation have made it to the glass. It has a wheaty taste but lacks body and flavour.... this was the first brew on my my new 1v brew rig so lots of variables in the mix... but still disappointing. Could this lack of flavour be attributed to mash temp? I did a single infusion at '67' but don't have anything supremely accurate to calibrate against....

 

[Coodgee]

that's a bummer dude. I had a taste of mine when it was going into secondary and it tasted exceptionally good, although there was a bit of sulfur on the nose that needs to dissipate. I have tasted a few wheats that taste thin and flavourless. The Burleigh brewing co wheat is a good example of this. Maybe you needed to use a liquid yeast. Also what grain did you use? I used weyermann wheat and pils malt and also a bit of melanoidin to emulate a decoction. I don't think it would be mash temp as 67 is on the malty side of balanced, assuming you got the mash temp correct. also don't discount psychological factors - maybe you have been drinking a lot of full flavour beers lately? Go and buy a corona and then see how yours tastes?

 

[Matplat]

I think i used BB wheat and weyermann pils... i think it must be a combination of mash temp and perhaps yeast....? Dunno maybe il do an acid rest next time to promote banana... or just get my temp sensor calibrated... and buy a XXXX summer bright!

 

[manticle]

Without scrolling back through the thread - what was your yeast choice?

 

[Matplat]

Munich... smelt bloody good in the FV.

 

[butisitart]

considering all above, have dropped a new wheat brew today -
3kg spelt
2.5kg 2 row pale organic weyermanns
weihenstephan wheat yeast
santiam hops


spelt?? my hbs has got spelt - not on beersmith's ingredient list. apparently an old wheat strain, not overly commercially viable as a crop in the modern world. i just had to play with this. and had to search around the net to find out anything about it. so pretty curious about how this is going to go. apparently spelt can be used up to 100% of grainbill.

santiam were on special and are used as a substitute for tettnang. so i thought i'd give it a whirl.

but 2 things came from this thread which i read up on, and according to the published authors -
there shouldn't be any hops flavour, so out goes my earlier theory of adding a little late hop additions
and the other is that a 90min boil is quite beneficial, and much better than 60.
the other thing noted is that wheat beer does not improve with age and should be drunk fairly fresh.

so see how this shapes up. current brew is now 9 weeks old and went through a few flavour changes. reasonable, but not fantastic. the 90min boil will be the interesting starting point on the new brew. and hopefully i'll feel all medieval after slurping some spelt, and start singing ditties about damsels and things.

if anybody has got experience on spelt malt, love to hear

 

[Jack of all biers]

considering all above, have dropped a new wheat brew today -
3kg spelt
2.5kg 2 row pale organic weyermanns
weihenstephan wheat yeast
santiam hops

spelt?? my hbs has got spelt - not on beersmith's ingredient list. apparently an old wheat strain, not overly commercially viable as a crop in the modern world. i just had to play with this. and had to search around the net to find out anything about it. so pretty curious about how this is going to go. apparently spelt can be used up to 100% of grainbill.

if anybody has got experience on spelt malt, love to hear

Not a wheat beer, but Dinkelbier - closely related to Weizen, just like the grains, but more like cousins and not siblings. Your Dinkelbier will need a long maturation period as opposed to Weizen that needs little to none. I think your recipe is proportionally about right, but I'd be cautious about making a 100% Spelt grain bill.

Below is an extract from http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Dinkelbier.html

Only a few Bavarian breweries still make this old-fashioned beer today.Because of its high protein content (up to 17% compared to modern wheat at about 12.5 to 14.5% and modern brewing barley at around 10.5%), dinkel is ideally suited for bread-making but less so for brewing. In additon, the grain needs to be dehusked if it is used in the brew house; otherwise the beer would taste too rough and astringent. The dinkel portion in a dinkel beer, therefore, seldom exceeds 50%. After fermentation, Dinkelbier needs to mellow out during a maturation period of several months around the freezing point. Because beer foam is mostly protein, Dinkelbier throws a very thick head when it is poured into a glass. Its alcohol content by volume tends to be about 4.5%.

EDIT - I've not been so adventurous as to try Spelt (nor does my HBS stock it) and as you said there's not much in the way of info around, but good luck and let us know the ups and downs of that particular grain.

 

[Adr_0]

Another tip for making a great wheat beer, is to not accidentally put 4% acidulated malt in when you meant to put only 2% in.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Munich... smelt bloody good in the FV.

That's where your hefe character has gone. IME this yeast doesn't do it.

 

[Matplat]

Yes, your comment was in the back of my mind as i was drinking....

 

[butisitart]

thanks for the info, jack oab's. knew pretty much nothing about what you added. i might need to do a fortnightly taste on this for a while - long maturation i can do. near freezing maturation in brissy without a whole lot of fridge space will be the challenge. yeah - i wasn't brave enough to go 100%, especially if you don't do that for standard wheat. it's enjoying a big ferment, with just enough rotten egg to send the missus on a search for the smell today. wish i was here.

 

[Jack of all biers]

Hey, butisitart.

Given there is so little in the way of Spelt (Dinkel) knowledge/experience/outcomes recorded on this forum, maybe add to one of the spelt threads your recipe and outcome when you get your results. It may help future searchers on the topic.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/18683-wheat-of-the-week-spelt/

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/72114-spelt/page-2

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/49393-spelt-beer/

 

[butisitart]

cheers jack - will do.
a little way off yet cos fermenting into the 2nd week and will bottle next weekend. it smelt 'honey fruit nectar' sweet at the airlock when it stopped doing the egg gas thing.
i did partake of a 4mnth old wheat today. smooth as.
from the remarks above, and if wheat is meant to be drunk fresh, maybe it's peaked. got 2 bottles left of that brew, so will try at 5 and 6 months to see if there is any deterioration.

 

[Jack of all biers]

Hefeweizen should be drunk at its freshest, so more than 3 months is starting to get stale.

I think I may have used the wrong word in my statement above. Stale is somewhat the wrong term, but maybe 'mellowed' or 'less fresh' are better statements to reflect what I meant.

Your Weizen at 6-7 months shouldn't be a problem, but the flavours will have mellowed out somewhat from when it was fresh. You may not even notice the difference unless you have a freshly brewed one to compare it too at the same time. I apologise for any confusion caused.

 

[butisitart]

tasted the spelt off the fg hydrometer - pretty darned good - (fg @ 1.008 on a 13 day ferment so happy there)
an analogy would be spelt = a lighter (eg margaret river) shiraz v usual wheat = alsace riesling.
drier, with a slight earthy after, with modest wheat fruit.
yeast and hops identical to my previous wheat, so the taste difference is in the grain only.
after above comments re: long conditioning at near freezing, can't do the temperature, but will keep a supply to see how long they hold up.
tastes like it's worth the experiment.

jack - didn't read as 'stale' on your earlier post - took it as peaked and not likely to evolve further.

 

[butisitart]

sipping my first spelt taster.
most noticeable thing is that it is completely clear - no wheat haze at all.
tastes a bit green, but shows delicate fruit (lychee??) and a touch of honey.
perhaps not as full bodied as my other wheats, but i think this will be a welcome summer's afternoon quaff by christmas.
general impression is that i'm quite impressed.
got mine at craftbrewer (no affiliation) if interested.

 

[Matplat]

This probably isn't going to be news to most of you, but here goes anyway...

After my first failed wheat using munich (I ended up throwing half that batch) I repeated the exact same recipe using 3068.... I tasted my first bottle over the weekend after a mere 4 days since bottling, and guess what, despite still being a little undercarbed it tasted bloody fantastic!

I fermented at 17 as per Jamils recommendation, and it turns out a beautifully balanced weizen. Absolute winner just in time for the silly season!

I can't rule out the possible effect that a brand new brew rig may have had on my Munich attempt... may have been some contamination that stuffed it up. But now that I have 3068 I don't think I'l be risking another brew on Munich yeast.

 

[DrJez]

My best tip to date (I do like to have a Weissbier on tap at most times, always loved them even before brewing and knew they were something special) would be: Never use dried yeasts. Ruined so, so many wheat's thinking my grain bill mustn't be quite right. It's all apple and always too tart. A novelty yeast at best, you simply can't take short cuts on weizen'.

Second would be, unmalted white wheat is far superior to malted

 

[labels]

My best tip to date (I do like to have a Weissbier on tap at most times, always loved them even before brewing and knew they were something special) would be: Never use dried yeasts. Ruined so, so many wheat's thinking my grain bill mustn't be quite right. It's all apple and always too tart. A novelty yeast at best, you simply can't take short cuts on weizen'.

Second would be, unmalted white wheat is far superior to malted

Not really true. Mangrove Jack's M20 Bavarian Wheat is a cracker of a yeast and every bit as good as 3068 but needs to be treated a little differently. You can definitely make a great wheat beer with malted wheat and it's definitely German in style whereas unmalted wheat is more for the Belgian style wheats.

What a lot of people fail to understand is that wheat malt produces thin beer with low body while urban legend says wheat malt produces a full bodied beer. Sure, it does produce a great head but don't confuse that with body. Mash very high for more body or add oats or flaked barley, I just mash at 70C for 45mins and it ends up great.

 

[DrJez]

This is why I like the unmalted wheat, it's just got so much more mouthfeel. I use malted wheat as I would sucrose in pale ales if attempting to thin the flavour out so definitely understand what you're saying there

M20 isn't WLP300/3068(?) not sure why the comparison