Wheat beer partial mash

[Rompson]

Hey folks, brand new to the forum here so please forgive me if this is not in the right place lol. Anyway starting doing home brew about 3 or 4 months ago just doing kit and kilo extract brews. This time I want to do a 50L partial mash wheat beer. Going to use wheat dme and a single addition of hallateu hops. Was hoping for some input from some experienced wheat brewers on what would be a good grain to use in the steeping process? Cheers.

 

[Coodgee]

Wheat beers are not that suitable to partials. The "non-mash" grains (the ones you can steep in warm water without needing to mash them) are mainly your crystal malts which aren't usually used to any great extent in a wheat beer. If you are prepared to mash the grain them you could try some pilsner malt from Germany. What capacity can you mash? For a 50l brew that would normally be about 10kg of grain for a full mash. For a partial you might normally get 50% of your sugars from the grain and 50% from the dme. If you could mash 5kg of grain then you would be better to do a 25l all grain! But if you are looking to mash say 1kg then you could do pilsner malt i suppose. Make sure you get an appropriate yeast for the style as a German wheat gets its distinct flavor and aroma from the yeast.

 

[Barge]

Partial mash means exactly that. It's not intended as an extract with steeped grain.

I made a 50L wheat partial when I was starting out and got similar advice in terms of doing a smaller AG batch. The reason I went a 50L partial was that I could fill a couple of small cubes with AG wort and then topup into the FV with water and DME. It worked well and I still do it sometimes to get the most out of a brew session.

I'm on my phone so can't really link to the ancient thread I started as well as the recipe. I'll try to find them later when I get to my PC.

 

[Rompson]

Thanks for the replies guys. So from the info you guys have gave there are really no suitable steeping grains? I wasn't really looking to mash just to steep grain for better flavour and aroma. So I may have to just go full extract or buy myself some AG gear or enough gear to create a mash tun. Haven't really done any AG brewing yet but plan on setting up a 3 kettle 50L system sometime this year with 50L kegs that I have laying around.

 

[Barge]

Here's the recipe for the wheat partial I did

Recipe: Weissbier
Brewer: Matthew
Asst Brewer:
Style: Weizen/Weissbier
TYPE: Partial Mash
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 50.00 L
Boil Size: 35.65 L
Estimated OG: 1.041 SG
Estimated Color: 3.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 18.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 50.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.00 kg Light Dry Extract (4.1 SRM) Dry Extract 11.11 %
1.00 kg Wheat Dry Extract (4.1 SRM) Dry Extract 11.11 %
4.00 kg Wheat Malt, Pale (Weyermann) (2.0 SRM) Grain 44.44 %
2.00 kg Vienna Malt (Weyermann) (4.1 SRM) Grain 22.22 %
35.00 gm Hallertauer, New Zealand [8.50 %] (30 min) Hops 10.8 IBU
35.00 gm Hallertauer, New Zealand [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
1.00 kg Dextrose (0.0 SRM) Sugar 11.11 %


Mash Schedule: Double Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 6.00 kg
----------------------------
Double Infusion, Light Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
30 min Mash In Add 12.00 L of water at 39.5 C 37.0 C
20 min Protein Rest Add 4.00 L of water at 97.4 C 50.0 C
60 min Saccrification Add 7.00 L of water at 97.6 C 63.0 C


Notes:
------
Looks too dark after boil. Should've left out the extract all together. This concern appears unfounded (see Schneider Weisse 1). Initial tastes suggest WB-06 produces plenty of clove and little banana at this temperature. Acid rest may be unecessary.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And here's the link to that thread I mentioned (turns out it was a different recipe I was thinking of)

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/5223-first-partial-low-efficiency/

Apart from struggling with low efficiency, these batches made a reasonable volume of good beer. I used an 27L esky to mash in with a stainless braid and ended up boiling in a 40L plastic bucket of death (since retired)

As Coodgee mentioned, there is no real scope for steeping any grains here (apart from Carapils, maybe).

If you want to go the steeping route then you're best to pick another style.

 

[yankinoz]

Briess wheat DME is 65% wheat, so if that's your extract side you have some leeway, mashing wheat malt too. On the mash side I've gone with pilsner and some Vienna. If you use Joe White Vienna, which is less Viennish than Weyermann, you can make that your base malt. I've done both in mostly mash German and American wheats with good results.

Forget steeping. I like to mash Gladfield toffee malt at about 5% of fermentables.

In a hefeweiss I like Tettnang, but plan to add some Mandarina Bavaria late in a hopwenweizen in a month or two.

 

[Jack of all biers]

If you don't have the gear to do a partial and want to steep only.

For a Hefe Weizen; about the only grains you want to steep with is Weyermann Cara Hell and Cara Wheat, which you could use 10-15% of both for an AG receipe. As Coodgee said you're looking at roughly a 10Kg grain bill for 50L AG, so for steeping that's 100-150 gm. Now if you want to use both, maybe experiment with using different amounts of each, but I'd recommend starting with 150 gm of Cara Wheat and 50-100 gm of Cara Hell.

For a Dunkel Weizen you could steep some dark grains such as Choc Malt, Choc Wheat Malt or Cara Special II or III. For 50L say anywhere between 100-400 gms (depending on which dark malt you can source and your preference to how dark is dark) in addition to some Cara Hell or Cara Wheat. Again experiment here with amounts.

Don't over do it with the speciality malts though, as you only want to add a bit of fresh flavour to the Weizen and not overpower it with caramel or dark malt flavour profiles. As it has been said above if you want to stick with the German Weizen style you really need to use a good quality weizen yeast. This is also a matter of taste so you may want to experiment, but a good one to start with would be Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen.

Good brewing.

 

[Rompson]

Thanks for all the replies guys. I still haven't got round to organising the brew as I have been crazy busy over the last couple of weeks. It's all good though since I've still got plenty of beer left over from the last brew . I have never tried AG brewing before so forgive me if I sound very naive. since it sounds like the best way to go is to use a malt that needs to be mashed I was leaning more towards this way. Quick question though. When mashing am I going to need one of those converted esky mash tuns? Or supposing I have a large enough brew pot, can I just use a BIAB type method and rather than use traditional sparge method simple rinse malt with boiling water or whatever.obviously efficiency will suffer some with this method but I should be able to make up for that with DME right? Once again thanks for your help guys. Cheers, Tom.

 

[Droopy Brew]

Either 3V or BIAB will do the same thing. Dont think that BIAB will see any loss in efficiency. I 3V and there are plenty of BIABs that claim better efficiency.
3V suits me but I did a lot of reading on these forums before I made a decision.
Get a big pot or an urn and you are on your way.

 

[Rompson]

Thanks for the info dropey brew. I don't have a big enough pot right now but I'm scoping out a large pot and a outdoor ring burner on eBay at the moment so that later down the track I can brew outside or in the garage. Currently working in the kitchen and it's just kind of a pain in the ass with space and all that. I am assuming by 3v you talking about a 3 vessel set up yeah? Sorry not quite down with the abbreviations just yet lol.

 

[Jack of all biers]

you could use 10-15% of both for an AG receipe. As Coodgee said you're looking at roughly a 10Kg grain bill for 50L AG, so for steeping that's 100-150 gm.

Um... I realised later in the day after posting the above that I won't be winning a mathematics competition with the above calculations. Obviously 10-15% of 10Kg is not 100-150 gms and is 1-1.5 kg, which is probably a bit too much cara to be steeping for a hefe weizen. My numbers in the above post were for a 23L batch so just roughly double that (200 gm Cara wheat and 100-200gm cara hell) for your 50L batch. If making a 50L dunkel weizen add an additional 200-800 gm of a dark malt.

Apologies for the poor maths.

 

[Rompson]

Thanks for that Jack of all beers. Yeah I figured something was slightly out there by percentages but still you had the figures pretty much right. Normally I do a 23L brew so those figures workout about right, however I have 50L kegs laying around and kind of want to avoid having to bottle and avoid having to brew so freauently. If I take that route I'll be sure to just double it like you said. I'm looking forward to enjoying the next batch of beer already and knowing I can just pour it straight off a tap is making my mouth water just thinking about it lol.

 

[Let's Brew Beer]

My favourite wheat beer recipe is as follows:- 1. Tip all ingredients in bin
2. Brew an IPA instead

 

[manticle]

You going to necro up all the old threads on wheat beer and tell us you don't like them or are you just content with the two?