Grain
Mash tun and brew kettle
Hello! Today, we tried our hand at brewing a Bavarian wheat beer for the first time. This general family of beer has been meticulously brewed in accordance with strict German brewing traditions for centuries, so we were very excited to pay homage to this general style through homebrewing. We decided to begin our foray into the world of Bavarian wheats with a dunkelweizen (we crafted a recipe that followed the stipulations of the Reinheitsgebot), and we wanted to kill two birds with one stone by trying to make a double batch so that we could add half to Dave’s kriek that he brewed back in January of this year.
Super clear first runnings from mash tun
Mashed at 154°F
We mashed at 154°F with a mash thickness of about 1.5 qts/lb of grain for about an hour. After vorlauf, we recirculated the wort for about 15 minutes to help clarify it (it needed all the help it could get, since the grain bill is over 50% wheat!). The wort was incredibly clear after this process.
We boiled for an hour, only adding 2 oz of Hallertaur hops for bittering (this style should be malt-forward, but most importantly should be a canvas for highlighting the fruit and spice notes that are characteristic of weizen yeasts). We cooled the wort using a Therminator, and unfortunately, we were not able to get the temperature below about 75°F using this method. Our method involved running water from a sink full of ice water through the Therminator at a relatively fast rate, while running hot wort from the boil kettle, through the Therminator, and into the carboy at a steady rate (it took roughly 20 minutes run 5.5 gallons through). If anyone out there has suggestions on how to make this piece of equipment work more effectively, please let us know!!
Blend of sacchromyces and lactobacillus
We were aiming for a final wort volume of 11 gallons, which we were going to split between the dunkelweizen and the kriek. Unfortunately, after pouring off 5.5 gallons for the dunkelweizen, we only had about 3 gallons left for the kriek (total yield of just 8.5 gallons)! Somehow, though, we ended up hitting our target original gravity. Moral of the story: stay tuned for notes about recalculating our setup losses and efficiencies, etc. Because of the low volume, we decided to turn the 3 gallons of kriek wort into an Oud Bruin sour “starter” culture with East Coast Yeast 23 for future blending.
Dunkelweizen wort compared to commercial dunkelweizen
For fermentation of the 5.5 gallons of dunkelweizen, we pitched the yeast at 71°F in a 64°F temperature-controlled environment. For fermentation of the 3 gallons of Oud Bruin, we pitched the yeast at 74°F and left at room temperature.
That’s it for now. Updates to follow! Prost!
Dunkelweizen Base (split batch)
Lead Brewer: Juli
- Mash: 154°F for 60 minutes (1.5 qt/lb)
- Final volume: 8.5 gallons (5.5 gallons of dunkelweizen, 3 gallons of Oud Bruin)
- OG: 1.054
- FG: 1.012
- ABV: 5.5%
- IBU: 13
Grain Bill:
- 10 lb (51.9%) Wheat
- 3 lb (15.6%) Munich (Dark)
- 3 lb (15.6%) German Pilsner
- 2 lb (10.4%) Vienna
- 1 lb (5.2%) Special B
- 4 oz (1.3%) American Chocolate
- 1 lb Rice Hulls
Hop Schedule:
- @60 minutes: 2 oz Hallertauer (3.9%AA)
Fermentation (Dunkelweizen):
- Yeast: Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan (no starter)
- Primary: fermented at 64°F
Fermentation: (Oud Bruin)
- Yeast: ECY23
Primary: fermented at 74°F – 80°F
Miscellaneous:
- @15 minutes: Whirfloc Tablet
- @15 minutes: Servomyces
- @15 minutes: Yeast Nutrient
- Aerated cooled wort for 1 minute with pure oxygen
Bitter Barley 
That is strange that the therminator only got the temperature down to 75, especially since you were running ice water through there.
Yeah, Brian. We thought the same thing. It may have been due to less-than-ideal rate of flow, or poor insulation and low volume of the input ice water. On our next brew day, our batch temp. readings were more in line with our expectations. We filled our 10 gallon HLT with ice water to increase the amount of colder water over the plate as opposed to just filling the sink (which is less than 5 gallons) and adding tap water on top of the ice water as it was used up, and we also decreased the rate of wort flow through the therminator.