Ok, let's talk about Wheat Bier

[Bill Lawrence]

Chris started talking about wheat beer on the CAP thread but I thought it would be good to start a new thread for this style (one of my favorites).

His issue was that he had no trouble getting clove but wants bananna and can't seem to get any (see the CAP thread). Well, first of all, let me say that Richard Harris is the undisputed king of wheat beer, he has forgotten more than I will ever know on the subject. Before we get into this, it is worth mentioning that it is possible to get big bananna and very little clove but a beer like that will not do very well in competition. Richard made a batch a couple of years ago that had the bananna in spades and almost no clove. I thought the stuff was great but the beer did very poorly in competition because it was not balanced. What you really want is a good balance between the two flavors and if you can get some vanilla, bubblegum, plumb and pear (or a combination of those), so much the better.

Here is everything I know about making this style (which ain't much) but here goes:

It's all about the yeast and how you run your fermentations. My weapon of choice is WLP300 because it will give you the bananna and the clove under the right conditions. I believe that Richard is screwing around with combinations however he told me this at a brewer's party and frankly I don't remember the details. Anyway, I like to ferment at 68F because you get more bananna that way. If you want clove, go lower, down to 62F (by the way, the great Jamil recommends the lower temperature). You can also get more clove by doing a protein rest however, be warned that I have had problems with head retention doing this (and God knows you want a great big head on this beer). By the way, I would try to mash in the 152F range, any higher and you will get too much body in the beer. I never make a starter and I don't oxigenate the wort because I want to stress the yeast so it throws off as much in the way of pheonols and esters as possible. You will find that this strain is an active fermenter, you will be cleaning up a mess at the end of primary fermentation. Resist the urge to ferment higher that 68F however, you will start getting fusels which in my opinion screws up the flavor of the beer.

Wheat beers really get better if you go to the trouble of decocting them. It's not so much a flavor issue as much as it affects the body of the beer and seems to make it just a little creamy, sort of like a bannna milk shake (although the beer is not heavy). I suppose you do get some melanoidin reactions going which I also really like. I also naturally carbonate in the keg (or bottle) and I do it by adding wheat DME once I get the stuff into the serving container (kind of like a poor man's krausen I recon). I want alot of yeast in there, it makes a big difference to the taste, and is a good source of vitamin B (although flatulance can be an issue). The other reason I do this is that I carbonate pretty agressively and it is hard to bottle beer with that much CO2.

Well, that is all I can think of. I believe Richard is using a different yeast when he carbonates and that might be a way to get more complex flavors going however I have not tried it myself. I do know that a couple of the other wheat beer strains are known for bubble gum (which is really neat in my opinion) and kind of a plumb/pear type flavor. I have found however that judges are looking for the clove/bananna combination and if they don't get it, the beer just will not do that well in competition. Richard also told me that fermenter geometry plays a role in flavor development. That makes sense as this is an issue with some of the Belgian ale strains and by the way, you can learn alot about yeast handling which will serve you well doing Belgians messing with this style.

My plan is to do a couple wheat beers just before the Bluebonnet (if I can manage my stock correctly that is). I have alot of experience with Heffe but I also want to make a Dunkel Weizen, does anybody have a good formulation out there?

[chris mewhinney]

Thanks Bill. I'm starting to heat up my carboy now so I can change it's shape!

OK, seriously, there are a couple of items in there that I'm gonna try. The basics, though, I'm doing just fine, as far as I can tell. With regard to the over the top banana, I'm not so concerned about the competition judges. My wheats are being evaluated (not well, lately) by a much higher authority: My wife. She's all bananas!

Next time I make a hefe (3-4 weeks from now?), I'll let you guys know. You can come critique my methods, if you are available.

Chris

[Bill Lawrence]

Well my first suggestion is to get with Richard, he is the diety on this subject. I suspect maybe the two yeast thing might be the solution to your problem/opportunity. I did however have one random thought, what would happen if you did a primary fermentation with WLP300 then added some WLP500 at bottling? I don't know if you have experience with this strain but the Chimay yeast throws off alot of bananna if you are not real careful with it. If you judge the Belgian entries this weekend, I bet you will know that I am talking about once you are done. By the way, I know at least a couple of the entries will have been fermented with WLP500, although I will let you try and figure out which ones those were. Oh yeah, excessive bananna in a Belgian is a flaw by the way but maybe you can take advantage of that in a weizen?

[chris mewhinney]

That's an interesting idea...the WLP 500. I may split a batch and try that on half. Thanks for the suggestion.

I didn't realize there was a COC judging this weekend...I would have liked to try that.

If Richard is at the brew day, please introduce me.

See ya then.

Chris

[donniestyle]

Bill, if I were to make a dunkelweizen I'd use light Munich malt, wheat malt, and a touch of carafa for a little extra color. I'd stay away from the caramel malts, because I think it would make the beer too sweet.

[Bill Lawrence]

Yup Donnie, that was my thinking also. What I have been doing lately when brewing a style I don't have much expierence with is to try a formulation out of Zanasheff's (sp?) book. Off the top of my head, I think he was doing what you suggested however if I remember correctly, he adds a dash of Special B to the grist (which I would bet is not traditional). My guess is that doing that might give you some plumb notes but like you, I wonder if that would make the beer too sweet. God knows, there is very little in the way of hops to balance out any sweetness and the older I get the less I like really sweet anything. The other thing about Special B is that you might end up with some roasty flavors which would be a very bad thing. Well, I have a couple of months to ponder this whole deal as I know I will not get around to actually brewing the stuff until maybe early January (I want the beer to be pretty fresh for the Bluebonnet).

[chris mewhinney]

Here's another thought for a dunkelweizen: Home toasted wheat. Might be interesting.

Chris

[donniestyle]

Chris, I think that would definitely be interesting. I've toasted malt before. The character is noticible. There are several "toasted" malts we can buy also, Victory, Biscuit, and even Pale Chocolate might add a nice character. They would be drier finishing than the Munich malt also. Vienna malt might be a good base also - lightly toasted.

[chris mewhinney]

Yeah, there's a bit of info on the net about toasting wheat, but not much. As I recall, Mosher talks about it a bit in his recent book. I actually tried it once for a dunkel wiezen, but I didn't use enough and I didn't toast it long enough. I'd like you to try it with a full pound, toasted at 350 for 45 minutes. If it doesn't work out, I won't have to dump another batch!

Chris

[donniestyle]

How long did you toast it for? You can turn it into chocolate malt or even black. That stuff needs to be aged just like smoked malt before you use it. Einar and I once judged a "home smoked malt" smoked beer, which we thought was offensive the instant we opened the bottle. All malt is aged depending on roasting. Smoked malts especially. I suspect that you may have over toasted it. The one I did was good, and I usually use biscuit, victory, aromatic, Munich, and Vienna malts in many beers. They are all different and kilned at higher temperatures. I think toasting pale malt would range from Vienna to darker and "toastier" than biscuit.

[chris mewhinney]

Hey Donnie. I've done home roasted barley malts several times, always with good or nuetral results.

What I was talking about here is roasting specifically wheat malt and specifically for a dunkel weizen. I only tried that once and it turned out too pale and with little or no discernable toastiness. So I was saying (jokingly...) that Bill should be more aggressive than I was. As I recall, I used 1/2 pound and toasted it at 350 for about 20 minutes. But I'd have to dig through my old recipes to verify that.

If Bill is seriously considering this, and would like some general idea of how much and how long will not be enough, I'll look it up.

Chris

[donniestyle]

When I tried it, I was reading posts to HBD. You might search the digest online to see what everyone was talking about.

[Bill Lawrence]

Actually, Kelly has some dark malted wheat in his shop if I am not mistaken. What would happen if you swapped out some of the regular malted wheat and substituted some of the darker stuff, say 50% or so? That would make the beer darker but I don't see that as any big problem. If one was worried about it, just cut back a little on the Carafa. The other thing that could be done is use some mixture of the light and dark Munich. I do that with the Munich Dunkel I make and it comes out pretty well. Of course, adding a little Melonodin Malt and doing a decoction (which I for sure will do anyway) should get plenty of malty, toasty flavor going. I was looking at my brewing books last night and old Zanasheff is indeed adding crystal to his dunkel weizen formulation (both 40L crystal and Special B). I agree with Donnie, I would be afraid that would make the beer too sweet. I suspect what I will probably do is use some of the darker wheat and Munich malts, go with zero crystal and get the beer around 1.055 + along with doing a decoction. I might also want to kick up the mouthfeel just a little by maybe mashing at 155F or so. I do agree with Zanasheff that most people expect a dark beer to be heavier though and God knows, we want to keep the customers happy.

The only problem I see with getting agressive with the grain bill is that you could cover up the goodies added to the beer by the yeast. I guess at the end of the day, I will just have to brew the stuff and see what happens.

[donniestyle]

Yea, that dark wheat malt looks like the real thing. I wonder whether this is a recent development or an old standard. I'll bet it can be used as 100% of the wheat contribution, and then use Pilsener malt and a touch of Carafa for the remainder of the grain bill. Maybe a mix of Pilsener and LIght Minuch will do the trick. The color is about the same as light Munich. The diastatic power of wheat malt is generally higher than Pilsener, so I'd expect the dark wheat malt to have more diastatic power than the Light Munich, which will more than convert itself. Since you're adventurous, go with 50% dark wheat malt, 25% Pilsener malt, and 25% light Minuch malt. It wouldn't hurt to thrown in up to 3% acidulated. If you like the clove flavor, make your first rest between 110-113F.

[chris mewhinney]

Hey Bill. I need your help. Santa is bringing me Jamil's book for Christmas, but she's being a hard ass and won't let me look at his Dunkel Weizen recipe until 12/25. What kinda Christmas spirit is THAT? I plan to make a dunkel weizen this weekend, and am no longer satisfied with my recipe. Anyway, from the above posts, it sounds like you have that book. Can I get you to transcribe the essentials here? I'd really like to see what he recommends, so I can mesh his recipe/ideas with yours and Donnie's.

I've decided that my recent brewing disasters (ok...that may be too strong a criticism, even for me...) are caused by 2 main things: Recipe's (they are all original...and not all good, apparently) and not properly managing the OG during the boil and/or sparge, as my beers are all starting too high for style (thanks to Orlando for helping me to realize this issue...). To address the first issue, I think I need to start plagiarizing the work of others.

Appreciate any help.

Chris