Recipe Advice Thread

[denimglen]

Thought it might be handy to have a thread for some of the more advanced brewers to give some advice on recipes.

Let's see how it goes eh...

[oliver]

Might preface this by saying I haven't brewed a weizenbock myself (only a few hefe-weizens) and I have tasted a few good and a few not so good weizenbocks.
 
2. Problem with stressing the yeast to get isoamyl acetate (banana) is you might also get ethyl acetate (nail polish remover). I've tasted this in a few weizenbock attempts from others. I don't have much experience with 3068 myself, having only used the whitelabs wheat yeasts, but I would pitch cool and overpitch slightly myself. I bet you'd still get a nice balanced banana and clove character without as much ethyl acetate and higher alcohols. A lot of this comes down to personal preference though. I would just punch the date on the smack pack into the mrmalty pitching rate calculator and go with the starter size it recommends. Make sure you get plenty of oxygen into the wort too. For hefe-weizens I usually pitch + ferment at 17 without underpitching and I usually get more than enough banana + bubblegum for my tastes.

This might help too: http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/The-Jamil-Show/Weizenbock-The-Ja...

Good luck :)

[Tim Low]

Ditto what Kevin said about lautering wheat malt. A beta glucan rest (36-45C) for about 20minutes also helps break down the gums in the wheat and make lautering easier.

Ditto what Ollie said about yeast and fermentation temperature:

Pitch a 'normal' amount of healthy yeast and oxygenate well for a beer this big. A clean fermentation is critical, no matter what type of beer you're brewing. I've brewed two 1.080+ weizenbocks so far; the underpitched one had noticeable levels of ethyl acetate and fusel alcohols.

I've used both 3068 and 3333 and find that 3333 has a more balanced and subtle ester profile. I've found that 3068 produces overpoweringly banana-forward beers unless fermentation temperature is kept in check around 17-18C. This temperature will provide plenty of banana and should also ensure a clean ferment for a big beer like this.

Good luck!

[William Fitzgerald]

I forgot to add that I plan on adding 100g of oat hulls to aid the lautering process; I have no intention getting bogged down for hours in that!

So the gist I'm getting is:

Remember to mash-out.

Add DME at the beginning of the boil, and top up with water.

Yeast starter will be needed

Oxygenate wort

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. 

[Cain Harland]

How do people recon citra and kohatu would go together? I brewed an all Citra IPA and I really liked it but it could do with a bit of something else. Any suggestions.

[Crusader-Rob]

Could be worth a go, Kohatu is a great hop. Let me know how you get on, I'm looking at Kohatu,centennial and Galaxy currently.

Paired really nicely with Nelson awhile back.

[William Fitzgerald]

All right an update.

My first dunkel has fared very poorly. It tasted OK after a week of carbonation (no ester character, just caramel) but has since become so astringent that I can't even use it for casseroles now! A little disappointing to say the least! So I am planning on retrying the style next week.

The main flavours I would really like to taste in a beer are banana, chocolate and wheat flour. Raisiny, spicy and toasty flavours are OK too as long as they aren't overpowering. However, I do NOT want toffee flavours, and really want to avoid that awful bitter taste I got last time....

My hypothetical recipe is the following:

3.5kg Wheat Malt (53%)

2.5kg Vienna Malt (38%) 

350g Special B Malt (5%)

150g Chocolate Wheat Malt (2%)

150g Oat Hulls (2%)

40g Tettnanger @ 60

1x WLP300

OG 1.061, Est ABV 6.09%

I plan to do an infusion mash with a protein rest. Fermentation air temp will be around 19C at first - I raise it a little later.

Suggestions welcome :)

[William Fitzgerald]

Brew night next Tuesday...also read up about protein rests, and i don't think I'll bother seeing the wheat is malted.

[David R]

Just wonder if anyone has brewed something like this; http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/01/vienna-malt-session-ip...

I'm looking to do ~4% ABV hop-bomb and remembered I have had this bookmarked for years but haven't brewed it.

72.5% German Vienna, 22.5% US Pale, 5% CaraVienna, plus a ton of hops at 15, 10 and FO.

I'm going to use a 50/50 mix of Simcoe and Citra, but I want to try and get a bit of a malty base for it to sit on. Thoughts about using that much Vienna?

[Des Ross]

Hi David. I've brewed a number of hoppy beers in the 3.5-4.5% abv range. My best results by far have been when I mash high ( 68-69 C ), use at least 10 % crystal malts and do a 90 minute boil. Vienna would be fine but also consider some Munich which will maximise the malt profile. I have never used an addition of Oats but body would definitely be enhanced..it might be worth tossing in 200-300 g as an experiment. As others have noted, you don't want this type of beer to ferment out too low or it will be unbalanced and thin...1.013 -14 would be my target FG for a hoppy 3.5-4.0% beer...

[David R]

Cheers! What yeast would you use? I've had mixed results with this type of beer and US05; two turned out ok but one (perhaps mashed a bit high then fermented a bit cool) got stuck at 1.022 and wouldn't budge even when I repitched. That was my last beer before the Grainfather turned up, so controlling mash temps is simple and reasonably accurate.

[Peter Smith]

have this saved from somewhere,  

Some tips for what it is worth: Go for a very high mash temp. Use more crystal malts than you would normally think of using. Basically you want to make the beer as dextriny as you can because body is hard to achieve at the very light ABV. Keep your hop bitterness to gravity ratio the same as you would for a standard IPA and go very hard with your late additions in particular. British yeasts are also good for the style as you can get some that tend to floc out quickly leaving plenty of body behind.

The other tip I have saved is that you are better off using more grain doing a first batch sparge  (HIGH MASH TEMP) then watering down to pre-boil with pure water, the argument is you get more body this way, as the later lower gravity 2nd sparge is more fermentable then the initial , i have no clue if this is valid.

I made lots of notes when looking at doing a lowrider clone and came across that same mad ferm link.   If your brew stalls to high (killer in  a low alcohol beer) have seen mangrove jacks dry enzyme can help move it to FG.  I also had a link to oats but cant see it anywhere.  I have added 10% oats in a smokey limbo beer , didn't lack body.

I would use Wyeast 1968 lots of oxygen big pitch, rouse it lots keep it warm so it hits final gravity pretty fast

[Des Ross]

As to yeast, I always get a good starter going 2-3 days before brew day or re- pitch yeast slurry from a previous ferment. Used this way, Safale 05 has always fermented down to target finishing gravities but WLP 001 is what I'm using now and I couldn't be happier at how it performs...really clean fermented 18 rising to 22 C and allows those late hops to shine.