Homebrew - American Wheat Beer

Been doing a lot of wheat beers this summer. This time I'm going to try an American wheat which compared with a Hefeweizen has a slightly hoppier profile and a little less of the banana-clove contributions from the yeast. In theory anyway. This particular batch will actually be brewed for a family member's wedding coming up in a few weeks.

I'm also going to try a few new techniques including whirlpooling the wort when cool and waiting for 20 minutes for stuff to settle then draining out through a sanitized hop bag to prevent extra stuff from getting into the fermentation chamber.






American Wheat 9/29/2012





Batch Size (GAL): 5.00 Wort Size (GAL): 5.00
Total Grain (LBS): 8
Anticipated OG: 1.043
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin
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50 4 lbs. 2 row american pal
50 4 lbs. American White Wheat

Hops

Amount Name Form Boil Time
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1.00 oz. Wilamette pellet 60
1.00 oz. Cascade pellet 15

Extras

Amount Name Type Time
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1 Tsp Irish Moss Fini(10 min boil)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (10 min boil)


Yeast
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Wyeast 1010 American Wheat  (no starter)

Mash Schedule
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Step Name	Start Temp	Stop Temp	Infuse Temp	Infuse Amount	Water-Grain Ratio
Sach	66 °F	152 °F	163.5 °F	12.0 qts	1.50

9/30/12 - Added 3 degrees for the non heated mash tun and mashed in at 166.5, which provided a perfect 152 mash temperature. Boiled with free roaming hops exactly per the schedule. At the end collected 4.5 gallons of 1.042 wort using a couple of new techniques to filter the hops out of the fermentation vessel. Pitched yeast, added 02 and left to ferment.

Whirl pooling seemed to do alright (there was a lot of gunk left over in the boil kettle). I made sure to cool the wort first down to 72 then remove the copper cooler and whirlpool hard then let sit for 20 minutes with the lid on. In the future to make this work better I want to cool down faster with ice water surrounding the kettle AND the copper worth chiller. Then I can hopefully get the temperature down more faster. I also used a hop bag attached to the end of my drain hose which caught a fair bit of hops. This technique actually worked pretty well! You'll want to sanitize in and around the fermenting vessel lip because the bag will brush these surfaces as you're trying to get it in. This will probably be my new technique since I like to let hops in the boil roam free.

10/27/12 - Had already racked the keg, cold crashed and forced carbonated with C02. The beer tasted... good, but not great. It had a slightly off-metallic taste to it. I assume that was from the yeast strain because it wasn't terribly noticeable and blended with the overall profile. I just didn't care for that particular characteristic. I think in the future I will not use this yeast again.