Wheat Beer No 1 / Weissbier 40L Brewing Journal

Started 1st Aug 2024

This is my first Wheat/Weissbier so I have used a fairly simple recipe. This beer is normally decoction mashed or stepped mashed but as most breweries no longer do this due to well modified grains I will keep things simple and do a single infusion mash. The addition of a small amount of Melanoidin malt should ensure that the lack of stepped mashing does not impact adversly. IBU around 16, so not too bitter.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

Recipe	Measure
Brew Length	40L
Wheat Malt	5500g
Pilsner Malt (EBC 3.5)	2500g
Munich Malt (EBC 25)	2500g
Melanoiden Malt (EBC 50)	100g
Hallertau Mittelfueh (Start of Boil) Barthaas	100g
Yeast (Using Starter)	WLP300
Mash Liquor	25 Litres
Strike Heat	72C
Mash Temperature	66C
Mash Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Sparge Temperature	77C
Mash Efficiency (estimated)	75%
Boil Time	1 Hour 30 Minutes
Fermentation Temperature	18C
Expected OG	1055
Actual OG	1053
Expected FG	1012
Actual FG

Water Treatment:

Recipe	Measure
CaCo3 Adjustments
Calcium Carbonate CAC03	155 ppm
Calcium Carbonate Required	50 ppm
Adjustment Necessary	105 ppm
CRS per Litre Required	5.75 ml/10L
Total CRS to add to Mash (26.5L)	15 ml
Total CRS to add to Sparge water (31.5L)	18 ml
*Chlorine Treatment*
Campden Tablets (half in mash, half in sparge)	1 tablet
Calcium Adjustment (using brupaks calculation)
Calcium in Water	105 ppm
Calcium Required	120 ppm
Adjustment	15 ppm
DLS (using GW Calc it suggests adding none)	1 Tsp

Water Schedule:

This brew will be batch sparged, so the water will be scheduled as follows:

Mash = 26.5L using 15 ml of CRS +1/2 Campden Tab
Top Up = 7.5L + Final Batch Sparge = 24L, Total 31.5L using 18 ml of CRS and 1/2 campden tab

Mashing:

I am using my SS Brewtech infussion mash tun, which will need to be preheated.

12L of water at 78C added to mast tun.
Remining 26.5L in HLT treated with CRS and 1/2 Campden tab.
26.4L of water added to the mash tun at 78C, which settled quickly to 73C. Recirc runb unril 72C.
Doughed in + 1 tsp of gypsum
Temperature dropped to 66C. which is perfect.
Mash will now be left alone for 1.5 hours.

Sparging

31.5L of water heated to 78c and treated with CRS and Campden.
Added Top up of 7.5l at 78C and started the re-circ for 15 Min
Mash Tun drained into Boiler and heating started. Stopped draining once wort was no longer visible on sight glass
Wheat Malt has caused a fairly slow drain off but not a stuck mash.
Remainin 24L of sparge water heated to 78C was added to mash tun
Recirc run for 10 minutes.
Pumped wort into boiler, stopping just as turbid last runnings appeared in the pipes.

Boiling

Boiler switched on as soon as first few litres of wort were drained from mash Tun.
90 minute boil
100g hops added at start of boil.
Last 15 minutes. added Immersion coil inserted to ensure sterilised.
Some boiling wort was drawn into pump/pipes to sterilise.
Recirc started as soon as flame out.
Post boil gravity = 1053 and it looks like around 40L
Pumped into fermenter once below 25C.
Fermenter chiller is on to reduce to around 18C.

Fermentation:

A 1.7L yeast starter was prepared 2 days before.
03/08/24 - Yeast pitched. As the starter was very lively so the full contents were pitched. Temperature has been kept at the lower end (18C) as this yeast was so lively and I did not have that much head space in the fermenter.
04/08/24 - 09:00 a reasonable Krausen had already formed.
04/08/24 - 17:00 The Krausen is now a couple of inches think with thick yeast on the surface.
06/08/24 - Krausen has now begun to subside so tempertature has been raised to 20C. Brix reading is 10 which calculates to 1032.
07/08/24 - Brix reading is now 9.8
08/08/24 - Brix reading around 9 which equates to 1026. Fermentation has dramatically slowed down but it is still reducing SG so will keep monitoring. At this stage I will not rouse the wort as it is still working.
09/08/24 - 8.8 Brix 1025
10/08/24 - 8.4 Brix 1022
12/08/24 - 7.2 Brix 1015
13/08/24 - 6.8 Brix 1012
14/08/24 - 6.4 Brix 1010
15/08/24 - 6.2 Brix 1009. Not sure how accurate teh Brix conversion is as 1009 seems a little low

Tasting Notes:

This was an excellent easy drinking wheat beer. There was plenty of flavour that was well balanced and not too strong in any direction. The hop flavour and bitterness were also well balanced. producing the correct level of bitternes to malt. This was a very populat beer and is already planned to brew again.