As the weather is taking a turn for the better in reality terms but worse in brewer terms, I’m starting to get stocked up for the summer. My first batch is awhile is a fairly generic wheat beer. I took this from various recipes but notably from the Yeasty Beasty in Stephen Snyder’s The Brewmaster’s Bible. I changed the malt extract a bit and I think I will forgo the extra-yeasty bit of adding yeast during the bottling. Here is an ingrediant list:

Malts:

1 lb Weyermann pale wheat (Germany)
1lb Weyermann cara malt (Germany)
Extract:

4lbs Alexanders Wheat (US)

4lbs Munton & Fison Wheat (UK)

Hops:

1 oz Hallertau (Germany) 60 minutes, no aroma hops

Yeast:

Wyeast Bavarian Wheat W3638

I made a starter wort for the yeast a couple of days ago. I’m not sure if I screwed up on this, but I had it in my head to add a little honey to the wort…you know, give it some more fermentable sugar to get the yeast going. While the yeast did get a good start, there was a distinctly citrus odor to the yeast/wort mixture. We’ll see what happens, but brewing is an experiment so hopefully it turns out positive and not ruin the batch.

I’ve moved from steeping the crushed malts in a muslin bag but rather using the method tried for the smoked porter. I brought just under 2 gallons of water to about 180 deg F and added my 2 lbs of wheat/barley and let this sit for 45 minutes. The temp stayed in the 170-160 deg F range during this time. I then took my large 4 gallon brewpot and situated my colander covered in a muslin bag on top and strained the grains through this. I then finished by rinsing the grains with about 190 deg F water, about 3 quarts, but made sure not to press the grains this time. I let them drain as I heated up some water for the malt extract cans and let the grains strain for about 10 minutes. I added the malt extract, brought to a boil, added the hops and boiled for an hour. I then strained the wort through my small strainer into the fermenter bucket to about 3 and 1/2 gal of cold water. I tested the gravity, 1.048, and then added my starter wort/yeast and sealed it up.

I chose to go with two cans of malt extract, a US and UK variety. This stayed fairly close the original recipe but as I have become hooked on the wheat beers, I want lots of wheat. This is a fairly straight forward recipe and I’m hoping for a good traditional weizen in the German style.