Multi-step Mash Hefeweizen

The more I've read about the importance of water profiles and played around with online calculators, the more I've wanted to revisit my hefeweizen recipe to see if I can tell a difference.  The water in the Raleigh, NC area is much like the area itself - pretty "middle of the road".  My local homebrew club already did some of the work for me by posting a table of suggested water adjustments for a variety of beer styles, so I decided to start there and see what I get.

Since this is a hefeweizen, there really isn't much to discuss about the grain bill or hops.  This recipe revolves entirely around the mash schedule, which is luckily controlled by my electric brewery controller, and the fermentation, which is controlled by my SS Tech FTSS controller.  Basically, I have little to no excuse if I mess this beer up.

Traditional Hefeweizen
OG: 1.052 (temp corrected from post-boil sample)
FG: 1.012
ABV: ~5.3%
SRM: 4

Grain Bill:
5 lbs Red Wheat
5 lbs German Pilsner

Water Modifications (Suggested by CARBOY local homebrew club)
Filtered Raleigh, NC water
Added 0.25 tsp/gal MgSO4 and 0.33 tsp/gal gypsum

Mash Schedule

Recirculating Infusion Mash - 5 gallons

Ferulic acid  at 114F for 15 min

Protein at  125F for 10 min

Saccharification I at 144F for 40 min

Saccharification II at 161F for 20 min

Rinsed grains with 2.5 gallons at 170F to collect final volume of 6.5 gallons of wort

Hop Schedule

0.75oz Hallertau at 60 minutes

Fermentation

Chilled to
64F using Chronical FTSS, aerated for 20 min and pitched Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan)

I like to keep 3068 at 64F for 4 days, then let rise to 66F.  After 3 more days reached FG of 1.012.  Left beer in fermenter for additional 7 days to let yeast clean up any off flavors. Kegged and force carbed to 4.0 volumes at 36F in keezer

Notes:

I can't recall making a Hefeweizen that is this balanced with banana and clove before. The head retention is also noteworthy and is remarkable compared to previous batches. I'd like to attribute this to the multistep mash schedule, but I'm not aware of water treatments effecting this a great deal.  I'll have to remake the recipe to see if the results are consistent. Previous attempts, even with multistep mash schedules, definitely were lacking with regards to the classic Hefeweizen mouthfeel and fluffy head.

All in all, this ended up being my most successful hefe to date.  I can't say for certain my perceived improvements are solely due to the water treatment, though. The flavor is much more pronounced with regards to banana, clove, and the small amount of hops used seem balanced for the style. This batch "looks" like a traditional hefe more so than any I've made before.  

I will probably repeat this recipe again soon without the multistep mash to see whether or not these perceived improvements stick around. 

Friar Brock ABT 10 (Quadrupel)

With all the barrel-aged barleywines and tripels and 9% saisons that my brother has been making down in NC, I decided it was time for me to produce a big beer too. Since I had just finished kegging a batch of Friar Brock (a Patersbier) using my 3rd generation Wyeast 1214 (the Chimay strain), I figured that brewing a stronger Belgian based upon a Chimay style made the most sense. I opted for the Belgian Strong Dark/Quadrupel recipe that was available on candisyrup.com’s website.

A quick word about the Wyeast 1214 yeast I am using for my Belgian beers. The first time I brewed with it (a Hennepin clone), I managed to choose the one truly hot week in my house and fermented without the benefit of temperature control. At 75F and hotter, the quantity of banana and bubblegum produced by 1214 is truly astounding (and produces beer more suitable for monkeys than man). At lower temperatures than Wyeast recommends though (pitch at 60-62F and only allow to rise after several days of fermentation) it produces a really tasty Belgian profile on the fruity range without being really identifiable as bananas. However, at this lower temperature it can have a lag time as long as 48 hours even when using large starters. I've never had a stuck fermentation once it gets started, but the temptation is to raise the temperature early (but beware banana bombs) or to repitch. So I suppose that's a long-winded way to say that it's a pretty temperamental yeast strain. Now that I'm aware of its tendencies I really enjoy its flavour profile though.

So based upon that, my plan is to carefully control fermentation temps for this beer until it’s close to gravity, rack it to a keg, and let it naturally condition in my basement for 6-12 months. I’ll have a special release tapping party for it with mussels and Belgian chocolates this fall!

Mashing notes: Mashed in 11 lbs Bohemian Pilsner, 0.5 lbs CaraFoam, and 1 lb torrified wheat at 147F with 4.5G, stirring every 10-15mins for a 75 minute mash. Batch sparged with 5.3G of 180F water to hit 170F for a 10min rest before  vorlauf. After first runnings, I put the kettle on to boil and added second runnings every time I had extracted ~1G.  I ended up with closer to 7.5G of wort and boiled for 105 minutes rather than 90.

 Boil Additions:

1 oz Saaz and 1 oz Hallertau (both US versions) at 60 min

1 oz Hallertau at 30

2 lbs D45 Belgian Candi Syrup at 20

½ whirlfloc tablet at 5

After flameout I chilled to 62F and ended up with just under 5.25G of wort into chronical.  Aerated well and then pitched my Patersbier yeast cake (roughly 2 pitchers of yeasty trub) into chronical and adjusted FTSS to a temperature of 62F; fermentation schedule is to increase 1F per day to 68F after seeing obvious fermentation at 62 for one day.  I had broken my hydrometer by knocking it off a shelf, and when I measured OG of a sample I had stored away it was 1.074. I added enough brown sugar to the fermenter to raise the OG to 1.085, which seems more appropriate for a quad (and only raised sugar to 18% fermentables which is within style guidelines).

Fermentation went as expected, with the exception that my 1214 house yeast crushed the quad to 1.004 (95% attenuation!) for 10.6% ABV. I'm a firm believer in this yeast after a few generations; it seems to love my basement temperatures and the FTSS ramp-up in the chronical. When I pulled a sample and then subsequently kegged the beer, I was wowed by everything about it except the color. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but the SRM was far too low for a quad in my opinion (you can see from the hydrometer reading to the left). 

I happened to have some Carafa II Special (dehusked) malt at the house, so I steeped 2 oz in a pint of water at 152F for 30 mins, boiled it for 10 mins to sanitize it, and then used a 4oz pour of the quad and a 1/2 teaspoon to play around with how much steeped liquid to get the color right without changing the flavour profile. I was worried about roastiness, coffee flavours, and astringency. It turned out that 3/4 teaspoon per 4 oz (equivalent to 1.5 oz Carafa 2 Special in the mash) resulted in the correct color profile to my eye (left vs. right below). Now to store it in the keg under moderate carbonation and then drink it when it's properly aged this fall!

Sacch Trois Wheat Beer

Sacch Trois Wheat beer

Recipe inspired by 3Floyds' Gumballhead and Mad Fermentationist's 100% Trois IPA
Brewed on Dec 12, 2015

This is a pretty simple recipe that probably isn’t by itself worth a writeup. But I decided to post it because (a) it’s probably my favorite tropical fruity/hoppy beer I’ve ever made and among the best I’ve personally tasted and (b) I tried a few different things while brewing this batch that worked out quite well. Those things were as follows:

• Zythos as a flame out/whirlpool hop. I have brewed a single hop Zythos IPA before, and found the flavor quite nice (similar to Amarillo but more pure orange flavor) but the dry hop aroma was really disappointing even with large additions in the fermenter and the keg. I decided to try something different with the residual Zythos and use it exclusively in the boil/whirlpool and then use on Amarillo and Citra for dry hopping. This potentially saves quite a lot of $$ (Amarillo is $10/lb more than Zythos in Canada right now). The result worked out better than I expected; I believe this may be the best use for this hops variety and is something I'll definitely try again.

• The use of WL 644 in a wheat beer with a variety of fruity hops (Zythos, Citra, and Amarillo) really turned out even better than I imagined. The pineapple, mango esters from the yeast and the citrusy/tropical aromas and flavors from the hops go together seamlessly. Even moreso than with the JWIPA I brewed with centennial, citra, and Amarillo. The FG was a bit higher than most of my beers, and in combination with Amarillo it results in a really juicy character to the beer that goes really well with the grain bill. It’s the dead of winter here, but this beer is a little taste of summer sunshine. 

•  Finally, I chose to try and get a little stronger dry hop by cold crashing in the chronical to separate out the yeast, transferring to a CO2-purged keg, and then hopping in the keg by using weighted down nylon bags. This was also a good move, because the final beer is really bright tasting in terms of hops profile. I’ll continue this practice for hoppy beers.

So in the end, even with a pretty straightforward recipe, I learned a few things I can apply to future beers, and the actual beer is phenomenal. So I consider this batch a success!

Sacch. Trois Wheat 
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.012
ABV: 6.1%
Calories: 190 (12 oz)
Carbs: 17.9g (12 oz)

Grain bill:

6 lbs. - Wheat Malt

5 lbs. - 2-Row Pale Malt

1 lb. - CaraRed Malt

0.5lb – Rice Hulls

Mash:
Mashed at 152 for 60 minutes

Sparged at 175 after 10 min rest

Boil:
1 oz Zythos at 60

2 oz Zythos at flame out

2 oz Zythos at 175F whirlpool for 20 minutes

* 0.5 WhirlFloc tablet at 5mins

After whirlpool, I chilled to 70F with immersion chiller and moved beer into chronical with continuous agitation to aerate wort. I ended up with 5.25 gallons of 1.058 OG wort after hop trub loss in the kettle.

Fermentation:
Pitched a 2L starter of second generation WL 644 Sacch. Trois (harvested from JWIPA) into chronical with initial temperature of 65F. I allowed the temp to free rise, reaching a max of 69F after 48 hours. As temperature began to fall, I raised the chronical temperature to 75F over 3 days using an aquarium heater to provide 85F water to the chronical's FTSS. I maintained 75F until a stable FG of 1.012 was reached after 12 days. The beer was then cold crashed at 38F for 24 hours, kegged, and dry hopped..

Dry hop: 2 oz Amarillo/2 oz Citra for 3 days.

Keg hop: 2 oz Amarillo/2oz Citra until it kicks.

After 3 days of room temperature dry hop, the hop bag was removed, replaced with fresh keg hops, and the keg was force carbonated and tapped on Dec. 30.