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.