Red Wheat?

Northern Brewer General
1

I am planning on once again brewing the NB Honey Weizen for the summer since everyone who had it loved it last summer. Of course, as a homebrewer, I wanted to mix it up just a tad.

I was thinking of adding some of the new Breiss Midnight Wheat to the recipe to hopefully change it to a red color, and maybe add a little flavor complexity? How much (or little) should i add of this new grain? Does anyone have any experience with it?

I remember somewhere reading that if you added 0.125 lbs of Carafa to a beer, it gives a nice red color. does this apply to Midnight Wheat also?

Thanks!

Alan

2

[quote=“aolson”]I am planning on once again brewing the NB Honey Weizen for the summer since everyone who had it loved it last summer. Of course, as a homebrewer, I wanted to mix it up just a tad.

I was thinking of adding some of the new Breiss Midnight Wheat to the recipe to hopefully change it to a red color, and maybe add a little flavor complexity? How much (or little) should i add of this new grain? Does anyone have any experience with it?

I remember somewhere reading that if you added 0.125 lbs of Carafa to a beer, it gives a nice red color. does this apply to Midnight Wheat also?

Thanks!

Alan[/quote]

That would depend on how close the SRM numbers of each are.

3

Try plugging the recipe into hopville.com and see what it says. For me it seems to accurately estimate what the recipe is going to do, it gives color estimates there as well. Lets you play with malt amounts and types. Pretty great tool and it is free.

Also, I just cooked up the NB Dawson’s Multigrain Red kit last night, and it has a small amount of Chocolate Rye. When I researched irish red beers I found that they used small amounts to get the red color, but not too much so as to get the roasted flavor.

4

Briess Midnight Wheat is rated at 550°L. Taking that into consideration adding 3oz. of Midnight Wheat to the Honey Weizen grain bill would give you 12 SRM, a medium amber color.

Here is a pic of a 12 SRM Waldo Lake Amber. There is some condensation on the glass and growler but it gives you the idea.
[attachment=0]12 SRM Waldo Lake Amber.JPG[/attachment]

5

Thanks, all. I was thinking 2-3 oz, so I guess i’m on the right track.

6

I brewed my “Red Honey Weizen” today. I ended up using 3 oz of Midnight Wheat, and the wort ended up looking very close to the picture above from Greg. I’ll followup in a couple weeks with some tasting notes.

7

Completely off topic but I used some of this grain with a stout just because I wanted to try it and it turned out great. It really gets a lot of color

8

I used some midnight wheat at the end of mash for an India Black Ale and it worked well, good deep color and little roast character. The wheat is like carafa special (dehusked), since wheat malt has no husk either.