6 lbs german pilsner
10 lbs rahr white wheat malt
2 lbs munich malt
1/4 lbs special b malt
1/2 lbs briess caramel 40 malt
1/4 lbs midnight wheat malt
hops hallertau 1.6 oz 60 min
2 packs wyeast 3068 weihenstephan wheat
og:1.081
fg1.021
mash at 152 for hour batch sparge for 6.5 gallons preboil, boil for 90 min, 5.5 gallons fermentor. ferment 62 degrees
Is it that easy? I never brewed one. Yet.
I thought you need to do a decoction mash to duplicate the style?
That’s the only reason I haven’t brewed this yet.
Can you give us some feedback on this. Sounds interesting.
I have worked on this recipe for many years tring to perfect it. Having brewed it many times and been very happy with taste and match of the style. As far as decoctoion, what i have learned and was taught is thats more for poor extracting grains. Which none of the grain bill in this recipe are poor extract grains. I do feel that the 90 minute boil makes great differance how this beer turns out.
Looks like a great recipe. As with any weizen beer, I’m sure the key to the whole thing is the yeast. Fermentation down in the low 60s will accentuate the clove character from the yeast, which is my preference, as opposed to the banana and bubblegum produced closer to 70 F.
There is still much debate whether decoction results in better beer or not. I have tried both ways and personally I am now leaning towards the answer is “no, decoction is not beneficial”. But feel free to try it, for tradition if nothing else.
Here’s my helles weizenbock:
9# german wheat
3.5# german lt. munich
5.5# german pils
.75# rice hulls
Single infusion mash at 152 or so
90 min boil
5 AAU german hallertauer at 60 min
WL hefeweizen IV (2L starter)
Ferment at 62 degrees for 2 weeks
Keg, carb, & tap
It’s simple, delicious, and best fresh - probably the recipe that I brew more than any other and tend to always have on tap.
That looks like a good recipe jeebeel. I am big fan of german beers. I have a munich helles I been working on for few years thats pretty damn tasty. I wish that more people would post their recipes. I will defintly brew your recipe thank you for sharing with with us.
Decoction is mentioned in the BJCP guidelines.
15c. Weizenbock
INGREDIENTS…" A traditional decoction mash gives the appropriate body without cloying sweetness."
That’s the thing I want to avoid, cloying sweetness. If I can do this without a decoction that would be good. Maybe at least a step mash or maybe a no sparge.
I’m working on a recipe that has 55% wheat, 30% munich and 15% pils.
Maybe some specialty malt like cara-munich, spec.b., melanoiden depending on how I mash.
Can I do a batch sparge and avoid cloying sweetness?
Would a step mash be better?
No sparge?
Looking forward for some feedback, I like the style and want to brew this weekend.
I can do any of the 3 choices above. I’ve never done a decoction mash but I can give it a shot.
If I don’t need to do one that’s even better. Just wondering why it is suggested in the BJCP guidelines.
Here’s an interesting study on decoction.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B29juef ... view?pli=1As I’ve said before, “Friar Tuck is right.” Short answer, up the melanoidin malt a bit if you want more melanoidin taste.
We brewed two Weizenbocks back in October on the 1/2bbl system. The only reason I mention that is because the decoction we did on the first batch was a huge pain. On the second batch, we did not do one and used WL Hefe IV as opposed to Hefe I (which I believe is Weihenstephaners).
The malt character on the second (identical grain bill) was far more pronounced, in my opinion because of the yeast selection. We fermented both in low 60’s. Great, restrained phenolics and a complex malt profile on both, but the Hefe IV was just a bit maltier, which I liked.
Both beers are excellent though. This is an awesome style, and your recipe looks good. Love Midnight Wheat.
One thing I might recommend as opposed to pitching two vials (which may or may not be enough) would be to pitch those two vials into a brewday starter on a stir plate if available, to get them active. Just get your starter going 6-12 hours before pitching. I do this with saisons often to get some more yeast character out of them, without heavy esters or the dreaded fusels.
As I worked on the weizenbock recipe tring to match the style and taste of a great weizenbock. I tried decoction with orignal recipe And batch same recipe I could tell no difference. Batch sparge was easier and got same results. Now on overly sweet. Took me few tries on that. One important thing was pitching enough yeast and proper ferment temp. Also i feel that 90 minute boil helped with the taste of this recipe.
Thanks for the suggestion on the yeast pietro. I will give that a try next batch. It’s always good to hear peoples idea’s and improve something even more.
Thought I would post picture of my pint.
wow that is light! Looks like Vitus!
We brewed Rodney’s Weizenbock (Long Shot winner), but it basically the color of Newcastle Brown.
Hopefully that tastes as good as it looks-
Nice looking beer. The carbonation looks spot on. At what volume did you carb with?
I bottled my Weizen and was a little gun shy about this highly carbed beer. I went with around 3.4 vol. C02 which is on the lower end for the style, that can go up to around 4.7 vol. Co2. Wow.
One of the most highly carbed beer out there.
Yeah is little on the light side with color but flavor is spot on. Used Durst and Weyerman german malts think made differance on color. The pint is from my keg carbed around 4.0 / 4.1 vol
I went with no sparge when I brewed this beer back in January. I used about 50/50 wheat and munich with some melanoid and special B.
My yeast choice was WY3942 Belgian Wheat and my bitter hop was Belma. I fermented at 68 looking for a balanced phenol/ester profile.
I really don’t care for a huge clove flavor but I do like pepper. The yeast did give a pepper/clove phenol with a very nice vanilla ester.
The beer came out very good so I decided to enter it in the first round of the NHC. I sent the beer to NYC and won a third place ribbon.
Not too bad for my first Weizenbock using non-traditional yeast and hops. I’m really liking no sparge brewing, I think it helped this beer a lot. To heck with decoction then because I didn’t get any cloying sweetness at all. Another BJCP guideline that needs updating.
nice work!
Thanks Pietro. I just wonder how the beer will taste in June. I’m keeping some cold in the fridge and some at cellar temp.
Congrats!! Wally I like the look of your recipe using 50/50 and your yeast choice… You shoud post a pic of your pint so we all can your beer… Also what volume did you carb your beer at?
Thanks damian. I’m under 12 beers and need to do a side by side with the cold conditioned half with the cellared half.
I plan on doing this Sunday so I can take notes and at least set a standard. This way I can see how the beer(s) are doing.
At some point I have to ship 2 bottles to Grand Rapids. I’ll take some pics when I sample.
As far as carbonation I shot for about 3.4 vol. but got about 3.6 vol. I was worried about bottles bombs and kept it under the recommended guidelines, even if that means anything anymore. Perfect carbonation for me. The Judges didn’t comment on it.
With that ABV, I think it would age like a beaut.
