Wolters Wheat 5 Kegging day

A few days ago I kegged the latest version of Wolters West Texas Wheat, which I brewed on November 17. I didn't use Sorachi Ace hops, thank goodness. But when I kegged the beer, I noticed a distinct cidery flavor.

After some research, I determined that it was acetaldehyde. It may be that the beer needs to age a bit more, which it will. It will be a couple of weeks before it goes into the fridge. Or it could be sanitation.

If I remember correctly, I think that as I was using the counterflow chiller to cool the beer, I suddenly remembered "I didn't sanitize the chiller!"

I will let you know the results in a couple of weeks.

Wheat Experiment Update

Satan brought the results of our wheat experiment. A couple of days ago, I decided to see how things went.

The American Wheat is good, but bland. It's got a wheaty flavor, but nothing else. It needs a bit of flavor. Feels a bit watery, too. For the next American wheat, we should add a pound of crystal 20 for some flavor and some body. And hops. Something in the last 10 minutes or so. Something to punch through the malt.

Having said that, If we opened a brewery tomorrow, I would almost say this should be the flagship beer to wean people away from BudMillerCoors. It just needs something. Yeah, I think this one is close. Just needs a bit of dialing in. Next time, we should cut back on the barley and add the Crystal 40. Keep the wheat/malt ratio at 60/40. Same hop schedule.

The hefeweiss has a dense, creamy head. The color is almost wit-like. Very pale yellow. Smells of banana and a hint of clove, I think. I might have to buy some cloves to be sure. I'm in love and haven't tasted it yet.

[Sip]

Wow. The banana flavor is very subtle at first and becomes more apparent as it warms. Excellent beer. We plan to rebrew this for next year's Nationals.

For kicks, Satan added some peach flavoring to the hefeweiss, hoping for a spiced peach flavor. It's a bit subtle. Which is what I expect in a commercial beer. But as it warms, the peach comes through. It's also on the back of my tongue, which is nice. I didn't pick up much clove, so I can't say it was spiced peach. It's good, though. He also spiked one with raspberry flavor, but I haven't tried that yet.

Satan commented:

Hmmmmmm, not bad! Next time I’ll ferment at cooler temps to get more of the clove going. Nice peach aroma, we might need to experiment with another flavoring agent or possibly frozen peaches this next time. Color may be a little dark, but I think within spec. It may need to age a bit longer though. Tastes just a tad husky, similar to an American Wheat. Overall….me likey…. The warmer it gets, the less husky it is and you can begin to pick up on the clove note, maybe a tad tart, but not bad. Medium light mouth feel….yeah…let age a couple of more weeks and then give it another shot. I wish it was a bit thicker…..needs work, but not bad.

He also mentioned that he picked up some diacetyl. I only had one, but I didn't taste it.

He added some peach to the American hefe, but I thought the beer was too bland to stand up to the peach. He added strawberry to it, and I thought that the more subtle and ephemeral strawberry flavor went well with the beer. I think it should be added to the hefeweiss, for that classic strawberry-banana flavor. Or am I insane?

Wheat Experiment Update

As of last weekend, Satan says everything looked good with our wheat experiment. He planned to bottle the American wheat and add some raspberry extract to a few bottles to see how things went. But on Monday he told me things were still percolating.

Today Satan wrote about the American Wheat: "Sweet, crisp, slight tartness. Nice wheat background, quite hazy though. Final corrected gravity 10104. Alc%/vol. = 4.31."

As far as the hefe goes: "The hefe ain’t half bad. Predominantly clovey. Final gravity 1011. Nice pale hazy yellow color.

"...mmmmmmmm I may Peachy Madre a half case of these!!!!"

More to come.

The Great Wheat Experiment

I did a bit of research, and boy, is my brain tired! The base recipe for hefeweiss and American wheat are the same. American wheat OG is 1040-1055, and hefe is 1044-1052. Both beers use 50% wheat and 50% malt. The only difference is the yeast. Hefeweiss IBUs are 8-15. American wheats are 15-30. I asked Satan if we could mash a 10 gallon batch of wheat beer, and split into two boils. Satan suggested that instead we boil in one kettle, hop to 15 IBUs then split it into two fermenters and pitch a different yeast in each? "You're a hop head. Try the mild side of life!" he said. "I believe the key word was 'experiment!' Let's give it a shot and see."

We've set aside the weekend of 9/5 to brew. And I began working on the recipe.

The last time I brewed with Satan's setup, we got 90% efficiency. So I initially calculated the recipe with that figure in mind. However, upon consultation, we decided to go with 80% efficiency because of all the grain:

Hefeweiss	American Wheat
9 lbs German wheat malt 9 lbs German Pale malt 1 lb Rice hulls 2.25 oz Hallertauer Mittlefruh ~3%/60 Min
WLP380 Hefeweizen Yeast	WLP320 American Hefeweiss

More disappointment

Well, I tapped the wheat beer. It is still muddy yellow colored, smells okay, and has an odd bitterness that I can only assume comes from the Sorachi Ace. I can't rule out contamination, though.

Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat 4 - Brew day

I got up early to brew. I mashed it, and missed my mash temperature by 7°, hitting 161°. I mashed with about three and a half gallons of water, and sparged with five gallons at 175°. I collected about 6.5 gallons, and boiled for an hour.

Last time, I used an ounce of Sorachi Ace, but the beer was a little too bitter. This time, I used one ounce of Cascade hops as my bittering hop, and added an ounce of Sorachi Ace at flameout, hoping to get more of the lemony aroma of the hop in the beer.

I hooked up my counterflow chiller backwards, so I didn't get as much cooling as I normally do. I took my gravity reading, and I got 1.032 instead of 1.050. I'm hoping that the lower reading is the result of the wort not being mixed well. We'll see in a week.

Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat Scores

This performed better than the Rye-Bock, scoring a 27 out of 50. One judge thought it phenolic and astringent, and that it had rye in it. He did say it was a drinkable beer. The second judge also thought there was rye, and that it finished a little cloying.

My two beers were brewed with concentrated wort boils, hence the cloying finish. Still, it was better than mediocre.

Kegging day

I just kegged West Texas Wheat version 3. Here's the recipe: 50% wheat, 50% malt. It's a nice pale straw color. Cloudy, but that's to be expected. But the alcohol is a bit hot. I need a temperature control system. Badly.

OG 1050 - FG 1007 - 5.62% alcohol.

A couple of weeks in the keg should be good.

Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat - All Grain version 2

I decided to eliminate all the specialty grain and make a real wheat beer. I used 5 pounds of flaked wheat, five pounds of American two row malt, and a pound of rice hulls to help with the sparge. I used the same Sorachi Ace hops in the same hop additions as before. This time, though, I used California Ale yeast. I hit my numbers and feel pretty confident that soon, I will be sipping on a crisp wheat beer.

Finally. . .

After a week of being sick, I finally feel well enough to go back to work. That also means I can start thinking about brewing again. I am going to brew another version of West Texas Wheat: 50% wheat, 50% two-row, and the usual Sorachi Ace hops. I am going to use California Ale yeast, just to see what happens.

Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat - All Grain

So Satan suggested that I start brewing all grain. Like a fool, I said, "Why not?"

Last Sunday, I brewed. I think I had a dry spot in the mash. My estimated OG was 1057 at 75% efficiency. My actual OG was 1.042, which makes it 56%. The new counterflow chiller I bought worked like a champ. It had a couple of leaks we'll need to repair. But I need a brewing sculpture and some pumps! I had to stack a side table on top of the picnic table to get enough height to make gravity work. The beer looks pretty good, a nice yellow color. We'll see how it looks in a week. Rub your rabbit's foot.

"There be wheat beers here!"

Wolters' West Texas Wheat -I fined it with some gelatin a couple of days ago. It was cloudy and smelled good. I used Sorachi Ace which is supposed to have some lemon aroma, and I did detect some citrus in the aroma. But it was flat, and I have had a cold. . . Tasted fine. I used American Hefe yeast which brought the banana flavor down. There is some fruit flavors, but the three little sips I had weren't enough to let me identify it. OG was 1.054, FG was 1.010 which is about 5.8% abv. If we ever open a brewery, this might be a beer to make. It had been kegged and is in the fridge.

Skirt Lifter Imperial Hefe Weiss - Or, as I have thought about calling it: Banana beer! It fermented a bit hot, and so there was some very strong banana esters. So strong that it disguised the fact that it is about 8.3% abv. (OG 1088, FG 1026). It's muddy, though. I have racked it to secondary and will keg it this weekend. But when I racked it, I discovered the source of the muddiness: the spigot was an inch below the surface of the yeast cake!

Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat - Brew day

While browsing my LHBS' website for hops to brew with, I noticed one called Sorachi Ace, a hop from Sapporo Breweries in Japan that has a lemon aroma.

In a marvelous example of serendipity, I was listening to Graham Sanders' last CraftBrewer Radio podcast for 2007 a day or so later, and someone had sent him an email asking how to use Sorachi Ace. Grahams reply was, in a wheat beer. On The Session, the brewmaster of Lodi Brewing said he made an IPA with Sorachi Ace that people confused with a hefe.

And so, Hubert Wolters' West Texas Wheat was born.

Recipe: Hubert Wolter's West Texas Wheat
Brewing Date: Saturday February 09, 2008
Head Brewer: Jeff

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (GAL): 5.00 Wort Size (GAL): 5.00
Total Grain (LBS): 7.25
Anticipated OG: 1.050
Anticipated SRM: 3.9
Anticipated IBU: 27.5
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Actual OG: 1.054

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Gravity SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
96.6 7.00 lbs. AHS Wheat Malt 1.035 2
3.4 0.25 lbs. Crystal 40L America 1.034 40

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
0.25 oz. Sorachi Ace Pellet 14.00 17.2 60 min.
0.25 oz. Sorachi Ace Pellet 14.00 4.6 15 min.
0.50 oz. Sorachi Ace Pellet 14.00 5.7 5 min.

Yeast
-----
White Labs WLP320 American Hefeweizen Ale

Fermentation Specifics
----------------------

Pitched From: Pitchable Flask
Lag Time: 19.00 hours

Primary Fermenter: Stainless Steel
Primary Type: Closed
Primary Temperature: 68 degrees F

Hubert Wolters, you will recall, brewed wheat beer in San Angelo, Texas, from about 1878 to 1888. While I have no clue how he brewed it, I wanted to have a wheat beer in the Macht's Nicht Brewing Company portfolio.