American Wheat

Well, I guess I'll post the Wheat brewing even though we are going to have to back date the "Daves' Chocolate Stout" and the ensuing beer floats (I was dubious).

For a party coming up in a few moths that I promised I would bring along some beer...I decided (after speaking to the master of ceremonies) that I would bring the second attempt at an American Wheat beer (none of those strange banana / clove flavors for me, thanks).  The first attempt won a third place ribbon, so I feel slightly comfortable making it for a party.  Still very nerviness about having people drink the beer I make...maybe some day when I need a forklift for my hobby, I'll feel more certain.

Brewing went pretty well til trying to move the beer into the carboys.  We had not used hop bags this time, to increase the hop utilization.  What a mess!


Started with two of the 7Bridges Weissbier kits

Grain
11 lbs Pale wheat malt
4 lbs   Pale 2-row malt
4 lbs   Pilsner malt

Hops
1 oz German Saphir pellets.  Boil for 40min
1 oz New Zealand Cascade (not in normal recipe). Boil for 40min
2 oz German Hallertaur Tradition pellets.  Boil for 15min
1 oz New Zealand Cascade (not in normal recipe). Boil for 10min
1 oz German Saphir pellets. Boil for 5min

No Irish moss.

Yeast (used two slightly different ones..was going to use an American Wheat yeast but it was DOA in my starter..crazy)

White Labs - WLP001 CA Ale
 WYeast 1056 - America Ale

Heated 5 gallons of water to 140f and mashed the grain at 125f for 20min.
Heat 3 gallons of water to 200f and added to grain to bring up temp to 150f.  We found we needed to add more heat from the bottom to get to 150f.
Mashed for 40min for starch conversion.
Sparged with 7 gallons of 170 water with our normal 'half at a time' batch sparge method we have been using.
Boiled like normal, it was really fun to see the green oils in the boil pot from the hop pellets as we did not use hop bags.

Cooled to about 95 and then started draining into the carboys...we could see right away that there was quite a lot of hop debris in the liquid.  Started clogging right after three or so gallons.  Dave scraped away at the bazooka filter while I scraped the filter in the funnel.  Not so fun!  Eventually, we got exactly 10 gallons of liquid but we did leave behind a good half gallon of yummy sludge (or so I imagine).

Later that night (after seeing the Santa Cruz Derby Girls for the first time..great fun!) pitiched the yeast at around 67f.

Left it at 67f overnight and down to 66 the next morning.
March 22nd. Lowered the temperature to 64 so it will be clean and crisp!