All-wheat beer?

[timmy]

Hey all,

Has anybody tried brewing a hefeweizen or similar with only wheat malt? I think the grain I have is the Joe White stuff and I remember someone saying on here that the local wheat malts have enough diastic oomph to convert all the starches within. I've read something about difficulties in sparging if not mixing your barley and wheat when making a trad hefe so does that imply that I will have problems? I will be BIAB'ing this so I assume that the sparging won't be too much of an issue.



Cheers,

Tim

[warra48]

It will have enough diastatic power to convert itself, but I have never heard of a 100% wheat beer. I suggest you might want to add a quantity of rice hulls to help you sparge.
I'd be interested to see how it turns out.
What hops and yeast do you plan to use?

[Raw Beer Grin]

Yes you can with no problems, I've done it twice now.It converts easily.As you are biabing sparging won't be the issue it was for me.I mashed thin 3lt/kg and for 90 mins and sparged very slowly with out any hitches.hallertaua to 20 IBU and wy 3068 or 3333.very tart early on but it mellowed with age.There is a thread dedicated to it on AHB.If I can search it up I'll add a link to this post later. Found it!

[Kevnlis]

I did one with BB Wheat and some rice hulls (200g or so if I remember correctly).

I only gave it about 20 IBUs of whatever hop I was using and made a very small 20 min addition (the rest was 90min FWH).

I fermented with WB-06 which was not the best of ideas, I think something like the Munich Wheat yeast would be better.

It came out very nice, I actually made a double batch of it (plan to do so again) and had a couple AG brewer buddies try it and they were impressed as well.

[Raw Beer Grin]

So whats the go Timmy, You gonna give it a crack or not? This little Devil on your right shoulder says do it

[timmy]

I think I will....

For no other reason that I have more wheat malt than barley ATM....

[timmy]

I thought I'd add a bit more info here 'cos I've been doing some reading.

From what I've read, a wort made with all wheat malt is low in the amino acids that yeasties need to replicate themselves. The book I was reading (German Wheat Beers) recommends 70% wheat maximum, but does say that a decoction mash will help in increasing the amino acids in the wort. They also mention a longer boil time to give the extra proteins etc extra time to coagulate and fall out of suspension.

But the guys at AHB appear to have been brewing this with some degree of success so I will be giving it a shot for my next weizen.


Cheers,

Tim

[Trough Lolly]

G'day Timmy, I've heard this line before - and it makes sense, except for a lesser known fact that amino acids are also present in hops so, depending on the variety of hop and whether you use flowers, or plugs or pellets, it may not be such a big deal.

BYO mag has an interesting primer on wheat beers - here....

Cheers,
TL

[timmy]

Hi all,

A quick update on this brew.... It's been in the fermenter for about 3 weeks and I bottled last night. It was done as a BIAB and used 2kg JW Wheat in a 9L batch. Mashing was a single decoction and I did a 90 minute boil. Fermentation was at about 20deg using WB06. The brew was quite clear at bottling and the trub was reasonably well compacted. I didn't check gravity at the end so I couldn't tell if the ferment completed but it smelt just like other weizens at the same stage.
I'll report back in a couple of weeks with some tasting notes.

Cheers,

Tim

[timmy]

OK - here's the all important results....

I cracked one of these last night and was pleasantly surprised. The brew was nice and full bodied with the clove and banana notes as you might expect. I did notice that there was more sediment in the bottle than I'd normally see but that could be because I didn't CC for long enough.

The highlight for me was the performance of the WB06. I fermented at about 20deg and there were the same amount of fruitiness that I normally get with Wyeast 3068.

Just a pity that I only made 10L....

Cheers,

Tim