The local beer brewing club that I started showing up for is having a brewing competition in May. The competition is built around cereal. Everyone brought a cereal to the February meeting, and people drew straws to pick a cereal that they wanted to brew with. I ended up with...
A few months ago, I tried brewing a German Hefeweizen that turned out pretty watery, and just generally disappointing. It was arguably my first bad beer. I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to revisit it, given that German Hefeweizen has a strong banana flavor to it (given off by the german yeast). Banana and blueberry, what could be more natural?
Let's get down to business. First, I get the kettle started, since it takes forever (about one hour) to boil. I think I'm pretty convinced that I'll get a nice propane burner before my next boil, especially since the weather is turning. The kitchen stove just isn't giving off enough BTUs.
Time to get the supplies ready. I had to pick up a new tube to drain the kettle in the carboy, as my old tube was getting pretty gross.
More setup. A quick snapshot of the recipe, with my modifications. I'm adding an extra two pounds of Bavarian Wheat DME (dried malt extract) to the recipe, putting it at eight pounds total.
This is going to be a pretty big Hef. I should probably add a bit more hops to balance out the bitterness, but I forgot to get the extra hops at the store, and the German Hefeweizen kit intentionally uses very little hops to begin with. Now to sanitize.
I have a bit of free time since the kettle takes so long. A bit of relaxing in the backyard with Maureen and Benny.
Finally, the boil starts. Time to add the eight pounds of Bavarian Wheat DME.
After guarding the kettle against several potential boil-overs, I start to get the cereal set up. I'm splitting the cereal into two parts.
The bowl on the left (about five ounces) will go straight into the boil, with seven minutes and thirty seconds left. The bowl on the right (about six ounces) will be dry hopped on Thursday, about four days after the fermentation starts. Dry hopping is basically suspending ingredients directly into the carboy after the yeast has consumed most of the sugars. Doing this can create a really strong aroma. For more details, stay tuned for my next post, when I actually do the dry hopping.
Here I've gotten the five ounces of cereal bagged up and ready to boil.
A quick check on the boil. The hot break has finally calmed down, and the boil overs seem to have stopped.
The remaining cereal, about six ounces, will be packaged up until Thursday.
About fifty minutes have passed since I added the Bavarian Wheat DME, and hops. It's time to add the wort chiller so that it's sterilized before the boil stops.
A couple of minutes later, it's time to add the cereal!
It smells like blueberry, but it is also really sweet and sugary. I'm a bit nervous that it might be over powering.
A couple of minutes later, it's time to add the whirloc tablet.
After five minutes, I stop the boil, and bring the kettle out to the garage to chill the wort as fast as possible. Here you can see that I've got the chiller hooked up to the wash bin to run cold water through it.
Here, I've drained the kettle into the carboy. You can see a lot of gunk floating in the carboy. I think that this is most likely boiled cereal. It should settle out pretty quickly, though.
After the carboy is filled, it's time for specific gravity!
I've got a 1.062 reading. Pretty high for a German Hefeweizen. That's what I get for adding two extra pounds of DME. If everything goes as planned, it should hit a ABV of about 5.7%.
Now it's time to add the yeast and cap up the carboy. This time, instead of using a blowoff tube (like I did with the American Wheat), I'm going to use an air lock. This little contraption allows CO2 to escape through the water, without letting air in. It's essentially the same principle as the blowoff tube, but much more compact.
Now it's time to clean up.
Oops, I almost forgot to move the carboy from the garage into the house, where it's warmer. Here the carboy is in the bathtub. The carboy on the left is my American Wheat (Holler at Me) from last week. The carboy on the right is the German Hefeweizen (Blueberry Banana). The German Hefeweizen is darker than I thought it would be; probably because I added so much Bavarian Wheat.
Now it's time for a job well done.
The wort tastes pretty good! I'm actually really surprised at how well the blueberry works. There's a hint of sweetness from the cereal, a hint of malt, and a hint of blueberry. Nothing is too overpowering. I'm feeling much more optimistic about this!
Notes
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- 8 lbs Bavarian Wheat DME
Hops:
- .5 oz Northern Brewer (60 minutes - bittering)
- 5 oz Blueberry Muffin Top (7 minute 30 second - flavoring)
Tweaks:
- Added extra 2 lb of Bavarian DME compared to recipe
- Added 5 oz of Blueberry Muffin Top compared to recipe
- Planning on dry hopping 6 oz of Blueberry Muffin Top after four days (Thursday evening)
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