What a Week of Brewing

Well a lot sure has happened in my brewing sphere this week.  First off, I took the Hefeweizen that I had fermenting the past 3 weeks, and racked it ontop of 6lbs of blueberry puree.  Yes, I know that it was supposed to be blackberry nectar this time around, but a dear friend of mine is moving to Virginia, and she hadn't gotten to try the Blue Eyed Wheatie.  For this particular batch, I doubled the amount of puree that I used.  I did this for a couple reasons.  First I wanted to add a bit more blueberry flavor to the beer.  The first batch I did only had 3lbs and you couldn't really taste the blueberry until the finish.  Second, I wanted to add more berry color to the beer.  I used all pale color base malts along with the wheat, so that it would help take more color from the berry in the finished product.  It is going to sit on the puree for about two weeks, and then I will rack it off to an empty keg, and let it age a week before putting it in the beer fridge, and carbing it up to 2.3 volumes.  The next thing that happened in my brewing this week was the introduction of a friend to the hobby.  He had always enjoyed drinking my beers, and was interested in seeing how it was done.  For our brew,  I chose to brew an All Grain Dunkelweizen from Northern Brewer.  I walked Bill through all of the steps of a Brew Day from Mashing In, Sparging, Boiling, Hops, Chilling, Pitching, and finally Sanitization, and all the work that goes into producing a quality brew.  At the end of the day, we spent a few hours outside on a 30 degree Indiana night, tossed back a few home brews, and checked our troubles at the door.  On the Dunkel, we had a decently successful mash.  For some reason I am only able to get about 60 percent efficiency out of my current cooler setup.  I think it may have something to do with the SS braid floating up into the mash, and I'm leaving some thick malty wort in the bottom of the 5 gal rectangular rubbermaid cooler.  I'm open to any thoughts on ways to get that number up.  I'd really like to get 70 percent efficiency.  On the next batch, I am going to ask for a finer crush from NB.  I'm interested in seeing if that would help make a difference.  Anyways, we ended up 5.25 gallons of sweet dark wheat wort in the fermenter, and pitched some Wyeast 3068 that I had harvested from the recently completed Hefeweizen that is now on the blueberries.  So, it's been a successful brew week.  

Cheers!

This week's evil plan!!! Muhuhahaha!

Ugh, it's been below freezing here or raining for what seams like two weeks. I'm ready to crash this Hefe, and put it into secondary with some blackberry puree. That's all well and good, and doesn't require any good weather to do, as its pretty much an all in the house job. I do however want to reuse the massive yeast cake that I have been nurturing for the past two months for one more rodeo. I have an excellent dunkelweizen ready to get mashed, and I want to use this large pitch of Wyeast 3638 as my primary fermenting microbe. I'm actually contemplating dumping the wort straight from the boil kettle, cooled of course, into the primary that this Hefe has been occupying for the past two weeks. Give the vessel a really good shake to bring the yeast back into solution, and then cap her off. Should be interesting.

Recipe for my Blackberry Wheat Nectar

Blackberry Nectar

20-A Fruit Beer
Author: Andrew Murrey

Size: 5.76 gal
Efficiency: 55%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 105.3 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.032 (1.026 - 1.120)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.008 (0.995 - 1.035)
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Color: 3.21 (1.0 - 50.0)
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Alcohol: 3.12% (2.5% - 14.5%)
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Bitterness: 14.6 (0.0 - 100.0)
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Ingredients:

5.5 lb Pale Wheat Malt
4 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt
1 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m
1 ea WYeast 3638 Bavarian Wheat™
5 lb Blackberries (pureed) - added dry to secondary fermenter

Schedule:

Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.19

This is the Dunkelweizen that is currently in my primary. I plan on serving this beer at a Knights of Columbus dinner in November.

IndyBuell Dunkelweizen

15-B Dunkelweizen
Author: Andrew Murrey
Date: 8/22/11

Size: 5.04 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 173.83 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.052 (1.044 - 1.056)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.013 (1.010 - 1.014)
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Color: 15.62 (14.0 - 23.0)
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Alcohol: 5.14% (4.3% - 5.6%)
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Bitterness: 16.7 (10.0 - 18.0)
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Ingredients:

5 lb Dark Wheat Malt
3.5 lb Pilsner Malt
1 lb Munich Malt Dark
.5 lb German CaraMunich II
.25 lb Belgian Special B
1 oz Tettnanger (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 ea WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen™

Schedule:

Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.17

Northern Brewer Weizenboch Recipe

This week, I brewed the "Advantageous Weizenboch" recipe from Northern Brewer.  It's an extract kit with some specialty grains.  This is my fourth homebrew this year, and I've really started to get the hang of the process.  I have brewed exclusively wheat beers since taking the hobby back up in mid February.  I've had really good luck so far with the Wheat LME from Northern Brewer, as well as the Bavarian Wheat LME from Briess at our local homebrew shop.  
This recipe called for 6lbs of Munich LME, as well as 6lbs of Wheat LME.  I used a CaraAroma (German) specialty grain that I steeped for 20 minutes at 160 degrees along with my first ever "First Wort" Hop addition of 1oz of Perle (German) hops.  See below for an analysis outputted by Beer Tools Pro of the recipe as I performed it.  This is also the first brew that I have used a yeast cake scavenged from a previous brew.  I used the WYeast 3638 on a Bavarian Witbier two brews ago, and made a starter from my slurry, and it fired right up.  That pocketed me about $7 in savings on this particular brew.  But don't get me wrong, this hobby is not a cost savings effort.  I really enjoy fresh beer, and this is the best way to take care of that craving :)

NB Weizenboch

15-C Weizenbock
Brew Date: 6/20/11

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 280.72 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.084 (1.064 - 1.090)
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Terminal Gravity: 1.021 (1.015 - 1.022)
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Color: 15.26 (12.0 - 25.0)
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Alcohol: 8.3% (6.5% - 8.0%)
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Bitterness: 40.1 (15.0 - 30.0)
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Ingredients:

.5 lb German CaraAroma
6 lb Munich Liquid
6 lb CBW® Bavarian Wheat Liquid (Malt Extract)
1 oz Perle (9.4%) - added first wort, boiled 60 min
1 oz Hersbrucker (2.7%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 ea WYeast 3638 Bavarian Wheat™

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.16