In the Fermentor: If at first you don't succeed....

...take another stab at making a Dunkelweizen.

My first attempt didn't turn out so great. It actually improved as it aged, but things never quite jelled. I've decided to start over from scratch. I'm hopeful that one of the magic ingredients will be German Dark Wheat. Since my local store doesn't carry it, I ordered some online, because I'm just that ~~insane~~ dedicated when it comes to brewing good beer. The other trick is dehusked roasted malt. In this case, I'm using Dehusked Carafa II. Removing the the husk is supposed to let the malt give your beer a brown hue, without the astringent notes traditional roasted malts can bring. To be safe, I'm using just enough to give me the color I want. My boil time has also been increased to 90 minutes to minimize the risk of DMS (Dimethyl Sulfide) odors in the finished beer that Pilsener malts can sometimes impart.

As a final comment, you'll notice below that my Dunkelweizen is a very inexpensive beer to brew. The tiny amount of hops required is a big part of the reason. I was able to brew this beer for less than half the cost of the most readily available commercial Dunkelweizen in my area. Here's the grain bill for five gallons:

Grains:
4 lbs Dark Wheat
3 lbs Pale Wheat
2 lbs Munich Malt
1.5 lbs Pilsener Malt
8 oz Cara Wheat
8 oz Cara Munich III
2 oz Dehusked Carafa II

Hops:
0.5 oz Opal: 90 min

Yeast:
Safbrew WB-06

Mash Schedule:
Saccharification Rest: 152F for 60min
Mashout: 168F for 15 minutes

Original Gravity:
1.050
Estimated Final Gravity:
1.010

IBU: 14
SRM Color: 15

Fermentation Schedule:
3 Weeks Primary
2 Weeks Bottle Conditioning

Cost: $14 per case
Commercial Equivalent: Hacker-Pschorr Dunkle Weisse: $36
Savings: $22

Comments

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