AG#13 Friday 13th All Grain Wheat Beer

With the run of luck we've had recently I figured Friday the 13th couldn't really do much more to me so I brewed. It turned out to be my 13th All Grain brew... It didn't actually dawn on me until I began filling in my brew sheet and I'm not really superstitious so don't expect things to differ one day from the next whether walking under ladders or leaving shoes on the table (touch wood). Not that I'd leave my shoes on the table anyway...

This brew was good for me, I really enjoyed it. Different yeast (Danstar Munich) and some very different grains amongst the usual. Munich Malt, Bavarian Pilsner malt, Wheat Malt and my first ever encounter with Hallertaur Mittlefruh hops. It was also my first brew using 1/4 Protofloc tablet for my copper finings, more on which later... It was also my first, unforgettable fermentation, BOOM!!!!

Wuppit's Wit 1313

Brew Length: 25l - Grain bill based on Easy Wit from beerrecipes.org

90 minute mash, 60 minute boil.

Fermentables and adjuncts (weights are my exact ones).
Wheat Malt: 2544g
Bohemian Pilsner malt: 1989g
Flaked Wheat: 504g
Munich Malt: 354g
Pale Crystal: 201g
Torrified Wheat: 202g

Hops.
Hallertaur Mittlefruh: 30g (60 mins)
Styrian Goldings (Bobek): 16g (45 mins)
Hallertaur Mittlefruh: 16g (15 mins)

Aromatics (In with last hops at 15 mins).
Coriander seed, ground coarsely with a pestle and mortar: 41g
Orange peel (unwaxed, organic oranges and with the white pith scraped away): 41g
Camomile (from opened Camomile tea bags): 3g - 4g (the scales were hovering between the two).

Total liquor: 38l

Mash liquor: 14.5l - Sparged with all of the remaining liquor.

From what I'm used to with previous brews there looked to be a lot of flaked wheat, mostly buried in the shot above, so I was expecting my first stuck mash. As I was doughing in the whole mash felt a lot more solid, porridgey than previously.

It ran off from the mash tun really well as it turned out.

Hallertaur Mittlefruh smell great, I'm not the best at describing aromas and flavours very well but they smelled... great, distinctive.

After sparging I ended up with a fair old quantity of wort so I put some to one side to boil up and use for yeast culturing after the yeast in this brew has done its job. My excuse is I usually do a 90 minute boil so evaporation losses are typically around 8-10 litres. I'd sort of forgotten this was only going to be 60 minutes.

Aromatics ready to go in 15 mins from the end of the boil. LOL'd whilst just looking at my brew sheet and saw they actually went in at 13 mins from the end of the boil... 13,13,13 FFS!!!

30g Hallertaur Mittlefruh in at start of rolling boil - I skimmed the initial surface crud as I have been doing the last few brews.

16g Bobek in after 15 minutes, 45 mins from end of the boil.

13 minutes from end of boil and in with the orange peel, a couple of minutes after the last 16g H. Mittlefruh hops had gone in. Chiller in at 15 minutes to sterilize in the boiling wort and hooked up, ready to go.

In goes the coarsely crushed coriander seed followed by the camomile and 1/4 protofloc tablet. Right, with regard to the protofloc... First time using it but I wasn't really all that impressed compared to my previous brews using rehydrated Irish Moss. I got a cold break of course but the clumping was nothing to write home about, maybe I'll up it to 1/2 a tablet next time but I've read all over that 1/4 tabs is enough for 23 to 25 litres.

I wasn't sure whether a typically cloudy beer like a wheat beer should use any floc at all but was advised to chuck some in via Twitter. I'd read that the desired cloudiness is from the yeast not suspended shite but I wanted confirmation.

Ran off to the FV nicely. After my previous brew run off clarity issues (the bloody immersion chiller trapping hops and keeping them away from settling on the hop filter) I removed the chiller and gave it a few minutes to allow stuff to settle back down.

I'd started off the Danstar Munich Wheat Beer yeast a couple of days previously and it had been happily glugging away in an air locked 2l water bottle. Pitched it as the FV was filling from the copper at 26C

Put the FV into a water bath I've made from a large bin and heated with an aquarium heater set at 18-20C which gives a typical water temperature of 20-21C. This was the krausen just a few hours later. I was a bit concerned that it had already touched the underside of the lid already but... it looked like it was settling back down a bit so I left it.

The following morning I went in to check and found this.

Bloody F*ck!

I took the FV out and gave the outside a clean over, emptied the water bath and cleaned everything back down. Re-filled with water at 21C and popped it all back in.

It behave after that. I've just been in to it and I think I'll give it a gravity test tomorrow, it's all settled down but there appears to still be a fair bit of activity going on below the surface.

UPDATE 10th May 2012. Here's a link to a photo of the finished beer taken a few evenings ago. All grain weissen.