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Honey Wheat Ale Brew Day

Hey gang~

I was able to plan and execute a brew day today.  This time around, it was the honey wheat ale.  Here are my notes:

For the mash, I was a bit lower than my intended temperature of 152F.  I mashed at 150F.

Even with the help of rice hulls, I still got a stuck sparge.  I had to disturb the grain bed a few times around the bazooka tube to get the flow going again.

The boil went fine except for one boil over at the beginning.

I modified the recipe a bit.  I increased the base malts (2-row and wheat malt) to 5 lbs each.  I upped the honey malt to 1.5 lbs.

I  used Columbus hops for bittering (60 mins) and Fuggles/Styrian Goldings for flavor (30 mins).

Chilling the wort took a long time (1.5 hrs).  The air temperature was 80F and the tap water temperature was 64F.  Sheesh!

The best part of this brew day was my yeast starter.  I made a 1 liter starter on Thursday night.  By Sunday afternoon, it had attained high krausen.   I have been making smaller starters and I hadn’t seen this kind of yeast activity before.  It was great.

Starting gravity was 1.060, so it was good to have an active yeast starter available.

The beer is going to be more caramel colored than straw colored, but that is the nature of the honey malt.

A couple of photos:

Fuggle and Styrian Goldings hops Honey Wheat Ale Boil

I will post more information as this brew progresses.

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3 Comments

  1. How much of your rice hulls did you add?

    What are we going to do about that stuck sparge… you are batting 1.000 for stuck sparge now? Getting a stuck sparge with even rice hulls makes me thing the bazooka screen is not cutting it for sparge filter, too coarse maybe.

  2. I put a pound of rice hulls in. I did put them in all the way in the bottom, thinking that was the best way to do it. Not sure about that.
    So here the options I am toying with to remedy the sitch:
    1. Get a bazooka screen that is “T” shaped instead. Those are the ones that are made specifically for the round coolers.
    2. Get a false bottom instead.
    3. Get a grain mill and have more control on my grain.
    1 and 2 are up for debate. 3 is a necessary piece of equipment…it’s more a matter of timing.

  3. Freefallerup

    Regarding the german lager yeast…I used WLP 830 for a Marzen and fermented it at about 55º. It turned out awesome. I shared it with some friends who are used to drinking stuff like oldstyle and meisterbrau……it was a higher gravity brew, 1.060. They loved it. Polished off 5 gallons in one night.

    Recipe is as follows:
    10 Gallons
    10 lbs. pilsen- Weisheimer
    8 lbs. Munich
    2 lbs. Caramunich
    1½ lbs. Carapils
    1 lb. Wheat
    4 oz. EKG 60 min. 30 IBU
    1 oz. Saaz 15 Min.
    Irish Moss
    WLP 830

    Can’t wait to do this one again, just need cooler temps for fermenting.

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