Alan's and Melissa's Ireks Wheat

Bodensatz Brewing

Ireks Hefeweizen

Our first attempt at making this beer turned out so well that we just had to make it again. It was pretty-darned close to a real Bavarian Wheat beer the first time around, so this time all we've changed is that we're using a real Wheat Beer Yeast Wyeast 3068, and our finishing hops is different.

Ingredients

3 kg can Ireks Wheat Malt Extract
500 g light dry malt extract
500 g crystal malt
2 oz Hallertauer hops
1/2 oz Saaz hops (10 minutes)
1/2 oz Saaz hops (5 minute steep)
1 litre starter of Wyeast 3068

Method

Crack the crystal malt (with a rolling pin if you must) and put it into a grain bag. Put 8 litres of cold water into your brewpot, put the bag in the pot, and turn on the heat. Just as the water starts boiling, remove the bag.

Empty the extracts into the water, stirring well. Put the 2 oz of Hallertauer hops into a bag and immerse into the boiling wort. Boil for 1 hour, adding 1/2 oz Saaz hops with 10 minutes left in the boil, and the other 1/2 oz after the boil, for 5 minutes.

Remove the hops and sparge into a carboy which is about 1/3 full with cold water. Now empty the wort from the brewpot into the carboy.

Pitching

Smacked the pack on March 26, and pitched it into a 500ml starter (1.035) on the 28th when it was swelled up. After that got going, it was stepped up to 1.5 litres, only 1 litre of which was pitched. The other 500ml was used to propagate the yeast for future use.

Data

brewed: Mar 30, 1996
pitched: Mar 30, 1996 immediately at 20C (wort chiller)
bottled:
O.G. 1.043
F.G. 1.0

Fermentation

It was pitched at about 5pm, and the fermentation took off sometime in the middle of that night. On the morning of the 31st it was blowing wildly out of the blow-off tube, and did that for about 48 hours. On Apr 02 is slowed down to about one bubble per second, at which time a fermentation lock was affixed. On Apr 3 in the morning it was slowed down significantly, to about 1 bubble per 20 seconds or so. All in all, a very nice, fast ferment.