Red-X Simcoe Wheat

[Kealia]

I'm thinking that the next beer I brew may be a wheat beer that's on the hoppy side of a pale ale, not quite an IPA.

Does anybody have a recipe they've tried that would be a good baseline here? I can always use a standard Hef grain bill and then use my pale ale hop schedule, but I'm looking for any ideas to inspire me.

Go!

[bpgreen]

I don't have a recipe, but I've got a question. Are you planning to go with a wheat yeast or something like a Chico strain?

[Kealia]

I'm planning to go with a neutral yeast, so yeah something like the Chico strain.

I want the wheat base but not the associated normal yeast profile.

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[Inkleg]

I brewed an IPA that was 50% wheat and came out right tasty, but I don't know how you feel about Amarillo .

[Beer-lord]

How much wheat do you want to use? I've read often how some rye with the wheat can make the beer even more tasty!

[Kealia]

Ah yes, Gumbalhead...a good option, thanks for posting.

I'm likely going to do 50/50 wheat with pilsner malt, Paul. I like rye in small amounts but I don't want that in this beer. That's something I prefer in the occasional beer, but not in a full 5'er.

[mashani]

I have a 50/50 wheat IPA/Pale in the fermenter right now, with Nelson Sauvin and Equanot hops, but I can't tell you if that's good or not yet, but I think it will be quite nice combo. I'll know more in a week or two when I bottle it. I like Equinot, it's very tropical fruity, but it does have a component that is kind of like bitter green pepper if you use too much and that bothers some people. I think at 2/3 NS to 1/3 Equanot and it all being late hopped, I won't even notice it though. I've made 100% Equinox (now called Equinot) beers and liked them quite much as long as they were all late hopped. The only thing is the Equinot hops were Cryo, so maybe it changes things, I don't know... we will see.

I was going to use Mosiac + Nelson, but I didn't have any Mosiac. I know that's a good combo. I also know that Gumballhead is good if you like Amarillo and have some. In the past I've also done wheat IPAs with 100% Citra and those turned out quite nice (assuming you like Citra).

All that said, I love Simcoe, so to me it doesn't matter what you put that in, so ?

[Kealia]

These are all good options, thanks. I have a pale with Nelson + Mosaic fermenting now but I think you hit on something: 100% Citra.

I just went by MoreBeer yesterday and grabbed some Pilsner LME to whip up a quick IPL that can lager until Spring so I'll still be looking to do this wheat soon.
I may ping ya on your timing/quantities for a late-hopped Citra wheat brew, mashani.

[Kealia]

I've decided on this beer (finally). When I'm ready to do it it's going to be roughly 50/50 wheat + Red-X malt with 100% Citra.

I'll need to plan for this one so I can order the red-eye and brew with it shortly after it arrives since I don't crush at home.

I'll need to play with a recipe a bit but I could either do a full mash or a partial mash with some wheat LME/DME and nothing but late hops added.

Hmmm.....

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[BlackDuck]

Hmmm. Red X and wheat? Sounds interesting.


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[Kealia]

*Thread title updated*

I think I'm close to where I want to be on this one but I want to talk something out. I'm basing the hop additions on a combination of my current process of hopstanding, mashani's approach to "all late hop addition" hopstands and looking back at my 15-minute beers that I've done in the past.

Here's the recipe in it's form today, along with my notes/questions at the end. All input & discussion appreciated.

Recipe: RedX Wheat Citra
Style: American Amber Ale
TYPE: All Grain


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.25 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.059 SG
Estimated Color: 11.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 62.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Boil Time: 15 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
5.00 g Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 1 -
3.00 g Epsom Salt (MgSO4) (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 2 -
3.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 3 -
7 lbs RedX (BestMälz) (15.2 SRM) Grain 4 58.3 %
5 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 5 41.7 %
1.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 6 18.7 IBUs
0.50 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 mins) Other 7 -
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 5.0 mins) Fining 8 -
3.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpool 30.0 min Hop 9 43.5 IBUs
1.0 pkg House (Imperial #A01) Yeast 10 -
2.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs

So, my thoughts that are open for discussion:
1) Yes, it's only a 15-minute boil. I've done this on previous DME batches without issue. I can't think of any reason that I would need to boil longer (NOT considering an early hop charge), can you?

2) My hopstand is at 180° - which is where I've found my sweet spot for flavor/aroma stability. I'll also get a bit of bitterness from this combined with the 15-minute addition.

3) Where I went back and forth is this......In my previous 15-minute DME batches I've obviously has a 15-minute addition of hops (so they go in and stay at ~212° for 15 minutes before getting chilled at the end of the boil). mashani, I know you do all your hops at flameout with the lid on which would be about 30 minutes at ~212° (depending on how much temp loss you have).
- I look at this as short of a "wash" in the sense that if I did a 30-minute boil addition and then immediately chilled to 180 for my hopstand, that 30-minute addition would be @ 212° whether I boiled for 30 minutes, or did mashani's method at flameout with the lid on for 30 minutes before chilling. Right?
- I figure by doing a 15-minute boil and then immediately chilling to 180 for my hopstand, I get 15 minutes ~ 212° plus another 30 minutes ~ 180 while my hopstand addition is....hopstanding.

So...poke holes in my thinking. Tell me what I'm not thinking about, because this seems like it would work to me.

[mashani]

I do the 10-15 minute boils with DME/LME all the time. No issues ever. No issues doing this for a steep + extract either.

I think your 15 addition/cool to 180 add more hops will work just fine.

I do a 15 or 10 addition and then add more hops too sometimes for this sort of thing.

Other times, I just do it all at flameout with a lid on.

It just depends mostly on how much hops I'm using and the AA. IE in my case I'm still throwing the late hops in @flameout/lid on vs. 180, but maybe I want more IBUs then I'll get just doing that because I'm not using as much hops.

My flameout/lid on started off more about brett control then my thinking "self, lets try all late hops". It's just that one time I figured out the IBUs I was going to get from the late hops in a batch of beer and it was as many as I actually wanted, so I rolled with it and it turned out good, so I kept doing it.

[Kealia]

Updating again.....this is what happens when I have too much time to think about recipes.
I'm swapping the Citra for Simcoe since I have a few beers that were sent to me that are mega-Citra already.

No other planned changes (as of right now anyway...)

[Kealia]

This did get brewed on 4/1. I didn't get a chance to check gravity before today, and it's at 1.011 so it got 2oz of Simcoe added this morning. It'll ride for a few days before I start the gradual cold crash and keg sometime next week.

[Kealia]

So.....this beer........sucks. I mean there is nothing that went wrong/bad other than the final product being very bland.
For example the wheat totally dominates the Red-X and no flavor from that comes through. Neither the Citra @ 15 nor the 3 oz of Simcoe in the hopstand come through - at all.
This beer tastes like wheat malt......with nothing else. There's a *tiny* bit of flavor upfront but it then it becomes wheaty and bland and finishes very dry.

I guess I was due. I've been making some really good beers for a while now and haven't had a batch that really bombed - but this one did.
So now I go for the save. This morning I added 2 more oz of Simcoe suspended in a bag to the (2.5G) keg. In the other keg that sitting aside I did the same but with just 1 oz of Amarillo as it's got a while before it will see the taps.

I wanted to brew something different and boy did I

Fortunately, I have my IPL on tap and a small supply of commercial in the fridge. I've been wanting to try Ancho's Nelson Pale Ale so maybe this is a good time to do that. I also found myself drinking more than normal these past two weeks so maybe this is also a good time to take a break for a few days and let the liver and kidneys rest

In any case, It's certainly time to brew again in case this batch can't be saved.

I'll update more in about a week or so. For now, I leave this one alone.