First Recipe

I wrote this post right before the brew day but it was late so I did not publish it, the actual brewing was completed on February 13, 2014.

There comes a time when the home brewer has made enough kits and read enough that we decide (for better or worse) it’s time to try our hand at creating a recipe.  After all, what fun is having total control over the process if you’re just following directions?  After recently stepping up to 5 gallon batches and partial mash I decided the time had come to attempt it.  After tossing around a few thoughts on what would be a good first recipe I settled on an extract based wheat with 2 classic hops.  Sound boring? Well, I wanted something I could offer to everyone, something that would have mass appeal and I stuck with all-extract to keep it simple.

For the most part all I could find in the DME variety was Bavarian Wheat, but I wanted to make an American Wheat, not a hefeweizen.  So after reading I discovered that the Bavarian Wheat DME has a ratio of 65% wheat to 35% barley.  Most of the American Wheat recipes I saw used a ratio around 55% wheat to 45% barley.  In order to bring the ratio where I wanted it, I also picked up some Pilsen Light DME which is 100% barley.  After some calculations I arrived at 4.2lbs of Bavarian Wheat and 0.6lbs of Pilsen Light which brought the ratio to around 57% wheat and 43% barley.  As a side note, if you look up American Wheat recipes you will find it can be pretty broad but it’s generally agreed that there is less wheat than a hefeweizen and they generally lack that ester flavor of the German yeast; but like anything else there are plenty of delicious sounding hybrid recipes.

As for hops, I am going to stick with some classic American styles: Cascade and Willamette.  As a bonus, these hops are easy to find and not expensive.  According to Qbrew: Willamette has an earthy, spicy character and Cascade has a grapefruit aroma and flavor.  Playing with Qbrew, I decided that boiling 1oz of Willamette for 60 minutes and 1oz of Cascade for the last 15 put the IBU’s at 23 and will hopefully give me the citrus aroma without an overwhelming citrus taste.  Since I probably won’t be doing a full 5 gallon boil the actual IBU’s will likely be lower (see below) but I haven’t decided if I want to increase the hop amount or stick with the easy to remember 1oz. of each measurement. 

For yeast, I’ll be utilizing the Safale US-05 I harvested from a recently kegged brown ale.  As stated earlier, another key difference between a hefeweizen and American Wheat is the yeast, while I like the banana, clovey flavors of a hefe this will be a bit tamer.

Some things I learned which might be useful to others include converting from LME to DME.  Many recipes, especially those aimed at a beginner use LME instead of DME, to convert just multiply the LME amount by 0.8.  For example if you see a recipe that calls for 6lbs of LME, that equates to 4.8lbs of DME (6 * 0.8 = 4.8).  Another thing to consider is boil size, many ‘easy’ recipes tell you to boil only 1.5 gallons and while this does let you get the wort chilled very rapidly when you pour it on 3.5 gallons of cold water, you will lose bitterness and your wort will be darker due to the smaller boil size.  Honestly, I’ve not attempted a full boil because I don’t have a wort chiller but I will boil 3 gallons and have the other 2 very cold to get the temps down.  If all you have is a 2 gallon pot you can still make quality brew, just watch for boil overs.  Another tip, a spray bottle works great for taming boil-overs.