Dunkelweizen?

[Wolf]

Just ordered a beerdroid and while I wait for my unit to ship I've been looking through the recipe spreadsheet and comparing with some beer kits to get a feel of what's possible. I'm a huge fan of dark wheat beers and Belgian beers but there seems to be very few recipes out there.

Using the German Hefweizen as a base I thought I would have a crack at a dunkelweizen (cross between a dunkel and a hefweizen) for my first brew. I'm aiming for something like the erdinger dunkel which is reasonably sweet. Any feedback from anyone with experience or who has tried similar would be appreciated.

E2 x2

X2 x2

X3

Y5

From what I've read this should have around 18 IBU.  Would this be dark enough?

Would swapping out one of the E2 for an E3 make the brew too bitter?

Similar would including an X4 with or instead of an X3 make it too stouty or does the bitterness come more from the Elements rather than the Extracts? Don't mind if it comes out closer to 6% than 5%.

 

[Rob Courtney]

45 minutes ago, Wolf said:

Just ordered a beerdroid and while I wait for my unit to ship I've been looking through the recipe spreadsheet and comparing with some beer kits to get a feel of what's possible. I'm a huge fan of dark wheat beers and Belgian beers but there seems to be very few recipes out there.

Using the German Hefweizen as a base I thought I would have a crack at a dunkelweizen (cross between a dunkel and a hefweizen) for my first brew. I'm aiming for something like the erdinger dunkel which is reasonably sweet. Any feedback from anyone with experience or who has tried similar would be appreciated.

E2 x2

X2 x2

X3

Y5

From what I've read this should have around 18 IBU.  Would this be dark enough?

Would swapping out one of the E2 for an E3 make the brew too bitter?

Similar would including an X4 with or instead of an X3 make it too stouty or does the bitterness come more from the Elements rather than the Extracts? Don't mind if it comes out closer to 6% than 5%.

 

Hey Wolf,

                Welcome to the forum. You won't regret the purchase of a droid, one of the easiest ways to brew beer. As to the question, not my field but there will be a few that do and will give opinions.

[Captain 3 Droids]

Hi Wolf and again welcome to the forum.

You will need the 2 x X2 (wheat malt), the X3 (Amber and sweetness) and I’d go the 2 xE2 plus an E3. Y5

This will give you 6.5%. 
 

 

[Thagomizer]

Wolf,

Welcome to the forum.  Enjoy your BeerDroid.

Your original recipe of E2 x 2 + X2 x 2 + X3 should yield an ABV of 5.5% at a color of 24 (according to the Banjo formula).

Captain 3 Droids' suggestion of adding an E3 packet will indeed raise the ABV to 6.5% and the color to about 53. (Banjo formula, again, on the color.)

Let us know your outcome.  This brew sounds interesting.

 

[Thagomizer]

Wolf,

Oops, I neglected bitterness.  Your original formula should have a bitterness of about 18.  The Captain's suggested addition of the E3 element would increase the bitterness to about 30.  (Another Banjo formula.)

Happy brewing. 🙂

[Wolf]

Thank you so much all for the feedback. I found Banjos formula which is what I used to tweak the recipe. As the delivery of new droids is delayed until late April I still have a bit of time to consider.

 

Perhaps E2+E3 would be the way to go? Color should be in the 40s with bitterness of 21, still a little over what it should be but not by much. If I want more alcohol I can always add an X5 to fortify it.

I picked up some stainless kegs from a site that also sells extracts and they have a similar idea with pre configured recipes that automatically add the components to the cart - although there is mention of the malts being liquid rather than a powder. Would half strength work ok using these liquids? Can you mix and match substituting either the liquid elements or enhancers for one of the powders?

[Thagomizer]

Wolf,

Yes, you can certainly mix liquid HME's and LME's with the powdered extracts.  Cooper's Lager and Cooper's Draught (these are not BrewPrints) are good examples of this.  They are 5/6 gallon recipes that I split into two sequential batches in my droid.  There is a can of liquid HME and a bag of powdered enhancer.  The instructions do not include nor recommend a boil.  Both brews are reliable with good quality results in the droid.

Although I usually just throw in a BrewPrint, I sometimes like to experiment with other recipes and kits.  The droid will handle about anything if you scale it to a ten liter batch.  

One suggestion is that you should not try a partial batch (less than nine liters).  The droid apparently has at least two temperature sensors, one mounted low and the other high.  This is part of their patented process that detects starting and ending of fermentation.  (See FAQ 10 of their website.)  Although there are several heavily loaded BrewPrints that stipulate nine liters of water, most require ten.  Once each day, your droid will post "fT" in the temperature display area on its screen.  This fermentation test takes about an hour.

🙂 Happy brewing

[Captain 3 Droids]

5 minutes ago, Thagomizer said:

There is a can of liquid HME and a bag of powdered enhancer

Are you dissolving the liquid in water before adding to the Droid?

[Thagomizer]

15 minutes ago, Captain 3 Droids said:

Are you dissolving the liquid in water before adding to the Droid?

No, I simply scraped the HME into the room temperature water (yeast already added) and then dumped in the enhancer.  At this point, it looked like a regular BrewPrint load.

It seems to me that being able to add powdered ingredients without tedious mixing (proven by the BeerDroid's Success), then the liquids should be even easier.   This has worked and it is the recommended procedure on the kit.  Yes, I was a little dubious about it too.  For years, I did the boil, cooling and then adding the yeast.  The Beerdroid changes these procedures dramatically.

There may be more "magic" in the BeerDroid's operation than we knew.  Apparently, the dynamics of the yeast in its operation accomplish more mixing than we suspected.

I will still use the older procedures for classical brews, however.

[Wolf]

I'm giving this a test run in a plastic fermenting container since the new droids delivery is now May at some point. 

I decided to go with E2,E3,X2,X2,X3,Y5. Once it stops bubbling I will throw it in a 10L stainless keg with two carbonation bars for a couple of weeks.

[Captain 3 Droids]

1 minute ago, Wolf said:

I'm giving this a test run in a plastic fermenting container since the new droids delivery is now May at some point. 

I decided to go with E2,E3,X2,X2,X3,Y5. Once it stops bubbling I will throw it in a 10L stainless keg with two carbonation bars for a couple of weeks.

Good .move, sad about the Droid delay but still brewing is the best move. Recipe looks good, will you dry hop? If so what.

[Wolf]

No hops at this point, I think the element packs should be sufficiently hopped for this style.

[Wolf]

Well the airlock never bubbled but observations with a thermal camera suggested something had happened. It sat on 22C for the first few hours then simmered away at 19C for 4 days when it dropped to ambient. Sediment formed for two days after that. Tested the gravity on day 6 and it looks done.

Sitting in the keg now awaiting carbonation. I'm planning on chilling it overnight in a stainless keg then carbonating at about 14 psi for a couple of days.

[Wolf]

Color is good and flavour is pretty close.

I ended up force carbonating the keg. Still a little flat so I will give it an extra roll around but overall a success, must have fluked the perfect weather for the fermentation. Can't wait to see how it tastes from the droid.

[Wolf]

After further sampling it's right on the upper edge of hoppiness for this style of beer. Maybe it's the uncontrolled fermentation or maybe I need to dial back the bitterness a touch. The only way I can think of doing that without affecting the colour would be to swap out the E2 for an extra X3 (amber malt?).

[Wolf]

I can't get an updated date for my droid until after Friday so here we go with round 2 (in a bucket).

After trying out the Abbey Dubbel it came out closer to the dunkelweizen than my first attempt so I'm going to smash the two together using the Belgian yeast and see what happens.

Attempt 2: E2,E2,X2,X2,X3,X3,Y6

[Wolf]

That was drinkable but dark.

Attempt 3, this time with the beerdroid. Not sure if it's a Dunkelweizen or an Abbey Tripel. Using the Abbey Dubel program.

E2, E2, X2, X2, X2, X2, X3, X3, Y7

I'll be sticking the carbonation drops in the keg and leaving this for a few weeks.

[Wolf]

Y6 sorry

[Mike A]

@Wolf  How did your experimentation go?  Did you end up getting close?

Anyone else try to get a reasonable approximation to a Dunkelweizen?

[Wolf]

To be honest I got close but it was always slightly not a dunkel in some way. I have acquired some Lalbrew Munich Classic Yeast and will take another shot at it. I will see how my 4% Belgian exbeerment turns out because one of the recipes could be close to what I'm thinking of:

E1, E3, X2, X3

If that is vaguely in the ballpark I could add another X1 or X2 depending on how wheaty it tastes and try it as a dunkel.

Edited Wednesday at 01:27 PM by Wolf