Adventures in Homebrew: Wild Smoked Wheat & Oaked Munich IPA

I was feeling a bit like a Mad Fermentationist myself after yesterday’s double brew. I finally got a chance last night to brew with the wild yeast I captured from my yard a few weeks ago. As I mentioned in my Previous Post, the plan was to brew a 2 gallon batch of smoked wheat ale. After a quick question to Matt at Oakshire, who recently wrapped up a smoked helles (the brewery’s first lager), I was off to the races (or LHBS) for 2 lbs wheat malt and 1 lb German rauchmalt.

Wild Smoked Wheat Ale

Batch Size: 2.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 1.75 gallons

2.0 lbs White Wheat
1.0 lbs Weyermann Rauchmalt
.50 oz German Tettnanger (3.2 AA%) @ 60
.50 oz German Tettnanger (3.2 AA%) @ Flame Out

Wild Yeast

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.040
Estimated FG: 1.010
Estimated ABV: 3.9%
Estimated IBU: 17
Estimated SRM: 3

The decision to brew a 2 gallon batch was born out of worry that my wild yeast starter was infected, and the desire not to expose my normal brewing equipment to it. I also decided to hedge my bets by brewing a second beer. That way if the wild yeast flops, the brew day will not have been a total loss. And really, brewing two beers simultaneously doesn’t take that much longer than brewing one, especially with Jesse lending not only a hand, but also the use of his stove with two large burners. What luxury.

I had been wanting to brew both a Munich based ale and an oaked IPA for a while now, so I figured why not combine the two. Bippity, boppity, Oaked Munich IPA.

Oaked Munich IPA

Batch Size: 5.0 gallons
Boil Volume: 6.5 gallons

10.0 lbs American Munich 10L
1.0 lbs Carastan (30-37L)
1.0 lbs Flaked Oats
0.5 lbs Cane Sugar @ 15 minutes left in boil

1.0 oz Willamette (4.8 AA%) @ First Wort Hopped
.75 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ 60
.50 oz Willamette (4.8 AA%) @ 30
1.50 oz Willamette (4.8 AA%) @ Flame Out – Steeped @ 180(F)
1.25 oz Chinook (10.9 AA%) @ Dry Hopped (primary, days  7-14)
1.0 oz Medium+ Toasted Oak Chips (primary, days 1-14)

Safale US-05

Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 75%
Estimated OG: 1.059
Estimated FG: 1.015
Estimated ABV: 5.7%
Estimated IBU: 51
Estimated SRM: 14

Being so low in diastatic power, I wasn’t sure if the Munich malt would be up to the task of converting the other grains. My maths showed that it should work…barely. To give it a fighting chance, we did a long, low mash: 4 hours at 152(F).

For our extra care and effort, we were rewarded with a God-awful mess of a stuck mash. I’m not sure if the problem was the stupidly fine crush I received from the homebrew shop, the flaked oats, the 4 hour mash or some combination thereof. In any case, there were definitely some flow issues. Wee spent the better part of an hour prodding at the braided-hose filter to keep the wort trickling out. With the grain bed in constant flux, it never had a chance to set and a huge amount of particulate made its way into the kettle. 1 1/2 Whirfloc tabs also made their way in for good measure.

If the hop schedule looks familiar, that is because it was lifted from Denny Conn’s Rye IPA, with a slight tweak to the Chinook additions to keep the IBU hovering around 50. For the flame out hops, I employed a technique learned on Homebrewtalk.com. The wort was quickly cooled to 180(F) then the hops were added and steeped for 30 minutes before further cooling. Supposedly, this process extracts more flavor and aroma than putting the hops in right at flame out. We’ll see in a few weeks if the difference is noticeable (or if it’s all been a pack of lies – Genesis Editor).

The oak chips were soaked overnight in Bourbon, then rinsed in water and finally steamed to sanitize them. They were added to the fermenter along with the yeast and will remain there until I rack to secondary. I would have liked to have used an English ale yeast, but US-05 is currently the only non-Belgian strain in my fridge. I would have also liked to brew a slightly stronger beer, but with 5 gallon mash tuns, I’m pretty limited on the size of my grain bills. Even with 12 lbs or grain, there wasn’t room for a mash out infusion. We had to pull a decoction and add it back to reach my mash out temp. Despite all these issues, we still hit our target starting gravity spot on.

Unlike the IPA, the wheat beer brew went flawlessly. Ironic since at ~67% wheat malt, it is the one I was worried about sticking. The only issue arose when I took the hydrometer reading; we were way under target. I think this is a result of not sparging. We mashed pretty thin and were able to fill the smaller kettle with just the initial runnings, and probably not all of them. Not the end of the world, I can just pretend I’m in Utah while drinking my 3% beer.

My fears were also confirmed when I pitched my wild yeast. While decanting, I poured off 3 little bacteria islands that were most likely the parties responsible for my starter’s lemony zing. Again, no worries, this is why I keep my equipment separate. I am still looking forward to the outcome of my wild yeast experiment. Also, there are now several other people attempting to culture there own local yeasts on the Homebrewtalk Thread that prompted my experimentation. Well worth the read if you have a few minutes.

Finally, while typing this up, I realized that I have not yet written about the dark mild I brewed a couple months back; half fermented with a trappist yeast, half distilled into a non-alcoholic beer. I’ll try to have a post about it up in the next few days.

Cheers!
Kevin