Wheatwine
What is wheatwine? According to the BJCP guidelines (2021), it is “a richly textured, high alcohol sipping beer with a significant grainy, bready flavor, and a sleek body”
| BJCP Category | 22D |
| ABV | 8.0–12.0% |
| Original Gravity (OG) | 1.080–1.120 |
| Final Gravity (FG) | 1.016–1.030 |
| IBU | 30–60 |
| Color (EBC/SRM) | 6–14 SRM |
One Way to Brew A Wheatwine
Wheatwines aren’t very easy to find, so let’s brew one! This one is aptly named, “Labor of Love”.
This wheatwine recipe is heavy on wheat malt, so if you brew this, you’ll want to add a lot of rice hulls and stir often during the mash. Brewing this beer is definitely a labor of love.
You can find the recipe on Brewfather using this link.
Batch Vital Statistics
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Batch Volume | 19 L |
| OG | 1.095 |
| FG | 1.014 |
| ABV | 10.6 % |
| Color | 24 EBC |
| IBU | 39 |
| Boil Time | 60 minutes |
Labor of Love
Recipe
Water Profile
| Ca2+ (ppm) | Mg2+ (ppm) | Na+ (ppm) | Cl– (ppm) | SO42- (ppm) | HCO3– (ppm) | pH |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51 | 7 | 16 | 61 | 73 | 38 | 5.4 |
To reach the target water profile, I added half of a Campden tablet, 3.5 g calcium chloride, 2.2 g magnesium sulfate, 2.3 g calcium sulfate, 0.9 g sodium bicarbonate, and 4.5 mL lactic acid to my source water.
After heating the water to 70 °C, a portion was removed to reserve as sparge water. The remaining heated water was added to a beverage cooler that has been converted into a mash tun.
Fermentables
| % | kg | lb | Grain/Adjunct |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60% | 5 | 11 | Wheat Malt (I had two different wheat malts in my inventory, so I used 6 lbs of Avangard Wheat malt, and 5 lbs of Briess White Wheat malt) |
| 27% | 2.27 | 5 | Vienna Malt |
| 5% | 454 g | 1 | Maris Otter Malt |
| 5% | 454 g | 1 | Weyermann Caramunich I |
| 3% | 270 g | 9.5 oz | Weyermann Melanoidin |
Mash Profile
Milled grains were slowly added to the strike water while thoroughly stirring the grain into the water to ensure all of the grain was wet.
After 10 minutes into the mash, I took an aliquot and cooled the sample to 18 °C. The pH measured 5.24.
| Step | Temperature (°C) | Temperature (°F) | Time (minutes) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saccharification Rest | 65 | 150 | 90 |
| Mash-out | 75 | 167 | 10 |
NOTE: If you brew this recipe, use a lot of rice hulls to aid in filtration. You’ll thank me later!
With a lot of wheat malt in this recipe, the mash tends to get really gummy and likely stuck. One way around this would be to perform a beta-glucanase rest before the saccharification rest. See my article on different mash rests: Do the Two-Step: Let’s Mash It Up | Breakdown of the Mash.
Another way is to use rice or oat hulls to aid in filtration so the wort can move freely through the grain bed.
This mash was very difficult to maintain temperatures, so brew day lasted a lot longer. Hence the name, “Labor of Love“.
After the mash, the grains were sparged, or rinsed, with water.
The wort was then heated to a boil and boiled for 60 minutes.
Hops
| Hop | Alpha Acid | Time | IBU |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magnum | 13.8% | 60 min | 33 |
| Hallertau Mittelfrüh | 2.7% | 10 min | 3 |
| Cascade | 6.9% | 5 min | 3 |
Yeast
For this recipe, I used Verdant IPA from Lallemand.
The wort was chilled to 16 °C and transferred to a Kegland Fermzilla All Rounder 30L fermentor. The wort was aerated for 1 hour using an aquarium pump with an aeration stone. After aeration, the yeast was pitched.
Fermentation Profile
| Step | Temperature (°C) | Temperature (°F) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lag phase | 16 | 61 | 0.5 days |
| Primary | 18 | 64 | 1 day |
| 20 | 68 | 20-28 days |
For the first 1.5 days of fermentation, the temperature was held at 18 °C or below. Verdant IPA is a monster and it was able to chew through a lot of the wort pretty quickly. After the second day, the temperature was raised to 20 °C to encourage full attenuation.
Conditioning and Carbonation
I left this beer in the fermentor for an additional week due to the holidays.
After fermentation, the wheatwine was transferred to a keg, pressurized to 8 psi CO2, and left to carbonate.
| Step | ||
|---|---|---|
| Conditioning | 5 °C/41 °F | 28 days |
| Carbonation | 8 psi | 2.2 volumes of CO2 |
Recipe Impressions
This wheatwine is an orange-gold with a slightly off-white head that has great retention.
I get wheat bread character with notes of honey and apricot on the nose. The wheatwine has a creamy texture with smooth alcohol warming. The flavor is wheat bread with honey drizzled on top with dried apricots and some orange slices.
This wheatwine is just what the doctor ordered for the long, cold winter nights in front of a roaring fire.
Do you enjoy Wheatwine? Let me know what you like or dislike about this style in the comments below!