Holy hell making beer is a ton of work. Its double the amount of work if you do All grain brewing.
I have been planning to brew a wheat ale for nearly three weeks now, but due to other commitments and time constraints I have not had a chance to do it. Today is the day.
Bradinator’s All Canadian Malt Wheat Ale
Grains —
- 3lbs Pale Malt, 2-Row
- 3lbs Wheat Malt
- 1lbs Rye Malt
Hops —
- 1oz Hallertau @ 20 min
Yeast —
- 11g Nottingham Ale Year, rehydrated
Equipment
- 6.5 gallon Aluminum pot, with insulation blanket
- 2 gallon steel pot
- 5 gallon plastic bucket (for both wort holding after mash out and fermentation)
- Large plastic bowl, measuring cups
- Stir spoon, grain bag, hydrometer
Procedure –
1. Get your equipment and clean everything
2. Fill the 6.5 gallon kettle with 3 gallons of water and the 2 gallon pot with 2 gallons of water.
3. In the 6.5 gallon brew pot bring the 3 gallons of water to 171F, remove the heat
4. Add the grain, stir until all is soaked. Make sure the temperature is around 155F.
5. Allow to sit for 70 minutes at 155F, stirring every 15 minutes. For 20 additional minutes raise the mash temperature to 165F (this was recommended to get a better efficiency). This is a 90 minute mash.
6. Begin heating the 2 gallon pot’s water (for sparging) to 175c.
7. Remove the grain bag from and allow the wort to drain into the pot.
8. Transfer the wort from the 6.5G kettle to the 5G fermenter.
9. Using the heated sparge water slowly pour over the grain to free up more of the sugars.
10. Add the wort in the 5G fermenter back into the 6.5G kettle. Take a gravity reading.
11. Bring the wort to a boil. Add the hops. Boil for 20 minutes
12. Rehydrate the yeast in 500ml of warm water.
13. Using an ice bath, cool down the wort to 27c and pitch the rehydrated yeast
The original gravity of this was 1.040-1.042 which means I got just over 70% efficiency from my mash. That is a big improvement from the 55% I got last time. I think the longer mash and increased mash temperature near the end helped.
Total grain bill was $20.00 for this batch, including the hops and yeast. Including prep and cleaning time this batch nearly took 5 hours to finish.