Leaky Kettle Wheat Ale

[HutBrew]

Leaky Kettle Wheat Ale [Brewed 2/28/21]

Malt: 13lb lb total
2-row 6 lb
Wheat 4 lb
Vienna 2 lb
CaraMunich I 1 lb

Hops: 4oz total
Centennial
½ oz 60m
½ oz 35m
Cascade, Citra & Lemondrop
½ oz each 20m
½ oz each 5m

Additional Ingredients:
Rice Hulls 2.5 Handfulls
Whitlfloc tablet 1

Yeast:
US-05 1 Sachet

OG: 1.060
Expected ABV: ~6%
Strike temperature 153*F


First All Grain Batch I’ve ever done! (surprise, my kettle leaked!)

Ended up with 4.5gal in the fermentor, so i’m anticipating 4gal to be able to bottle

 

[3 Dawg Night]

Great name!

 

[chavacheves]

So this recipe is for 5.5 gallons originally but you adjusted the amounts for 4.5 gallons or did the leak happen after you used up the amounts for 5.5?

 

[HutBrew]

I had much more boil-off than expected, the kettle actually didn’t leak too much (maybe 8 Fl Oz over the whole brew day).
I was using equipment I hadnt used before and ended up with 4.5 in the fermentor after about a 1/2 gallon was left in the kettle.
But yes, the recipe was designed for 5.5 in the fermentor- I did not adjust anything about the recipe other than batch size.
The 13 lbs of grain in 5.5gal at a theoretical 70% efficiency should yield a 6% abv beer
I learned that my brewhouse efficiency later was ~50% after accounting for kettle loss and other things

 

[HutBrew]

Leaky Kettle was finally fully carbonated in the bottles today, after trying 2 bottles over the past 2 weeks.
I perceived a nice balance of malt and hops, with the caramunich really giving a light caramelized sweetness to it. The hops were definitely present in the finish, a nice mix of bitter and citrus zest which didn’t linger for too long. Hops faded into a wheaty breadiness. Overall I’m very happy with my first all grain brew. Will brew this recipe again!
Switching to all grain was not a mistake, it had flavor akin to craft beer, which I was not able to reproduce when brewing with extracts.
Thanks for reading!