First BIAB Brew. Hefeweizen

[Scuba_Steve81]

Yesterday I brewed my first BIAB using a bunch of new equipment.

New to the brew was:
17.5g kettle with spigot and thermometer.
Bayou Classic propane burner.
Cheap Amazon BIAB bag lined with voile.
Voile hop bag.
25' copper immersion chiller.
Fermentation fridge with temperature controller.

To start here was my recipe:
6lb Wheat
4lb Pilsner
18g Hallertau 4.4
1 packet WB-06

It was about 85 degrees outside. No chance of rain, which proved inaccurate because I got a light sprinkle at the beginning of my boil. I don't think it affected anything though.

I started out calibrating my kettle. I did a 30 minute boil of 8 gallons and lost a full gallon to boiloff. It took an additional 30 min to begin boiling. This seemed high to me, so I plugged in a 1.5g boiloff per hour into my calculator. This seemed to be dead on after my brew was completed.

I brought up to 158 degrees, and then dropped the bag for 1 hour, stirring every 20 minutes. I did lose more heat than I wanted to. My target was 154. I ended at 148. I picked up the bag by hand, and tied it to a board on the top rung of a ladder. I gave it a few gentle squeezes. I was right on target so I didn't squeeze the hell out of it. Preboil gravity was 1.030.

I boiled for 90 minutes total. I added the hops at 60 minutes remaining using a hop bag. I have never used a hop bag before. The bag seemed fuller coming out than when I dropped it. I hope I didn't screw up using extra voile instead of something with larger pores. I was expecting the hops to basically dissolve like they do when you just throw them in the kettle. I stirred the boil roughly every 15 minutes.

At 10 minutes remaining, I threw in the chiller to sanitize it. At flameout, I turned on the hose to the chiller. Temps dropped fairly slowly. Probably due to the high outside temp. My hose water seemed pretty warm prior to hitting the copper.

Temps seemed to stall at about 120 degrees. I pulled a gravity sample and set aside. Then I placed the spigot a few mm into the carboy mouth and emptied the kettle. I had to move slowly, because the spigot was very close to the same diameter of the carboy. Moving quickly would cause the air escaping from the carboy to push wort out of the gap.

After I filled the carboy, I had about 4 cups of wort remaining. My wort was still at 120 degrees, minus however much heat was lost in the transfer. I capped the carboy, and moved it to my fermentation fridge. The fridge controller was set to 63 degrees off, 63.5 degrees on. The probe was placed directly into the carboy through a small hole drilled into the cap.

The yeast recommends pitching at 86 degrees +-6. I pitched when the temp dropped to 84. I allowed it to continue to drop until it reached fermentation temp over about the next 8 hours. I was asleep, so exact time wasn't measured. It was dropping slowly though, so I assume it took that long.

With the OG sample I pulled, I allowed it to cool and tested the OG. After temp variance was adjusted I was at 1.045. My target was 1.049 with an efficiency of 70%. 1.045 would be an actual efficiency of 65%. I am now wondering if I squeezed the bag harder, if my efficiency would have gone up.

Please post any thoughts or advise!

 

[enkamania]

I find I get a little lower efficiency with wheat bears, so I plan on 5% less.

 

[Magnus314]

Wheat sucks. Very "goopy".

A longer mash might help with wheat. Or a hot sparge.

 

[jjeffers09]

I disagree, wheat malt is great, and weissbiers are amazing. There is a lot going on with wheat malt that you have to acknowledge. Wheat is not barley and needs a different mashing schedule. Just using a single infusion with light body method of mashing can make great beer. It is not what a Hefeweizen needs. Not in my opinion anyway. An acid rest at 110F for the clove character. Which I have seen argued that the precursor – a phenolic acid – comes from the barley not the wheat but at any rate. The 4-vinyl guiacol is the compound that makes a hefeweizen vs an American wheat. There is also a need for a rest at ~ 122F for 30 mins to denature the beta glucan carbohydrates from the wheat. It is why the wheat mash is so sticky and gummy.

Simple but effective mash schedule that I start out with was:
110F for 30 mins 1.35:1
122F for 30 mins ~1.5:1
152F for 60 mins ~1.9:1
170F Mash Out ~2.25:1
And that really hot mash out helps keep those starches that have been liquefied, stay liquefied. As well as, a good mash out helps ensure a consistent brew the next time you repeat the recipe. This is all in lieu of avoiding the subject of decoctions. Which would add a 1/3 removal of grain and “wort” to a separate vessel bringing the first decoction to sacc rest and then boiling for 20-40 mins then putting it back to work in the mash. Various things happen in the mash during this step and to the grains during this step. Some say it is not worth it, and that it adds unnecessary time to your brew day. Which I for one do not mind telling my wife that her favorite beer style takes 6+hours to get a mash in to fermenter. There is one thing I heard Michael Dawson say about brewing up Lambics – none of us got into this hobby because we wanted something quick, if we wanted something quick we would just run to the store and pick up a beer. For some reason I think you have to look at this process of decoction with the same ideology. So to future brews! Cheers!

**Edit - something I do in my process that seems to differ from yours is I don't squeeze my bag, I batch sparge my grains and use a first and second runnings. Very few times have I partigyled my wheats for a Berliner weisse, but that is an option as well. But at any rate, I never squeeze my bag. I would rather open up my bag and stir around gently with 170F water to pull another/drain another few L to mix up with my wort. And my last batch was ~81% brew house efficiency - wheat has a higher extract potential too, so you should have seen better than usual extract. Wheat should be milled up better than barley. A finer mill helps a lot.

 

[Scuba_Steve81]

Just a note:

After about 36 hours, I am at 1.032. Another 0.018-0.022 and I should be at fg!

 

[Scuba_Steve81]

I kegged last night. Beer was at 1.012. I brought it down to 36 degrees and then kegged. Turned the co2 up to 30, rocked it over my knee for 7 minutes, and refridgerated. Tonight I will purge and set it at serving pressure.