Whiskey Weizenbock

Lately, I've been thinking about ways to use the wheat that was sent to me this summer by our new friend Jason in Kansas.  The wheat was sent shortly after harvest and accordingly it was unmalted.  Admittedly, I was intimidated by the possibility of having to malt close to twenty pounds of wheat.  So I did what anyone would have done, I put the wheat on the shelf and ignored it for awhile.  Having received a fantastic malt mill for Xmas from my parents, I started to think about that raw wheat still sitting on the shelf.  After some reading I realized that I didn't have to malt the wheat as long as I used at least an equal amount of malted barley in the mash.  The enzyme content in modern malted barley is quite high and that means well milled wheat can be broken down into simple sugars by the enzymes in the malted barley included in the same mash.  Enter, the malt mill.

Additionally, I had just purchased a 50 lbs. bag of US two row barley.  Third, while I usually brew ales, my garage has been pretty steadily maintaining a 50 degree temperature the last few weeks, which is the perfect temperature at which to ferment a lager (at least primary fermentation).  All of these factors led me to brew a weizenbock this afternoon.  Now, the recipe wasn't perfect.  This weizenbock is not exactly to style, and I had to call a few audibles.  A pure weizenbock would rely on german malts (munich and pilsner) as the backbone of the mash.  But being a poor graduate student, I couldn't simply ignore that brand new 50 lbs. of two row (what I mean to say is that I couldn't afford to ignore it).  Second, I stopped by my local homebrew store yesterday in hopes of picking up a German Bock yeast strain (WLP833) and unfortunately all they had was the White Labs 838 strain, Southern German Lager.  Again, beggars can't be choosers so I decided to move forward.  Despite both these deviations from the ideal recipe, I think I'll turn out a nice product.

As part of this beer's journey to completion I plan to age it for a few weeks in my recently acquired whiskey barrel (currently being used to age an english strong ale).  I noticed today that Mike, over at the Mad Fermentationist, used a near identical barrel to age a triple wheat bock.  Mike is an awesome brewer, so at least this concept is in good company (the execution is up to me!).

It was a chilly brew day at a high of 32 degrees, which gives everything a dramatic steamy look:

Whiskey Weizenbock

	Style: Weizenbock
	Type: All Grain	Calories: 208
	Rating: 0.0	Boil Size: 6.40 Gal
	IBU's: 26.19	Batch Size: 5.50 Gal
	Color:   17.8 SRM	Boil Time: 90 minutes
	Preboil OG: 1.060

		Estimated	Actual
	Brew Date:	-	02/17/2013
	OG:	1.064	1.062
	FG:	1.014	1.014
	ABV:	6.55 %	6.29 %
	Efficiency:	70 %	67 %
	Serve Date:	04/14/2013	/ /

Fermentation Steps
Name	Days / Temp	Estimated	Actual
Primary	14 days @ 48.0°F	02/17/2013	02/17/2013
Secondary	21 days @ 50.0°F	03/03/2013	-
Secondary	21 days @ 32.0°F	03/24/2013	-

Grains & Adjuncts
Amount	Percentage		Name	Time	Gravity
7.00 lbs	45.90 %		Red Wheat	60 mins	1.037
7.00 lbs	45.90 %		Pale Malt (2 Row) US	60 mins	1.036
1.00 lbs	6.56 %		Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L	60 mins	1.034
4.00 ozs	1.64 %		Chocolate Malt	60 mins	1.028

Hops
Amount	IBU's		Name	Time	AA %
0.75 ozs	16.74		Pearle	60 mins	7.80
1.00 ozs	6.68		Tettnang	15 mins	4.70
0.25 ozs	2.77		Pearle	15 mins	7.80

Yeasts
Amount	Name	Laboratory / ID
1.0 pkg	Southern German Lager	White Labs 0838

Additions

(none)

Mash Profile

Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 156.0°F

Add 19.06 qt ( 1.25 qt/lb ) water @ 173.3°F

Sparge

Sparge 16.47 qt of 170.0°F water over 60 mins

Sippin' on wheat and whiskey,

Holz