It’s taken entirely too long for me to post this recipe. I brewed it back in March and bottled in on March 30, so let’s see what I can put together from my notes.

The recipe was incredibly simple: 50% German pilsner, 50% German wheat, 1.047OG, and 15 IBU.

The goal was 5 gallons x 47GU = 235 total GU.

German Pilsner: 50% x 235 = 117.5GU / (36GU/lbs x 0.70) = 4.66lbs

German Wheat: 50% x 235 = 117.5GU / (37GU/lbs x 0.70) = 4.54lbs

In total, that gave me 9.2lbs of grain, so I was estimating 11.5qts for the mash and 13.8qts for the sparge for a total of 6.325 gallons, maybe around 7 gallons.

I planned for 1oz of Hallertau Mittelfruh for 60 minutes, the final two-thirds of a 90 minute boil due to the pilsner malt.

My notes say that I heated the mash water to 175-180F and pitched at 168-170. I feel like I’ve been heating the mash water a little higher than on my first few batches just so I don’t spend so damn long getting my mash tun up to temp. The mash settled in at 152F nicely. It snuck up to 156-158F after a few minutes, so I stirred it until it dropped down a little.

I had a little trouble with the sparge. I vaguely remember not putting enough water into the kettle when I started warming everything up (I don’t think I got a full 7+ gallons…my kettle fits 8), so I sparged with 14-15qts.

I ended up after the sparge with 5.5 gallons at 1.032 at 125F, which equals 1.042, so 42GU x 5.5 = 231GU. I had just about all the GU I needed (231 of a targeted 235), but I knew that I would probably boil off at least a gallon in the 90 minutes, probably more.

I also used this formula to figure out my necessary post-boil volume for a 1.047 OG: 231GU = 47GU/gallon x V, V = 231/47 = 4.9 gallons

If I was going to boil off 1.5 gallons in 90 minutes, all I had to do was add an extra gallon. I just poured in a gallon of mineral water.

I boiled it all for 90 minutes and ended with a 1.048FG at 67F and pitched a 1qt starter of Wyeast 3638 at 60F. I think the fermentation went pretty well because as you can see above, the yeast went crazy. It was pretty easy to keep everything right around 60-62F because the weather was still pretty cold, although there was one day where it might have gotten up to 64F.

I can’t remember what the final gravity was, but I think I vaguely remember the ABV being somewhere below 5%, so I think it was around 1.010 or 1.009. All in all, a nice beer. It came out pretty well.