I saved the trub from my weizen batch, gave it a rinse, and then pitched the yeast into about a quart of starter wort on the Wednesday before I brewed. The starter got going pretty quick—faster than I expected—and I think that might have affected the fermentation in my dunkelweizen.

Goal for the dunkelweizen was 1.053 at 4 gallons = 212GUs.

Malt bill:

German Wheat: 50% x 212GU = 106GU / (37GU/gallon x 0.70) = 4.09lbs

Munich: 42.5% x 212GU = 90.1GU / (35GU/gallon x 0.70) = 3.68lbs

Special B: 3.2% x 212GU = 6.78GU / (31GU/gallon x 0.70) = 0.32lbs

Crystal 40: 3.2% x 212GU = 6.78GU / (34GU/gallon x 0.70) = 0.29lbs

Carafa Special: 1.1% x 212GU = 2.332GU / (32GU/gallon x 0.70) = 0.15lbs

So a total of 8.53lbs and I calculated 10.66qts for mash and 12.8qts for sparge.

Unfortunately I forgot to add in my rice hulls with the mash—I ended up stirring them in after an hour of mash.

I mashed in a little hot but stirred down to 152-154F after an initial strike temperature of 168-170F.

I mashed out with 4qts of hot water at 200F along with the rice hulls and stirring, which brought the temperature up to 164F.

I sparged with the rest of the water, about 3.5 gallons and ended up with 4.75 gallons of 1.032 at 127F, which equals 1.042.

That means I got 42GU/gallon x 4.75 = 199.5GU of a targeted 212GU, so a little low. Possibly inefficient because of the lack of rice hulls in the mash? At any rate, I checked this versus my target OG: 199.5GU = V x 53GU/gallon = 3.76 gallons, which was perfect because I usually boil off 1 gallon/hour. I didn’t have to change anything.

I hopped with 1.oz of hallertau, the same as in my previous weizen, but I realized that would end up being hoppier than I wanted because the volume was smaller than that batch, so I ended up pulling the hop bag after 30 minutes.

The final gravity was 1.054 at 62F, so right on target. All of my gravities have ended up being 1 point over my target, which is kind of crazy. Feeling pretty confident about hitting target gravities.

I fermented it for two weeks or so and it got down to 1.009. Again, I can’t remember specifically, but I vaguely remember the ABV being around 5.75%, and I also remember that I measure the gravity once after 10 days and then again at two weeks and the gravity had dropped one point, so I think it went from 1.010 to 1.009.

This one turned out nicely as well, but the nose wasn’t quite as nice as the first weizen, perhaps because the starter wasn’t at a good point when I pitched it, or because I overpitched the yeast? I’m going to do a smoked hefe next with the same yeast, so we shall see how things turn out.