Sometimes you have to go for broke. During a recent brewday, I set myself two new challenges: to brew using the traditional British parti-gyle method, and to brew with a grist predominantly made of wheat.
In parti-gyle, one makes multiple beers of differing strengths from one mash by keeping the first runnings separate from the later runnings; the first runnings, which contain the bulk of the mash’s sugars, make a small amount strong beer, while the lower-sugar later runnings make one or more session or table beers. Fuller’s Brewery famously still uses this method to produce (listed strongest to weakest) their Golden Pride, ESB, and Chiswick Bitter ales. The method employed by most modern brewers (and homebrewers) is to combine all the runnings to make a single beer; the challenges facing a novice parti-gyle brewer are to find the proper proportions of first to later runnings to reach the desired wort gravities and volumes.
After barley, wheat is the most often used grain in brewing. However, it’s not often used for more than half of the grist; it tends to get gummy, and using a lot of wheat can lead to a stuck mash (and many brewing headaches trying to get the mash moving again). Last summer’s success in brewing a British bitter composed almost entirely of rye, another notoriously gummy malt, gave me confidence to move ahead with this project.
I’ve never been a big fan of barleywines, but the concept of a wheatwine (a barleywine-strength beer made with a significant percentage of wheat) has intrigued me for some time. Using Wyeast’s Old Ale Blend should add some Brettanomyces complexity to this as it ages, as well. The idea of a low-gravity British ale (here, in the form of a light mild) made principally of wheat struck me as pretty interesting as well. I used the last of my homegrown hops from last summer, just over an ounce of Willamette, for the single hop addition for the mild. Having never actually tried a commercial wheatwine (or wheat mild, though I don’t know of too many examples) might be interpreted as another challenge, as I’m not really sure how any of these beers will taste.The brewday went pretty smoothly, if long; no stuck sparge issues at all, despite what might be considered a dangerously low mash temperature for wheat (which can encourage gumminess). I “capped” the main mash after collecting the first runnings with a “side mash” of specialty grains that added character to the mild (and helped clear out some old grain odds & ends I’d amassed by the end of the year. I didn’t get quite the efficiency I’d hoped from the batch; of course, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the parti-gyle in the first place. The brewday was greatly enhanced by the loan of a beautiful ten-gallon stainless steel brewpot from my college friend/beer & brewing buddy Ted (not this Ted); while he couldn’t make the brewday, he still made his presence felt. I split the wheat mild into two batches and used different yeasts, one British and the other American, to keep things interesting.
Wheatwine - Wheat Mild parti-gyle
Wheatwine
Projected OG: 1.115
Projected SRM: 11.6
Projected IBU: 57.3
Wheat Mild
Projected OG: 1.039
Projected SRM: 10.9
Projected IBU: 12.7
Brewhouse Efficiency (total): 68%
for 8.8 total gallons:
Grain (Main mash)
13 lb Wheat malt
2 lb Biscuit
Side mash (Wheat Mild)
13 oz Munich
9 oz UK 2-row
8 oz Special Roast
8 oz Honey malt
8 oz Aromatic
8 oz Flaked Wheat
4 oz C 120
Water additions (Main mash)
1 g Gypsum
1 g CaCl
Wheatwine
Hops
.5 oz Columbus (14.5%) (60 min)
1 oz EKG (4.5%) (10 min)
.5 oz EKG (Dry hop #1 - 3 days)
.5 oz EKG (Dry hop #2 - 4 days)
Extras
.5 tsp Irish moss (45 min)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (45 min)
.5 tsp Yeast energizer (45 min)
Yeast
WY9097 Old Ale Blend - 1.5-gal starter batch (Citra Bitter)
Wheat Mild
Hops
1.1 oz Willamette (~4.5%, leaf) (60 min)
Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (30 min)
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (30 min)
Yeast
Split batch - WY1469 West Yorkshire Ale/WY1450 Denny’s Favorite 50
Brewday: 30 January 2011
Mash-in: 20 qts @ 150̊F for 2 ½ hours; added 1 qt @ 212̊F to bring up to 153̊F
Pre-boil volume (Wheatwine): 3.6 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 15̊P (1.061)
90-minute boil for increased kettle caramelization & to reach
Post-boil volume: 1.8 gallons
OG: 27̊P (1.115)
Shook to aerate; hopefully it’s enough to keep it going
Side mash (Wheat Mild)
Mash-in: 4.5 qts @ 155̊F for 75 minutes, then add to mash after running off Wheatwine wort
1st sparge: 15 qts @ 154̊F for ~2 hours
2nd sparge: 8 qts @ 160̊F
3rd sparge: 10 qts @ 167̊F
1st sparge SG: 10̊P (1.040)
Pre-boil volume: 8 gallons?
Pre-boil SG: 8̊P (1.032)
Post-boil volume: 7 gallons, split into two fermenters
OG: 9.8̊P (1.039)
Fermented all batches in basement at ~57̊F ambient
Wheatwine started fermenting quickly and violently even at basement temp, sitting on the yeast cake
6 February 2011: Brought all batches upstairs to finish out; agitated fermenters once or twice a day
Wheat Mild Bottling: 11 February 2011
Both batches:
FG: 1.007
ABV: 4.2%
Samples both had a wonderful bready flavour; didn’t detect a whole lot of yeast variance.
8 March 2011: Put wheatwine in warm water bath (maintained with aquarium heater) at 88 F to encourage more activity from the Brett. Adjusted in the next couple days, settling it at 82 F.
Wheatwine Bottling: 20 April 2011
FG: 1.028
ABV: 11.5%
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