Brü It Yourself | Wheatwine

Author: Phil Rusher


As someone who enjoys being able to consume more than a beer or two without getting hammered, I usually opt for low to mid range ABV beer styles. However, I also enjoy having a big beer around for those times when something middling just won’t suffice– celebrations, shenanigans, bad days, or just because I feel like getting a little saucey! Making a big beer will, in most cases, involve using a somewhat ridiculous amount of grain. Being the frugal bunch that we often are, homebrewers will tend to want to capitalize on their excessive use of grain. The parti-gyle method is one such strategy to get an efficient use of a large amount of grain. And in fact, there are a handful of commercial breweries that employ this strategy regularly, most famously England’s Fuller’s Brewery.

The parti-gyle idea involves using a large amount of grain to produce at least two different beers that can be kept separate or blended to produce unique beers derived from the same wort. Wanting to scratch an itch for having a big beer on tap, this is an intuitive means of producing a high ABV beer at the same time as a low to moderate ABV beer at once. The best of both worlds!

I took a liking to Wheatwine a few years back, and when I first brewed one, the style seemed somewhat obscure. More often than not, when perusing bottle shop shelves for high alcohol beers, they’re lined with Imperial Stout, Barleywine, and the occasional Belgian Quad, but there aren’t many commercial examples of Wheatwine. American in origin, it can be viewed as an imperial version of an American Wheat Beer with more generous hopping rates, and the appearance is often quite bright. Wanting both a big beer and a Weissbier on tap, I figured out a way to kill two birds with one stone!

| Making Wheatwine |

The grist for this Wheatwine was driven largely by my intentions for the small beer I would make from the second runnings, a Short & Shoddy Weissbier. The malted rye may not be traditional for the style, but I really enjoy the way it rounds out the malt flavors in a beer such as this.

Wheatwine

Recipe Details

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV
5.5 gal 60 min 43.9 IBUs 8.9 SRM 1.098 1.023 10.0 %
Actuals 1.098 1.014 11.2 %

Fermentables

Name Amount %
Mecca Grade Shaniko White Wheat Malt 7.875 lbs 36
Mecca Grade Wickiup: Red Wheat Malt 7.687 lbs 35.15
Mecca Grade Lamonta: Pale American Barley Malt 3.562 lbs 16.29
Mecca Grade Rimrock Vienna-style Rye Malt 2.747 lbs 12.56

Hops

Name Amount Time Use Form Alpha %
Comet 25 g 60 min Boil Pellet 9.5
Galena 25 g 60 min Boil Pellet 14.5
Galena 15 g 20 min Boil Pellet 14.5

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Temperature
Joystick (A18) Imperial Yeast 75% 60°F - 70°F

Notes

Water Profile: Amber Balanced in Bru’n Water Spreadsheet

PROCESS

A couple days before brewing, I collected a bunch of RO water.

Given the intended high OG, I made a starter of Imperial Yeast A18 Joystick.

I started my brew day by adding the volume of water to my keggle that would ultimately result in about 5.5 gallons/21 liters of wort. Once adequately warmed, I stirred the grain in then checked to ensure it hit my target mash temperature.

Click pic for Thermapen review

I left the mash alone and crossed my fingers for maximum conversion.

After a 60 minute mash rest, I performed a quick vorlauf to set the grainbed before vorlaufing and collecting the sweet wort in my Grainfather.

With the wort heating up, I measured out the kettle hop additions.

The wort was boiled for 60 minutes before being chilled on its way to a sanitized Brew Bucket.

Click pic for Grainfather review

A refractometer reading showed the OG was indeed quite high.

23.5 ˚Bx = 1.098 OG

The filled fermenter was placed in my chamber and allowed to finish chilling to my desired fermentation temperature of 65˚F/18˚C, at which point I pitched the yeast starter.

Click pic for Ss Brewtech Brew Bucket review

The beer fermented for 6 days before signs of activity were absent, so I took a hydrometer measurement showing it reached a 1.014 FG for a respectable 11.1% ABV.

1.014 FG

The beer was racked to a sanitized keg then placed in my keezer where it was burst carbonated overnight. I let it condition for a few weeks before serving it tasters for evaluation.

| IMPRESSIONS |

Having sampled Wheatwine very few times, it’s difficult for me to gauge what a good example is supposed to taste like, but I was rather pleased with the way this one turned out, as were those I served it to. The malt character was markedly pronounced with a big bready wheat flavor and a curious sweetness; it was difficult to discern whether the sweetness I perceived was due to the alcohol or the malt character. While the hop character took a backseat to the malt, moderate citrus flavors of mandarin orange were easily detected, in fact, a friend who tasted this beer couldn’t believe I didn’t add fruit to it! Despite having a large amount of alcohol, it was not hot, though it did have a smooth warming. The mouthfeel was medium with a slight creaminess.

While I consider this Wheatwine a success, there are a few things I’d do different in future batches. For starters, using a lower proportion of malted wheat might be a good idea, as I had a somewhat difficult time with the vorlauf (you can keep your rice hulls!). Another issue with the high proportion of wheat is that despite being in the keg for nearly 2 months, this beer just would not clear up– talk about unintentional haze stability! Sure, it would have been nice to have the kind of clarity I could read a newspaper through, but the hazy appearance didn’t bother me enough to do any post-fermentation fining. Lastly, next time around I might also consider using a different strain of yeast and increasing the flavor hop additions.

This was my first run at using the parti-gyle method and my experience was very interesting. The pseudo Type-A side of me really enjoyed the efficient use of grain and it was cool to produce two distinctly different beers with the same mash. I definitely plan on revisiting this strategy in the future with a focus on blending two or three different wort concentrations to produce a multitude of beers.

If you have thoughts about this recipe or experience making something similar, please feel free to share in the comments section below!


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21 thoughts on “Brü It Yourself | Wheatwine”

  1. What is it about the yeast strain that makes you consider using a different yeast next time? I am considering using Joystick in my barleywine recipes, but don’t have any experience with it.

    1. There was some more fermentations character than what I’m usually looking for. Joystick is a very fine yeast for a variety of styles (barleywine included), I’m just the kinda guy who prefers super clean strains.

  2. Hello,

    What about the second runnings, are we also getting a post about the Short & Shoddy Weissbier?

    Thanks!

  3. Had a great wheat wine yesterday dark red colored, with lactose, cacao nibs and vanilla it was more of a pastry wheat wine with well hidden 15% abv…

    1. Yeah, I imagine that all that stuff masked the booze nicely 🙂 I think The Bruery makes a few versions of Wheatwine with similar additions.

  4. Jordan Hofmeier

    Sounds like your parti-gyle went better than my first one did. The big beer was supposed to be a Double IPA, small beer an American IPA. Got a stuck sparge during first runnings and ended up with a Barleywine (1.120 OG) and a Session Pale Ale (I guess). I’ve been a little gun-shy about the process ever since.

      1. Jordan Hofmeier

        I like the idea of a wheatwine/american wheat parti-gyle. Might scale the wheat back to 50% and give it a try.

    1. It’s a classic mistake to think that a partigyle means using just the first runnings for one beer and the second runnings for a second beer.

      The practice in British commercial breweries is always to blend first and second runnings in different proportions to get the different beers. Not only does that allow you to get the right gravities, but the first runnings have disproportionate amounts of the good-taste stuff, and a bit of first runnnings markedly improves the flavour of the smaller beer.

      1. Indeed. This is why I mentioned blending in the article! That said, I don’t think that there was any of “the good stuff” missing from the small beer here.

  5. I see different amounts for the grainbill between the Wheatwine and Weisbeer. I thought it was 2 different runnings of the same grainbill. Am I missing something? Because I want to try this!

    1. It is two different runnings from the same grain bill, but the act of scaling down to the S&S recipe size affected the proportions listed on that post. You could go with either of those proportions that were listed and you’d be just fine so long as you’re making sure you have a really high OG for the first runnings beer!

  6. What’s that stir plate you’re using? It looks to be connected to some electronic gadget, color me interested 🙂

    1. Good eye! It’s a DIY stir plate from a company that’s no longer around: Yeastir. They sent me the fan with the magnet attached and I sourced the electrical components. The whole thing is literally just the fan and a pow-ah supply.

  7. Why would you burst carbonate but then condition for a few weeks? You might as well just naturally carb it up and enjoy some of the benefits of that method

    1. What benefits are those, exactly? 😉

      I burst carbonate because I’m impatient. And I left the keg alone for a while because I was busy doing other stuff!

    2. It’s funny that you mention the orange flavor. I just made a here that was 60% white wheat, 20% 2row, and 20% light Munich with 15 ibu of tettnanger and mangrove jack Bavarian wheat yeast. Fermented in my closet so low to kids 70s. This thing has a ton of orange flavor to the point that everyone keeps asking me if I used oranges. I’m still not sure what caused it.

  8. Hello Phil,
    Great to see you like wheatstone. I was prompted last year through reading stories of a long forgotten style. I went for a 100% wheat wine.. Have brewed 100% wheat beer on a few occasions. Stuck mash Nahh, rice hulls to the rescue. My wheat wine is a 17.7%abv beer. Tasting very much like a Muscat or Tokay, but with a hint of hop bitterness. A year old now and hop bitterness mellowing nicely. Bottled in 6 oz minis. I you would like recipe and process data, feel free.
    regards,
    Andy Graham
    Melbourne, Australia

    1. Sounds delectable but I don’t think I’ve ever had Tokay. I’ll take your word for it! Yeah, the risk of a stuck mash here is high. Though, I’d sooner use a brew bag or something because I generally don’t have rice hulls on hand.

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