I have been playing around with the idea of doing an all extract beer, which I have not done in quite a long time. I thought it might be fun to do a sort of modern hoppy wheat in the vein of Modern Times Fortunate Islands, but a tad higher abv. Here is the basic recipe I had in mind along with some of the numbers I'm seeing in BeerSmith.
- 4.25 gallon (16L) batch size. Fermented in a corny keg.
- 6 lbs Muntons Wheat DME ~ 1.059 SG
- 4oz Citra T-90 (steeped @180-185F for 30 min.) ~ 48 IBU
- Lallemand Bry-97 (@ 68F/20C) ~ probably 2 packets.
- 4oz Citra T-90 (Dry hop) ~ probably on day 3 until gravity has stabilized for at least 48 hours. I don't mind the longer contact times personally and Im not in a rush to free up fermenter space. Then cold crash to 35 and transfer a day or two after.
- How is Muntons Wheat DME? Im more familiar with Briess, but Muntons is the only wheat DME that Yakima Valley Hops has currently. Would I be best off using distilled water with no salt additions, or would a touch of calcium salts be appropriate? I tend to still like a bit of sulfate in my hoppy beers. I find the chloride heavy IPAs to be a tad too soft for my taste.
- Would I need to bring this to a boil at all, or would I be ok just taking it up to that 180-185F range and leaving it there? I typically boil with my immersion chiller in the kettle and a large stainless steel hop spider sitting inside the rings of the chiller. My thinking was 30 min @ >180F would likely be enough to sanitize things.