As I mentioned in the post on Ginger Beer my staple beverage is roasted wheat beer. It's a small beer, being fermented for only a few days, so it's relatively low in alcohol. It's delicious (at least I like it) and is easy to make. I make it from white wheat that I've roasted in the oven.
This beer is light and refreshing, but still has a rich flavor of roasted wheat and, if allowed to age a week or two, it will have some coffee flavors. It's lightly hopped with a mild bitterness. I use Safbrew s-33 yeast and Cascade Hop pellets. It's hopped during the boil as well as dry hopped during fermentation. I drink it as a still beer, but if you want carbonation, you can bottle it.
The first step is to roast the wheat. I prefer to work with white wheat because I think that roasting red wheat gives the beer too strong a flavor, and the tannins in the bran of the red wheat will add too much bitterness. I prefer a mildly bitter beer.
Roasted wheat. I've put some raw white wheat in the center for a before/after comparison.
To roast the wheat, fill a sheet pan to 1"-1 1/2" depth and bake in the oven at 350° F for 45-60 minutes. Stir the grain every 15 minutes or so and remove when it's a deep golden to reddish color. I allow the grains to cool until they're comfortable to handle if I'm going to mill right away, otherwise I let them cool to room temperature and then store in an air tight container.
Once the grains have cooled, it's time to mill them. Milling breaks the grains up so there's more surface area exposed to the enzyme I'll be adding to the mash. If I was using malted barley along with the wheat I wouldn't need to add an enzyme, but because I'm starting with raw wheat that hasn't been malted, I need to add the enzyme that will break down some of the starch into fermentable sugars. Working with unmalted wheat, even with the enzyme, I won't wind up with enough fermentables for the yeast to eat, but the enzyme does break down some of the starch and I find that the flavor is better when the enzyme is used.
The cereal mill on its rolling table. The receptacle is a tray from an old rice steamer.
I have a small malt mill that's designed for milling brewers grains, but I find that this little cereal mill works better for me. I bought the cereal mill through Amazon for a bit less than $25. I don't even want to think about how many 100s of lbs. of grain I've run through this mill. Makes for a good workout, but I do have to remember to switch between hands when I operate it so I don't build up muscles on one arm more than the other.... It's a great little mill. I've ground wheat, popcorn, and barley with it.
Milled wheat.
I've got my mill set to just crack the wheat. I don't want flour or wheat meal. I won't be using rice hulls or anything else to allow the wort to drain from the grains at the end of the mashing process, and if I grind the grain too fine I'll wind up with dough when it's mashed.
Mashing the grain.
While I'm milling the grain I heat a gallon of water to 160° F to 170° F depending on whether the grain is warm or cold. I use 2 1/4 lbs of grain per gallon of water. That's actually what the receptacle of the cereal mill holds, which just happens to be the right amount. The average grain bill for all grain brewing is 2 lbs. per gallon of strike water (which is the water before the grain is added). Prior to adding the grain, I add 2 teaspoons of Amylase enzyme powder, stir until dissolved and then pour the grain in. I stir to even out the grain in the pan and then turn off the heat, cover, and let steep for 2 hours, leaving the pan on the burner.
Draining and pressing the grains.
Once the mashing is finished, I pour the wort and grains into a large colander that I've placed in a large pan. I like to flatten the grain out and using the sprayer from the sink and water as hot as it'll come out of the tap, I'll just rinse the grains a bit. This is to help get as much flavor out of the grains as possible. I don't spray more than a couple cups of hot water over the grain. Then I place a plate that's just a little smaller than the colander over the grains, put a pan on that, and a gallon jug of water in that pan. This makes a press and helps to get as much wort out of the grains without squeezing too much unconverted starch out of the grains. I let them sit like this for an hour or so.
Once the grains are drained, they go in the bucket and will be fed to livestock. Everyone loves spent grains. This spent wheat could even be incorporated into bread dough, or used in a wheat pilaf if I wanted to eat it myself. Or I could dry some of it and mill it into flour. It is perishable and will sour in a day or two, so it needs to be used right away.
Once I've drained the grains, the resulting liquid is called wort. I pour the wort into a pan, bring it to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and add some sugar. I'll simmer it for a short while and then add hop pellets and simmer for around 5 minutes more, then strain and cool before pouring it into the fermenter and adding some more hop pellets.
My strainer. It's a splatter screen for covering frying pans. It's a fine mesh stainless steel screen that makes a perfect fine sieve.
I used to use hop cones (the whole flower of the hop plant), but I switched to pellets. They're easier to measure out and store for me. My go to hop is Cascade. It's mildly bitter and has a wonderful citrusy aroma that it imparts to the beer, especially when dry hopping, which is what I do when I add hops to the beer when it's fermenting as opposed to the hops I add to the boil. Cooked hops and cool steeped hops bring different flavors to a beer. There are many different types of hops out there and they all have their own wonderful characteristics. Cascade is my favorite though. In addition to flavor, hops act as a preservative, helping to keep the beer from spoiling. Hops are a relative newcomer to the beer ingredients list, only having been used for the past 500 or so years. Before that (and even now) many things were used to flavor beer, herbs, spices, etc. Nowadays, beer that's flavored with things other than hops is called Gruit.
Once strained and cooled, the wort will be poured into the fermenter, topping off with some distilled water or tap water that I've boiled to remove any chlorine, and I'll pitch my yeast. I pitch my yeast dry. Some people pitch their yeast into a sugar and water solution and let it grow overnight before pitching. If you want to use less yeast this is a good way to go. It's a good thing to be able to inoculate the wort with as many yeast cells as possible. That way any yeast or bacteria from the wild that get into the wort (which, lets face it, will happen unless you're working in a sterile lab) will be overwhelmed by the yeast you want to be working for you. It's also a handy way to make your dry yeast go farther.
Roasted Wheat beer in one gallon fermenters from multiple run.
The picture above is from a triple batch made with the recipe below. I like to make multiple batches as it gives me the opportunity to play with the recipe. It'll also give me slightly different flavors in the finished product and makes enough that I can age the beer for a little while. What I do is to make three batches and combine the wort in one large pot. I let it sit for a few hours so that the sediment will settle. For this I use a large canning pot that holds between 3 and 4 gallons.
Once the wort has settled I pour off one gallon of wort into a pan and go through the boil steps, cool, etc.. Pour off a second gallon, boil, etc. and finally process the last gallon. The first gallon will be the darkest and clearest, the last will be lightest and cloudiest. In the picture the jar on the back left is the first gallon, the jar in the back right is the second gallon, and the front center is the third gallon. I also had 1/2 gallon (not pictured) that had a lot of sediment. If you look at the bottom of the jars you can see how much sediment each gallon has.
The first gallon will finish with cleaner, more simple flavors and I'll probably drink it first. The second will have more complex flavors and the third gallon and the half gallon will have the most complex range of flavors, they will also yield the least amount of finished beer as they have the most sediment at the bottom of each container and they will have aged longer.
Roasted White Wheat Beer - makes one gallon
Ingredients -
2 1/4 lb. cracked roasted white wheat (not malted)
1 gallon water (tap water is fine as long as it tastes good to you)*
20 Cascade hop pellets
1 cup white granulated sugar
2 t Amylase powder
1 t Safbrew s-33 yeast
1/2 gallon boiled water or distilled water
Method -
- In a large pan, bring 1 gallon of water to 160° F (170° F if your grain has been stored)
- Add the Amylase powder and stir to incorporate, then pour in your cracked wheat
- Turn off burner and cover. Leave the pan on the burner for 2 hours.
- Place a colander over a catch pan and pour the wort and grains in it. Cover with a plate that's a little smaller than the colander on the grain and put a weight on it to press the grains. I use a one gallon milk jug filled with water. Don't use more weight than that or you'll extrude some of the grain out the holes in the colander.
- Once the grains have drained, pour the wort back into your pan and bring to a boil.
- Reduce to a fast simmer and add the sugar, stirring to dissolve.
- Simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add half of the hop pellets and simmer for another 5 minutes.
- Place a fine mesh screen over another pot (I use one of those round spatter screens that are made to go over a frying pan) and pour the wort through it. This will strain out any stray grains that made it into the wort as well as the hops.
- Allow the wort to cool until it's just warm to the touch (100° - 105° F) and pour into your fermenter.
- Use the extra water to top off the fermenter to one gallon.
- Add the rest of the hop pellets and allow to dissolve, then sprinkle the yeast grains over the wort.
- Cover or fit an airlock and allow to ferment for 3-5 days, then bottle.
All content including pictures © Joanne Rigutto unless otherwise noted.
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