Deutschland Dunkelweizen in Chicagoland

Deutschland Dunkelweizen 

by Casey R. Welsch

Characters (in order of their appearance): 

Toby Danger Bates.......................Creator/Brewer

Casey Welsch................................Brew assistant/Brewer

Props:

Hops- 1 oz Styrian Goldings; 1oz Hallertau; 0.5 oz Cascade; .25oz Willamette 

Malt- 6.6 lb Bavarian Wheat LME; 2 lb Plain Wheat DME; 1 lb Chateau Cara Gold; 0.5 lb Munich; 0.5lb Chocolate; 0.5 lb Maltodextrin 

Wyeast3068-Weihenstephan Weizen 

 Act One: Research

This act takes place in a lovely Chicago apartment near the North Loop. 

Fellow Brewers, Toby and Casey (that's me!) just moved to Chicago from Tempe Arizona. The adventuresome couple had spent several months home-brewing and learning the craft of beer before they made the life choice to move to The Windy City. In their last weeks in Tempe they had the opportunity to give their beer kit to dear friends of their, Ashley and Danno. Now that Toby and Casey have moved into an apartment they wanted to begin brewing again. Toby took the time to acquire a kit off of craiglist. The couple gathered their belongings and journeyed out into the cold to pick up their brew kit. The kit was in wonderful condition, it had a little something extra that the two did not expect. Low and behold was the start of a dunkelweizen. Toby's curiosity got the best of him and he began doing research on dunkelweizens and especially the materials that came in the kit. One in particular he looked for a clone recipe of was New Belgians Dunkelweiss 30-degree. However, he was unlucky with his search and realised that this beer was a one time batch made in November of 2008. He moved forward in his search by looking at other Dunkelweizen recipes and created his own off of the information. About 50% of materials actually used in  the brew was from this original starter. As per usual they added their own little twist on things. 

Act Two: The Procedure 

This act takes place in the kitchen of the lovely Chicago apartment as well as Chicago shopping areas. 

The morning of the brew day Toby and Casey had a few more things to pick up. After not one, but two trips to Target the couple finally acquired a stock pot, cheese cloth (this will become an issue in the future), a thermometer, beer, water, and ice. It was time to start brewing. Of course, this had to happen after the second trip to the store where Casey forgot to buy a thermometer.

The mash went very smooth, the color of the wort was very dark almost like a brown ale. This was due to the 8 oz of chocolate malt (yum). Now that the mash was removed it was time to add our LME and our DME this went fine. The wort was heating up and it was almost time to add hops. This is always the scariest part of the brew because there is a high risk for boil overs. In the past the couple has been good about not having boil overs, so this didn't seem too hard for them.

The couple patiently waited until the wort started boiling. Now it was time to add the the bittering hops,Styrian Goldings. This was successful, as per all the beers they brewed before it. Toby had an idea to continuously add the hops. Once the initial boil began, the hops added, the timer was set, and Toby was ready to continuously add hops Casey went down to check on the laundry. 

Seconds after she left, Toby added more hops and then it happened. The first boil over the couple had ever had. Luckily, Toby knew how to handle it. He got the beer off the heat over the sink so the majority of the mess happened into the sink (some on the cabinets but that was easily cleaned). Casey came back with clean clothes and idea what had happened (Toby was really good about cleaning up the mess). Toby told her about the boil over so they both agreed to keep a closer watch on the beer. The two continuously hopped the beer adding the flavoring and aroma hops as they went on and very little funky business happened for the rest of the boil.

Now it was time to chill without oxygenating the beer too much. The cool down was successful, until it was time to strain out the hops. This is where the cheese cloth comes into the story. Since the couple already had a noodle strainer and Target didn't see a strainer good enough for hops, Casey thought they could just use cheese cloth over the strainer they have. This worked for about five seconds. The cheese cloth caught the hops but it also got clogged up and would not allow the beer to filter through. It was time to think fast. Toby started laughing when he realized they could just use the muslin bag the had for the grain. After spending all that time on cleaning it out Casey was happy they had this option and quickly just threw away the cheese cloth, still angry at it for not working. The muslin bag worked wonders! Although, after all the ice melted the beer was at 45 degrees (way too cold for yeast to grow). They were still 1.5 gallons short so it was time to heat some water up on the stove and add it. Finally, after about 15 minutes of heating and adding water the temp was at 68 degrees with an original gravity reading of 1.070. Time to add the lid and air lock. 

The next morning Toby and Casey woke up to bubbling coming from the air lock. SUCCESS!!! 

In case you were wondering this is the 5 Act play. In the next weeks you will journey with Toby and Casey as they put the beer into secondary fermentation, bottle the beer, and drink the beer.