Does anyone know what the traditional grain bill for a dunkelweizen is?  I see lots of people using crystal malts and chocolate malts which seems wrong to me.  I also see people using only dark wheat malt and Munich malt, which seems much more appropriate, but Beersmith is predicting a rather light color.  I do a double decoction, so it will darken things up a bit, but I think I'll still be on the low end color for the style.

The best recipe that I personally have come up with is pilsner, wheat malt, dark wheat, and munich.



Shoot for roughly:

40% wheat malt

30% pilsner

20% dark wheat

10% munich



It makes damn good Dunkelweizen but you might want to look into a decoction mash to get that German flavor even closer.

Two things to think about. No commercial brewer would use that much wheat. Fuck that, and fuck your shitty lauter speeds.

There are only a handfull of german brewers that use decoction mashing anymore and they are tiny guys, brewpubs and maybe very small regional at best. Unless you've spent a considerable amount of time in Germany you've never tasted a german made decoction mashed beer. Modern malts are so well modified decoction mashing isn't needed and only fucks enzymes and extracts tannins. 1% aromatic malt thrown in will mimic any old school decoction mashing flavors you might want.

Easy partner, calm down it's just beer.



I have no idea why you would have a problem with 40% wheat, even up to 70% wheat the wort drains just fine, try some rice hulls maybe.



I do agree that melanoidin malt would probably be easier to get the flavor of a maillard reaction vs actually doing a decoction.



 

+1  




 

ALPA,  Thanks for the recipe.  What does your color come out like with only 20% dark wheat?

I don't have a picture but beersmith said it is only 6.5 srm.  That seems too light as I remember it being a bit darker (redish brown).



Now you have me thinking about adding some carafa III or midnight wheat to darken it up some.