found drama

Looking over my Untappd journal, I have two wheatwines: one before I’d developed my palate, and another that was adulterated embellished with white chocolate. In other words: I’ve never had one. But I’ll be damned if I didn’t want to try to make one. With my sights set on making a “big beer”, I brewed Lazy Rabbit as a glorified starter for this one and then went “small batch” style to make Indolent Rabbit Rex:

All that to say: “I have no idea what this should be like — aside from the academic sense but I suppose here goes nothing?” No guts, no glory &c.

I wanted it to be a kind of “bigger” version of Lazy Rabbit: same hops, if slightly less hoppy; same yeast; roughly the same water profile. Same “bones” of the grist, and sticking with 50% white wheat, but going the equal parts Copeland Pale and Vienna (to grant some toasty-biscuity character) as well as a Caramunich and melanoidin malt. Given that I was aiming for an 1.100 O.G., I knew I’d be rocking a small batch albeit mashed and boiled in the larger kettle.

Brew Day

In a nutshell, the brew day was a lesson in improvisation. My mill jammed yet again, delaying my start time by a good 30 minutes while I tried to sort that out. Then I discovered that grain bag for my 10 gallon kettle had gotten moldy. ¹ Fortunately, I had a smaller grain bag that I could use, but that meant awkwardly clipping it to the kettle’s rim and having to give it extra attention throughout the mash to try and get adequate circulation of the liquor through the grist. Initial mash pH reading was 5.47, and I found myself dosing with lactic acid to get it down to 5.2. Post-mash volume was 4.25 gallons and the pre-boil gravity was 1.070 — the former slightly more and the latter slightly lower than planned, but both “close enough”.

Proceeded with the boil as planned and then ran it off into the smaller kettle for an ice bath. ² By the time it was ready to go into the fermentor, I had 3.25 gallons at an O.G. of 1.084 — decidedly not the 1.100 I had planned! ³

Fermentation

I pitched approximately 200 ml of 1056 slurry that I’d harvested from Lazy Rabbit about two days earlier. Wort temperature was 63.3 ºF and I set my controller at 64±1 ºF. I kept it under temperature control for a week and took a gravity reading (1.013 — which would prove to be the F.G.) before racking the beer off the yeast cake.

The beer conditioned for another 25 days before I packaged it. Given my estimates, a priming solution of about 1.3 oz. of corn sugar seemed appropriate to hit the desired 1.8 vols of carbonation. All mixed in the bottling bucket, the beer went into 12 × 22 oz. bottles, plus 4 × 12 oz. bottles. ⁴

I tried the first one after about two weeks, but this was a beer that needed some more time. After about six months, it seemed to be pretty good.

Overall Impressions

I mean… aside from being over-carbonated, I guess it turned out alright. [27/50]

AROMA. Medium-high malt impressions, primarily caramel and bread crust with doughy background note. Low hop aromas — some orange-like citrus and very low pine. There was a low rose-like ester, but otherwise no significant fermentation faults. ⁵ Some perfumy ethanol as it warmed, but not harsh. Light honey accent notes. [6/12]

APPEARANCE. Vibrant burnished copper color with a dense and billowing ivory-colored head that stood tall for many minutes, eventually collapsing into a low cap with persistent cordon. The foam was dense and creamy. Many fast-moving bubbles visible in the glass. Substantial haze, bordering on opaque. Observable lacing and legs. [2/3]

FLAVOR. Malt-forward and follows aroma with medium-high caramel and bread crust; medium-low doughy character, particularly in the mid-palate. (Imagine a fresh crusty bread with a drizzle of caramel and honey.) Low hop flavors, chiefly orange flesh with background notes of pine. Medium-low bitterness. Very light berry-like ester. Moderate but notable ethanol impression. Strongly malty on balance; semi-sweet finish but strong alcohol dries it out and keeps it from being cloying. Mild grainy-husky retronasal impression. [10/20]

MOUTHFEEL. Medium-full body. High carbonation — definitely over-carbonated. (Imagine the wheatwine sensory profile with weissbier carbonation.) Moderate alcohol warming. Low creaminess. No significant astringency. Somewhat mouth-coating. [3/5]

OVERALL IMPRESSION. A passable, maybe even good example of the style, but decidedly over-carbonated, and I suspect oxidation took some of the life out of it. Generally appropriate flavors and aromas, though these seemed slightly subdued — the “wheaty” flavors in particular seemed to be lacking prominence. It’s not unpleasant to drink, but it’s also not particularly complex. It would benefit from some more malt complexity — perhaps even an even higher proportion of wheat — as well as closer attention to both yeast health and cold-side oxidation. [6/10]

Changes for next time? Were I to brew this again, I would take even more care to keep oxygen off of it, and would likely keg it and bottle it from there. I was satisfied with the hopping here, but would consider boosting the malt character somehow. Going from 50% wheat malt to 60% might make the difference there, as well as dropping the pale malt completely in favor of the Vienna (or perhaps a 2:1 ratio instead of 1:1?)

In any case, I didn’t mind finishing these off during my last few days in Bellingham.

Recipe

The all-grain (BIAB) 2.75 gallon recipe for Indolent Rabbit Rex is as follows:

Water Chemistry

Starting with the Seattle municipal water profile (carbon filtered) as a base:

• 0.38 g/gal. calcium chloride
• 0.25 g/gal. calcium sulfate
• 0.16 g/gal. magnesium sulfate
• 0.08 g/gal. sodium chloride
• 0.06 g/gal. baking soda

Grist

• 5 lb. 8 oz. white wheat malt
• 2 lb. 5 oz. Skagit Valley Copeland Pale
• 2 lb. 5 oz. Avangard Vienna malt
• 7 oz. Caramunich
• 7 oz. Swaen melanoidin malt

Hop Schedule

• 0.75 oz. Warrior (60 min.)
• 1 oz. Motueka (flame-out)

Yeast

Wyeast 1056 American Ale (300 ml harvested from Lazy Rabbit)

Brew Day

1. Collect 19.72 qt. water and heat to 161.3 ºF. Mash in; hold at 152.1 ºF for 75 minutes. No mash out.
2. Remove filter bag from water. Squeeze filter bag to extract as much liquid as possible for wort. Pre-boil volume should be 4.25 gallons.
3. Bring to a boil. Boil for 60 minutes; follow hop schedule as described above.
4. Cool to 64 ºF as rapidly as possible. Post-boil volume should be approx. 3.25 gallons.
5. Aerate wort; pitch 1056 yeast slurry.
6. Start fermentation at 64 ºF.

Beyond Brew Day

1. Allow fermentation to complete (approx. 4 weeks) at approx. 64 ºF.
2. Bottle with priming solution to 1.8 vols.
3. Allow to condition at least 6 weeks, but cellar as long as you can stand it.
4. Enjoy!

Details

Indolent Rabbit Rex, a Wheatwine by Tilde Gravitywerks

1. I’d say “somehow” but there’s really only one explanation — I didn’t do a good enough job of cleaning it the last time around.[↩]
2. Long story short: I had to brew this one indoors, and in that house there simply was no reasonable way to hook up my usual immersion chiller.[↩]
3. Looking over those numbers, I planned to put about 2.75 gallons into the fermentor. If I’d caught the difference in volume early enough, I could have boiled for another 35 minutes (as estimated by BeerSmith) to get it down to the right volume which should have gotten me to my desired O.G. Oh well — live and learn and move out of that house with that stove.[↩]
4. The latter four intended for competition which… oh well.[↩]
5. The young bottles that I had a slight whiff of “Play-Doh” which for me is usually how acetaldehyde presents, but that seemed to age out.[↩]

About Rob Friesel