Weizenbock and it's dark offspring..

Saturday morning I got up pretty early and began brewing a weizenbock. Here's the recipe:

10 lb. wheat
5 lb. pilsner
2 lb. munich
.5 lb. special B
.5 lb. crystal
.25 lb. chocolate malt

1/2 oz 6.2% Hallertau
WLP 300 Hefeweizen Ale

Mashed in @ 152 degrees. Boiled for 90 minutes.

I had read several things about people brewing this style and quite often they commented on how active the fermentation was - some joked about the airlock blowing off. I ignored the stories and stuck with an airlock.. sure enough, Sunday morning the airlock was filled with fermenting beer and was hissing. I ran to the hardware store and picked up some tubing and quickly made a blow-off tube. Here's the video:



So - let me back up a bit. After I had about 7 gallons of run off from the mash tun, I threw some dark carafa grains into the mash tun and continued sparging. The carafa added some darker color to the wort. I managed to get another 5 gallon @ 1.016 pre-boil gravity. I added 3 lbs. of wheat DME to the boil, and a 1/2 oz of 6.2 hallertau hops. After boil, I ended up with about 4.5 gallons of wort and pitched a basic wheat yeast into it. The fermentation hasn't been as crazy as the weizenbock, but still took off that evening.

I also bottled 5 gallons of saison and 3 gallons of the apricot wheat. Was a busy day at the DRB!

Apricot Wheat

7 lbs of Bavarian Wheat DME and 1 oz. of Saaz hops.

This recipe is as basic as you can get, and makes for a great base for doing a summer fruit beer. I was ready to rack to the secondary, and needed some quick fruit. I was looking for raspberries, but the local grocery store didn't have them in the form I was looking for (in heavy syrup - canned). I studied the fruit for a while and thought about doing a blackberry, however it was like $4 a can! I found apricots, which were like a $1 a can, and ended up with them. 2 lbs of Apricots in heavy syrup dumped in the bottom of a bucket. Wheat transferred on top of it to sit two weeks.

Original gravity was 1.062, final ended up at 1.018: 5.9% abv. The fruit bumped it up just a bit. I noticed more activity in the airlock shortly after adding the fruit.

I ended up bottling half of this batch and kegging the other half. When I did my gravity reading, I tasted it.. and didn't taste much of an apricot taste. Maybe after it's cold and carbonated it'll come out more.. we'll see! Speaking of.. I'm going to go carb that keg now, maybe have a pint later today. :)

Dayton Road Brewing's logo

I used to have an eagle on my garage, before the siding was redone. When Dayton Road Brewing came about, I thought about putting a big ol' star on the front - since the eagle disappeared when the new siding went up (I bet the siding guys stole it - it was sweet). Anyhow, a star is better than an eagle. The idea behind the star is more for the "image" of the DRB. Every bottle will look the same, but different colors. There will be a star in the middle of each bottle - with Dayton Road Brewing at the top - and the kind of beer below the star. If I ever make labels that is.. for now, at least we have a logo or mascot, or whatever it may be. :)