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!