When summer comes around, wheat beer production goes into full swing. To keep it interesting, I’l mix up the grain bill and/or yeast strains to see what happy accidents might occur. For this brew session, I split a 10 gallon brew into two fermenters, each with a different yeast (WLP 400 Wit, and WLP 500 Abbey). The resulting beers were similar yet had distinctive flavors brought from the yeast. The 400 batch was more of a traditional wit beer formulation, while the 500 batch was slightly less acidic and had other fruity esters. Both were very enjoyable — try this one at home and let me know how yours turned out.

For 10 gallons (75% efficiency):

Grain
9.00 lbs. Pilsner Malt
4.75 lbs. White Wheat
3.60 lbs. Flaked White Wheat

Hops
1.50 oz. Tettnanger (4.5%) 60 min.

Spices
0.30 oz. Bitter Orange Peel 10 min.
0.20 oz. Sweet Orange Peel 10 min.
0.40 oz. Whole Coriander (crushed) 10 min.

Yeast
White Labs WLP400 Belgian Wit
White Labs WLP500 Abbey Ale

Mash grains at 152F for 60 minutes. Be sure to use rice hulls or some other filtering aid in the mash, as the flaked wheat will become gummy and want to cause your mash to stick. Add all of the Tettnanger hops when wort begins to boil. At 60 minutes, knockout to chiller, and pitch yeast. The 400 batch will finish primary a few days quicker than the 500 will, but neither one should take more than 8 days. Be sure to keep the primary fermentation between 70F and 75Fto keep the yeast from getting sluggish. After a week in secondary, package and enjoy.

OG: 1.047 (11.7P)
Anticipated SRM: 9.0
Anticipated IBU: 15.1

Packaging
Kegged and force-carbonated

We’re at the Map Room in Chicago enjoying a few draft beers, including Poperings Hommel bier and Hop Rye Red from California. This Oerbier has made the trip from Belgium in great shape, and has been well-cared for here as well.

Sam’s is a *huge* beverage warehouse near downtown Chicago. The beer selection is quite good, and if you need some non-malt beverage choices the wine selection is also quite deep. Their cheese counter (yes, that’s right), also had Chimay’s beer cheese and Garrett Oliver’s favorite match for a JW Lee’s — Humboldt Fog.

Among the additions for my luggage: Hair of the Dog (3 varieities), 2 varieites of Victory (V12 and their 2003 Grand Cru), and a few random double IPAs.

While visiting friends in Chicago, we got to experience a neighborhood happy hour with all of the trapppings. Here, that means a grill with plenty of sausage (both sweet and spicy) and a few coolers of cold beer.

It’s about time I got back to the Brick for some Happy Hour lovin’. For now, the Weihenstephan dunkleweiss is treating me quite well. The rest of the table is having a 420 and 2 Terrapin Ryes.