[Review] Gozdawa Raffle: Dunkelweizen / Dark Wheat beer 3.4 kg / 23 L Kit

[BavarianGal]

Sponsored by Homebrew West.  Thank you!

This kit is pretty straight forward and ideal for beginners and wheat beer lovers! 

I did not take any pictures, but you can find more information to this kit here:
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/gozdawa-dark-wheat-34-kg-beer-kit-4774-p.asp

Package content: 2 unlabelled cans of hopped wheat & barley extract (3.4 kg), a package of 7g wheat ale yeast and a sheet with instructions.

What you need beside the usual fermentation equipment
(fermentation vessel + lid + airlock, "brewing spoon / stirrer", Hydrometer, something to bottle):
- Thermometer for the yeast rehydration
- Brewing belt due to higher fermentation temperature (25-28 °C) (not mentioned, but I personally would advise this)
- 4 g sugar / 500 mL bottle after fermentation for carbonation

The method of EXPERT/ CONNOISSEUR set preparation:

1.   Wash and disinfect the equipment before use.
      --> Throw on the kettle for the next step while you sanitise your equipment. Be "anal" with the sanitising (johnrm March 2015) 

2.   Put the yeast from the sachet into 100 mL of boiled and cooled water (30 °C +/- 3°C).
     --> This is where the thermometer comes in handy.

3.   Place the closed tins in hot water for better liquefaction of the extract.

4.   Pour the tin contents into a pot (min. 6 L) with warm water. The order of tin contents pouring does not matter.
     --> I "skipped" this step, since I don't have such a big pot. I poured all the tin contents into the fermentation bucket with warm - hot water, which works just as well. You can wash out the residues of the tins with warm-hot water to get everything out (Don't burn yourself!). Make sure you keep stirring everything nicely that all dissolves. (It smells delicious!!) 

5.   Pour the mixture into the fermenter and add cold water up to the amount indicated on the packaging (23 L). The temperature of the wort must be 20 – 24 °C.
     --> After you did that don't forget to measure the gravity with your hydrometer to be able to find out the alcohol content after fermentation.
I got for the original gravity (o. g.) 1.044. Also taste your sample; it'll give you a rough idea how it will taste at the end! Wheat beer usually tastes fairly sweet/malty, non-bitter & full bodied with a slight fruity-banana taste.

6.   Pour the hydrated yeast into the fermenter, mix thoroughly for approx. 2 min. for the good oxygenation of the wort.

7.   Close the fermenter with a lid containing an airlock.

The optimum fermentation temperature for wheat beers is 25 – 28 °C
(GOLDENE WEIZEN, DUNKELWEIZEN, WEIZENBOCK)
Sugar refermentation. Maturing min. 3 weeks.
     --> That's where the brewing belt comes in action. I have it currently on non-stop and it is at 26 °C. Make sure you keep your temperature constant! This is very important to avoid off flavours. Sugar refermentation is for the carbonation: 4 g sugar / bottle.

[...]

There is a list of fermentation temperatures and their maturing times following for different beer styles, where I assume you could do with this kit/yeast (e.g. Belgian beers, different American/Irish Ales, IPAs, Lager, Pilsner, Doppelbock etc.). If you want the whole list just let me know, I'll put it up then. But I'll stick to the one listed above.

The average fermentation time depends on the type of beer: wheat beer 3-5 days [...]
After fermentation pour the beer into sterile bottles, adding approx. 4 g of sugar/glucose per 0.5-litre bottle. After capping mix well to dissolve sugar/glucose. Leave for 5-9 days at room temperature and let stand for the minimum specified for for a given type in a dark and cool place. Storage life of such prepared beer is 2-3 years in a capped glass bottle.
BIERRE BRUT blanched oak flakes are added to fermenter before adding yeast. Fermentation takes min. 3 weeks.
--> Don't forget to check the gravity again before you bottle! Also start checking the gravity after the bubbling slowed down / nearly stopped. When the gravity is the same for at least 2 days, then it is ready to bottle.
--> Last 2 sentences sound interesting – might be worth a try, if I'd get this kit again!

I put up the beer Friday evening and up to now it is bubbling happily away. I'll give an up-date after the first tastings have happened 
Will see, if it passes  #Wheat Beer #Sweet Home Bavaria  (I might bring a sample home to my Dad: the probably most critical wheat beer judge in the world  )

[BavarianGal]

Update:

After 8 days fermenting at constant 26 °C the beer was finally bottled.

The fermentation took longer than stated on the instructions, which said 3-5 days.

The final gravity (f. g.) was 1.010. That gives an alcohol content of 4.46 vol%.
(I read/heard somewhere that the alcohol content will increase by about 0.5 vol% once the carbonation has finished; with the sugar you cause basically a second fermentation in the bottle but the gas can't escape which causes then the carbonation).

The yield was 44 500 mL bottles with a dark brown-ish colour.

For the carbonation I would strongly advise to make up a sugar solution.

E. g. 4 g sugar / bottle: 4 g sugar x 44 bottles = 176 g sugar, dissolved in 200 mL boiled water; gives a summary volume of around 300 mL, which would be 6.5 – 7 mL per bottle). For the injection I was just using an ordinary 10mL plastic syringe (if you have connections to people working in labs or similar, you might ask them to get you a disposable sterilised one. They are cheap and you can reuse them many times for this purpose).

Alternatively you could weigh out 4 g for each bottle and but that is a bit inaccurate (+/- 0.5 g sugar per bottle) and time consuming.
You'd nearly want analytical scales to get each bottle somehow consistant.
I found for this batch that the beer started foaming up while bottling, when the sugar was put in undissolved in the bottle.

First tastings will happen after around 3 weeks maturing

[Bzfeale80]

Have you tried batch priming in a bottling bucket? Sounds like a lot of work and toil trying to measure with a syringe for each bottle! Here is a guide from the wiki of NHC http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/wordpress/brewwiki/batch-priming-a-guide-by-an-idiot/

[BavarianGal]

Hey Byfeale
Thanks for your post!
No, we just got recently a 2nd bucket and a syphon. The next time though!
It actually went pretty quick with the syringe! Keg was filling up the bottles and I put in the sugar water and capped them! But I guess if you'd be on your own that's all a bit painful!

[BavarianGal]

Update: First Tasting

For the first tasting a bottle of "Erdinger Dunkles Weizen" was purchased for direct comparison. First tasting happend after 3 weeks bottleing.

Taste: It tastes pretty much the same as the Erdinger! Which is amazing to achieve that! I honestly couldn't have told a difference, if I wouldn't have known which one was which!

Looks: It has the distinctive dark brown colour as a dark wheat beer is supposed to be. Unfortunately it had basically no head and it seemed pretty fizzy, but somehow so was the Erdinger (Keg presumed it might have been the glass; residues of washing-up liquid can ruin the head). A week later it was tried again and it formed a nice head.

Conclusion: This kit is definitely worth to try and pretty straight forward, so ideal for beginners. I would recommend a longer maturation time than 3 weeks.

[LordEoin]

maybe a carapils steep might be a welcome addition to promote a bit more head retention.
Glad to hear it worked out well though

[BavarianGal]

Hi LordEoin,
Thanks for that tip - I'd definitely look into that! I think espcially for wheatbeer the head is so essential!