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Last Updated on Sunday, 07 February 2010 10:03

Recipe for Simple Dunkelweizen

Dunkelweizen is a dark german wheat beer usually brewed only at certain times a year. Normally it is very strong on the alcohol which I discovered to my peril when I first tasted it.

I first encountered Dunkelweizen of Dunkel Beer on a work trip to Germany. I was doing some training at the Gildemeister factory in Pfrontein which is in the southern Bavarian alps in a region called Allgau. This stunning village has many pubs all serving great beers they make themselves on the premises. I knew enough German to order 2 beers and was sitting at the bar with another bloke from Australia who was also there for training. An old bloke sitting at the bar near us pointed to the beer we were drinking and said in very rough English, "das is working class beer". he then pointed to his dark beers and simply said, "dunkel beer" and nodded with thumbs up. So for the rest of the night we ordered dunkel beer and loved it. We found out later it was about 8% alcohol and were a bit fuzzy to say the least at the factory the next day.

But I still love a good dunkelweizen to this day although I can usually only get the Erdinger dunkelweizen in Australia. So I now brew my own and this wonderfully chocolate flavored recipe is one I like to brew for Christmas. This brew is a deviation from straight kit and kilo and does require a bit of boiling in a pot. But it is well worth the extra effort.

Ingredients:

1.7kg Morgan's Golden Sheaf Wheat kit
2kg Morgan's Chocolate Malt Master Blend
10g Saaz hops - hops 1
10g Saaz hops - hops 2
10g Hallertau hops - hops 3
1 Sachet Morgan's ale yeast

Method:
Add around 500g of wheat kit to 4 litres of boiling water. Boil with hops 1 for 45 mimutes. Add hops 2 and simmer for 15 mins. Switch off heat, add hops 3 and steep for 2 mins. Add remaining wheat kit and Master Blends, stir to fully dissolve.

Strain off and pour into fermenter and make up to 23 litres with cold water. Once temp is below 30C, add yeast and allow to ferment between 22 and 30C.

Notes:

Starting gravity should be about 1046 and finishing at about 1012.

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