Hoppy Agave Wheat

I always try and have a hoppy beer on draft during the summer. It is getting colder outside now but I still crave hops so I am going forward with brewing this beer. I had an idea to make a hoppy wheat beer inspired by Three Floyd's Brewing Gumballhead. I have experimented with bases for IPAs with both single malt brews and beers involving upwards of 4 or 5 malts. I think when it comes down to it if you keep it simple with a little bit of sugar to help dry the beer out, it will turn out great. I am going the other way this time. Flaked wheat, Torrified wheat, White wheat malt, Vienna malt and Pilsner malt will all be in the recipe. With the huge amount of wheat in this beer I am going to add a few handfuls of rice hulls to aid in lautering and also run off slowly to prevent a stuck mash.

For this beer I decided to use 100% organic blue agave syrup as my sugar addition. You can probably find this on the shelves in your local CO-OP. The syrup itself should be easy to work with since it comes in a squeeze bottle similar to fake maple syrup products. I will add this when I add all my sugar additions, at the 0 minute mark in the boil after I have taken it off the heat to avoid burning the sugar. The agave should add a more unique flavor while increasing my SRM more than corn sugar. I have seen and tried other beers on the market using agave and have enjoyed them so this is my attempt.

I have also been experimenting with my hop additions and timing of each. For this beer I decided to aim for 68 IBU's from Magnum hops which have very little Cohumulone and are very clean with bittering. I have had great success achieving the aroma and flavor I am looking for with very late hop additions and so I am doing that again in this brew. I am going to hit the kettle with 10 ounces total, 2 ounces each, of mixed hops including Simcoe, Galaxy, Amarillo, Columbus and Falconers Flight. All of these additions will take place starting at 0 minutes left in the boil through chilling in the whirlpool. With that many hops in this brew, filtering should be an issue so I am going to filter through a hopback filled with 1 ounce of whole Amarillo hops.

Recipe Specs:

Anticipated Pre-Boil O.G. 1.052
Anticipated O.G. 1.055

Grains/Sugars:

5.5 lbs. Belgian Pilsner Malt
2.75 lbs. Vienna Malt
1.75 lbs. White Wheat Malt
1 lbs. Flaked Wheat
.75 lbs. Torrified Wheat
1 lbs Organic Raw Blue Agave Syrup
5 Handfuls of Rice Hulls

Hops:

1.5 oz.. Magnum 14.0 aau @60 min. = 68 IBUs
10 oz. Mixed Bag of Hops (above) @ 0 min. = 0 IBUs

Yeast:

American Ale Yeast II

Water:

Filtered Burlington water with 4 grams of gypsum added to the boil. 1 tablet of Whilfloc added at 15 mins. left in the boil

10/31/12

Mashed in with 14 quarts of 165 degree water to hit 156 degree mash temp. for 90 mins. Mash out at 170 degrees and sparged with 175 degree water. Collected 8 gallons of 1.042 S.G. wort pre-boil. Boiled for 120 mins. Ran through hopback into carboy and aerated through filter, O.G 1.058, aerated for 15 mins.