What does torrified wheat bring to the party?
Basically the whole kernel version of flaked wheat.
Would wyeast 3068 or wlp300 be too far out of your comfort zone? If you want a blue moon clean finish I could see just an American wheat yeast. But for a little more body and some richness get away from the white wheat and pick up some German Wheat malt. It will really carry your wheat up more than a white wheat malt, but still give you the drinkability. I like WLP300 and Wyeast3068 but I think they are not quite as good as Wyeast3056 and wyeast3333.
Is it the banana and clove that throws you off about German wheat beers? If so you can always ferment at lower 60’s to minimize those characters.
*Edit - recipe %
33.33% _ 2row
47.62% _Ger Wheat
9.52% Crystal 20
9.52% Flaked wheat
You could even go a litter higher with the wheat, I think no higher than 60%
Even wyeast1007 German Ale would give you a clean finish, but the yeast strains that stay in suspension is what makes a wheat beer to me anyway.
I don’t plan to use a German wheat yeast in an American Wheat beer. I don’t want any Hefeweizen yeast character. Also I am staying away from crystal malt in this style.
Going with
60% wheat tbd
40% base malt (pale ale malt or possibly gp)
Yeast will likely be k97 fermented warm or wy1010
I don’t do many wheat beers so I didn’t open this, but now did and have some contributions.
BRY is the Siebel yeast bank code.
BRY-97 is the dry equivalent to WY-1272 and WLP-051. These are said to be the Anchor Ale strain.
BRY-96 is the same as US-05/WY-1056/WLP001 and is the Chico strain.
Both are from Ballantine, 97 being the ale strain, 96 being the beer strain.
The Widmer brothers went to Germany before they opened the brewery. They were going to have an Alt as the flagship, spent time at Uerige, and brought the Uerige strain back (Wyeast -1007/WLP-036). The Alt never took off, but they brewed a wheat beer that did. The yeast became less flocculant at Widmer, and is Wyeast 1010/WLP-320. The description on the Fermentis product sheet for K-97 says it is a German ale strain, so with that and the 7 I would guess it is the same as WY-1007. Anyone know more?
Microbiologists will talk about yeasts that have the POF gene - Phenolic Off Flavor. The German wheat beer yeasts and many Belgian strains have the POF gene. Other ale yeasts and lager yeasts do not. Clove flavor is a phenoic, the banana is an ester.
The one American wheat I did last year was a Bell’s Oberon variation. The Bell’s yeast can be captured from the bottle and propagated. It can give an orange ester if you ferment at higher temperature, high being 70F or so.
Torrefied wheat has given a nutty taste to my Bitter, I like it. It is a puffed grain, as it is heated to about 500F until it pops like popcorn.
Golden Promise is a great malt. It is not kilned as high as most Maris Otters. GP is 2L from Simpsons and 3L from Fawcett. Simpsons has a nice sweet malty flavor. I have had beers made with low color Maris Otter at 2L, and those have a malty sweet flavor. Notice the taste is more malty and less sweet with MO.
Sunday morning, drinking my coffee, rambling away.
I use it in many English-style ales. It has a bit of a nuttiness, and like any unmalted wheat product, it boosts the head formation quite a bit. Since traditional English ales contain a significant amount of simple sugar, that is certainly helpful.