I’ll have to give that a try. I just don’t care for the banana/clove flavor that 3068 yields.
On any of the hefe strains, I ferment low, around 60F to decrease the banana flavors… I like wheats, but not such a strong banana…I think 60F or close to it is a nice balance of clove/banana/bubblegum.
So after reading everybody’s suggestions we have decide to go with two separate beers
an “American” wheat beer (5gal) and dunkelweizen (3gal) the dunkelwiezen has not been scaled down for a 3 gal batch yet. Do these ingredients make sense
970 American Wheat Recipe
6.5 lbs Liquid Wheat Extract
8oz Munich Malt
4 oz Crystal 10
.5 oz Chinook @ 60min
.5 oz Chinook @20 min ?
1 oz Tettnanger 10 min
Safale US-05
Steep munich and crystal for 30min
Add extract and hops boil for 60min
1st fermenter 7days
2nd fermenter 14days
Bernstein Weizen Dunkleweizen
6.6 pounds, wheat malt extract
1/2 pound, crystal malt
1/2lb pale malt
1 pound, wheat malt
1/4 pound, chocolate malt 1 oz, of Hallertauer (US) 60min .5oz Willamette 20min
.5oz Willamette 5min
WY1010 - American Wheat.
Steep specialty grains for 30mins @ 150
7days prime
10-14 days 2nd
For a 3gal batch should i boil 3+gal or should i only boil 2gal and some cold water to the carboy?
A dunkelweIzen should be 30-50% Munich and/ or Vienna malt. I don’t think you want any chocolate in there at all. And you should use a German wheat yeast for the banana/clove character. Forget about the fermentation schedule you have listed and do what the beer tells you to do. I’d go 3 weeks primary and no secondary.
Ok thanks for the suggestions here is updated recipe scaled down for a 3gal batch. The chocolate malt was mainly for color. It seems like the recipes i have found wanted some dark roasted malts and left out the Munich and/or Vienna but I think your ideas seem more logical.
Bernstein Weizen Dunkleweizen
4 pounds, wheat malt extract
1 lb pound Munich
1/3lb pale malt
.60 pounds, wheat malt
0.15lb black patent
1 oz, of Hallertauer (US) 60min
.5oz Willamette 5min
WY1010 - American Wheat or German wheat yeast
I can see where this can get confusing. definitely don’t use black patent. I think a little chocolate wheat would be ok for the style. Briess has a “midnight wheat” and a “blackprinz wheat” that will add color and chocolate flavor but is mellow on the roast, which is what you want. In low doses you will get almost no roast character from it.
A traditional dunkleweizen would be something like 40% munich and 60% wheat or dark wheat with maybe a small amount of pils thrown in for the enzymes. A small amount of carafa special huskless or even cholcolate wheat could also be added to darken the color whithout adding roast character. But you may have a difficult time brewing this to style via extract. I would try a mini mash with Munich and wheat, or dark wheat and then add the rest a wheat extract and a small amount of the roasted malts I mentioned above (choc. wheat, the briess specialty malts or carafa special).
Like Denny stated above, skip the secondaries and just leave in primary for 3 weeks.
I like the KISS approach. 50% wheat, 50% Munich and a touch of chocolate (1-2% at most).
So … 101-102%? 
That’s a great approach but it’s difficult to do with extract, unless there is a 100% wheat extract and 100% munich extract. Problem is, most wheat extracts are a blend of pils and wheat malt. Still, I don’t think the wehat adds that much to the style, you could go 50% wheat extract and 50% munich extract. the yeast is the key here.
OK, how about equal parts of Munich and Wheat, then add in about 1-2% chocolate. Capisce 
Talk about vacillation.
Make the grain bill whatever you will, but I concur with Denny and Keith’s recommendations.
Consider a split batch approach, i.e., 5 gallons of wort splits into two 2.5 gallon batches for fermentation.
Batch 1: American Wheat Style
My preferences would be to use one of these:
WY1010–American Wheat Yeast or
WY1056–American Ale Yeast or
WY1272–American Ale II Yeast
Other Wyeast Strains to consider are:
2565 - Kölsch™
1007 - German Ale™
Consider dry hopping with a fruity C-hop for that ‘hoppy’ and ‘fruity’ effect.
Batch 2: German Dunkelweizen
Consider using one of these Wyeast Strains:
3056 - Bavarian Wheat Blend™
3333 - German Wheat™
3638 - Bavarian Wheat™
3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen™
thanks for all the suggestions. I really like the dry hopped idea. How long would you dry hop for?
I haven’t dry hopped an Amer. Wheat yet, but my pale ales and IPAs I usually dry hop about 7 days.
thanks, that is about the length i was thinking. I have yet another question should i dry hop during the second week or the third week (i.e. closer to bottling or not)
Most of my ales(I don’t brew many beers over 1.056) I let ferment in primary for three weeks then keg. So when I dry hop, I’ll just open up the primary and drop in the pellets after 14 days. Then I leave it in for the remaining 7 days then keg. So what ever amount of days you want to dry hop, just subtract back from the day you plan to bottle/keg. Usually, when I dry hop for 7 days, this allows the hops enough time to settle to the bottom of the fermenter.
Ya know, as I keep reading your comments, I keep wondering if maybe you’d rather have an APA than a wheat beer.
It seems like my mind is changing on that as well. I think the main reason why is my buddy likes wheat beers, but he wanted more of a “hop bite” to them. I thinking this beer is becoming more like a wheat ipa, like Sam Adams. I’m beginning to think that i may just scale back the hops a bit and have wheat beer with American ingredients. I can always make a wheat ipa later 
I wrote an article on recipe formulation that’s in the new issue of Zymurgy. The main point of the article is that you’ve got to know where you’re going so you know when you get there. I suggest you take a few minutes to really think about what you want this beer to be like. Try to “taste” it in your mind. When you have a good idea of what that taste is, start over on your recipe.
Got my copy of Zymurgy today and read your article Denny. Very insightful and one key I took out of it is to change one thing in your recipe at a time to really get a feel and knowledge of what each ingredient holds.