I am brewing for the first time next weekend on my own.
I have a Dunkelweizen recipe that I put together browsing the great content on this site, but I am a little hung up on the amount of hops to use. Would love your feedback on the recipe as a whole, but most importantly what you think about the hops I am using and the amount.
Here is my recipe:
6 gallons wort after boil
6 pounds - White Wheat
5.4 pounds - German Munich Light
.6 pounds - CaraMunich I
.3 pounds - Carafa III
All you need is a small bittering addition with any noble hop or German bittering hop, such as Hallertau, Tettnang, Spalt, Northern Brewer, or even the American equivalents such as Liberty, Crystal, Magnum, etc. This style should have minimal spicy hop character that you get from bittering additions of these German derived hops. I agree with keeping the IBUs to 18 or even lower… I might go for like 13-14.
Would you recommend sticking with the small amount of Magnum (I saw that it is a comp to Northern Brewer), .35 ounces - Magnum at 60 minutes as I mentioned, or as dmtaylor recommended going to noble hop or German bittering hop and then using more of it?
In theory, the lower the alpha, the more hop flavor you might get because you need to use more of them to get the IBU level that you want. So, it’s up to you… higher alpha Magnum will be very clean, while lower-alpha noble hops might give you a little extra spice.
Dave, I agree that low AA hops can contribute more than just bitterness, especially in a clean beer. But in this beer it works out to ~ 1 oz of Mt Hood IIRC, and whatever floral/spicy thing there might be is lost under the banana/clove (to me).