My first ever Wheat Beer was awarded a Bronze at the SOBA National Homebrew Competition!

It didn't score high enough for a gold or silver award, but bronze is pretty good for a first attempt at a Wheat Beer! (made from extract in my WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery)

You should be able to view the judging sheet here at the website for the Society of Beer Advocates (SOBA) 2014 National Homebrew Competition, where it was scored 35 out of a possible 50 points.

If it had of scored just 3 more points it would of resulted in a silver medal...

I think it was marked down for being too hoppy according to the notes, so next time around I will try the following recipe and method:

Equipment:

1 x WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery

1 x large pot (over 4 litres in capacity)

1 x kettle for boiling water

1 x large water jug (at least 2 litres)

1 x large coffee plunger (I use a 12 cup Bodum type)

1 x knife (the type you might use to butter bread with)

1 x kitchen stovetop or heat source

1 x kitchen sink

Ingredients:

1 x 1.7kg can of WilliamsWarn Wheat Beer liquid malt extract (LME)

1.0kg of light dry malt extract (DME)

0.5kg of dextrose

50g of Nelson Sauvin hops (pellets)

50g of Motueka hops (pellets)

a bag of ice

Prepare to hop:

1. Bring just over 1 litre of water to the boil in a reasonably sized pot and while stirring constantly, drop in the 50g of Nelson Sauvin hops and boil for just 60 seconds
2. Remove the boiled hops from the heat and empty them into your coffee plunger
3. Add extra just boiled water to nearly fill the coffee plunger if it is not
4. Let the boiled hops settle for a few minutes before attempting to press the plunger slowly down, which I find is best done on the floor so as to use your body weight
5. Drain the boiled and steeped Nelson Sauvin hops into your large jug and repeat the process using cold water
6. Next empty and clean out the coffee plunger and tip the 50g of Motueka hops into it, before pouring just boiled water over these, while stirring the hops with a knife in order to ensure all are mixed well
7. Let the hops settle for a few minutes before attempting to press the plunger slowly down
8. Drain the steeped Motueka hops into your large jug and repeat the process using cold water

Get ready the wort:

1. In a large pot that will fit in your kitchen sink and also one with a lid, (I use a 15L stockpot) dissolve the DME and dextrose in 2 litres of boiled water
2. Add as much of the LME from the can as possible to the pot, then with just boiled water fill and rinse the can to get all of the LME into the wort (you may need to refill the can with hot water more than once)
3. Bring the wort to a boil, while stirring every minute to ensure all is mixed and dissolved properly
4. Let it gently boil for 10 minutes at least, so at this point I recommend sterilising your WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery, which I hope you have cleaned already!  Don't forget the sediment bottle as we need this soon
5. Fill your kitchen sink with cold water and all or most of your bag of ice
6. With its lid in place, remove the large pot and hot wort from the heat and place it in the cold icy water in order to cool the wort down from near boiling temperature to close to human body temperature
7. While the wort is cooling pour in the steeped hop mix you have saved in your large jug and stir well

Just add water (to rehydrate the yeast):

1. Empty the contents of the dried yeast sachet into your cleaned and sterilised sediment bottle
2. Add 100-150mL of water that is close to or just above 25 degrees Centigrade 
3. Cover the top of the bottle with some clean cling-film, then place a hand on top of this while you swirl the bottle in order to get all the yeast to mix with the warm water
4. Let this sit somewhere at room temperature with the cling-film still in place covering the top of the bottle

Fill the brewery:

1. First pour in enough cold tap water to cover the lower cone part inside your WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery, which in mine measures to approximately 6 litres
2. Once you are satisfied your boiled wort mix has cooled sufficiently enough (close to body temperature is good), pour the entire contents into your WilliamsWarn with the 6 litres of cold tap water, then give this a good stir
3. Add more cold tap water to the mix, while checking the temperature is close to 25 degrees Centigrade (add a little boiled hot water if you think the temperature of the wort is too low)
4. Fill your WilliamsWarn up to the 23 litre mark, then take out at least 100mL in order to measure the original gravity (OG)

Prepare to dive:

1. Replace the lid of your WilliamsWarn and check a proper seal has been made
2. Give the yeast in the sediment bottle a gentle swirl then remove the cling-film covering its top before screwing this onto the bottom of your WilliamsWarn's fermenter
3. Slowly lower the lever that opens the seal between the fermenter and the sediment bottle and allow the bottle to half fill 
4. Wait 5 minutes then throw the lever down so as the sudden rush of wort into the bottle mixes the rehydrated yeast into the rest of the wort

Fire and forget:

1. Set the temperature of the WilliamsWarn to 23 degrees Centigrade and let it do its thing!
2. Wait at least 3.5 days before taking any specific gravity readings and at day 4.0 you may be able to put the cooling on
3. Clarify the beverage as normal, however as this is a Wheat Beer do not expect it to be clear (possibly only 1 clarification would be needed)

Enjoy and Cheers!