London Marathon training beer

2016 starts for me with a health kick - as a tonic to get over the excesses of the holiday period, but also to get me in proper condition to run the London Marathon. After 7 years of trying I have finally got a place and I want to make sure I get a decent time. This doesn't mean total abstinence but it does mean that when I want a beer i'll be better off with something low abv%, but full of flavour. 

For this homebrew I've decided to make a stout - I've been meaning to make one predominately from wheat for ages and I think it will suit a low abv beer well by adding a silky texture to the beer. With a low abv it's important to try and get some flavour into the beer so here's how I've approached this one. 

• Mash at a high temp to leave the final beer sweeter and  have more body
• Use of very high proportion of wheat malt to give a silky mouth feel
• Lots of hops - british/german hops but in large proportions to give a pleasant flavour and bitterness
• A low attenuating yeast with some pleasant fruity esters, leaving more sugar and body in the beer - in this case White Labs London Ale yeast 
• A bit of peat smoked malt to add some depth
• Some juniper added into the boil at 15 mins - for some more depth

Because of the use of 90% plus wheat malt I made this using brew in the bag (BIAB) method to avoid getting a stuck sparge. 

The wort has a lovely dark black colour, and is already frothing nicely - a good sign if it does this even before it is fermented.

Grains on the top of the BIAB bag, I sparged a few times with a kettle at 80C to try and increase the efficiency - it came out about right at OG1035.

After 24 hours the fermentation is going very well, great hoppy smell (leathery, berry and earthy English hops) coming off this. Really interesting black protien on top of the krauzen, makes it look a bit like the moon surface.

Grain Bill
3kg Wheat
600g Black Prinz Malt
320g Caramel Malt
30g Peat smoked malt

Hop Bill (all blitzed in a blender) 
Mash       20g East Kent Goldings
60mins    10g Nugget
15mins    1Tsp juniper berries
5mins      26g Brewers gold
                14g Fusion
Whirlpool 14g East Kent Goldings
                  26g Fusion

Yeast - While Labs London Ale