Recipe decisions

[Griff]

It does sound like your consultant is trying to steer you towards what they are comfortable with and not what you want, I'd push for what you want. If you want a proper wheat beer then its going to have to be brewed with a much higher proportion of wheat. Are they also supplying the brewhouse? Maybe they are aware of process limitations with it. If you let them guide you to much then theres the chance that you'll end up with a generic beer that is only slightly different to many that they have put into the market before you, that just leaves branding and marketing to differentiate your product.

With regard to hop additions for aroma and flavour, there most certainly can be benefit to adding at multiple stages during the boil and not just a single addition towards the end. Its not an exact science due to the complex nature of hop oils but various oxygenated compounds are produced from the essential oils during the boil which survive into beer and which give flavour and aroma. The later the hopping the more of the oils themselves will persist but its only a very small proportion and much is scrubbed by CO2 later, so dry hopping is the way to go if you want those aromas. The kettle will have a major impact on the hops, bittering levels will probably be quite different from what you got during your homebrew tests, you should get much better utilisation with a comercial kettle.

I'll keep and eye out for your beers, whats the name of the brewery? Good luck!

[chaser]

ditch the consultant and just hire yourself a good head brewer. or just trust yourself...

[TPBC]

ditch the consultant and just hire yourself a good head brewer. or just trust yourself...

Couldn't say it better myself.

[callmetim]

I believe it has to be 40% wheat to be labeled a wheat beer by the ttb. dry yeast is fine IMHO because its cheap and you can dump it after every batch rather than re-pitching and worrying about your yeast quality. that being said you are limiting yourself to just a couple of varieties. as a start up dry may be good since you're going to have a lot of issues and having an easy yeast may limit your issues. once you're on your feet then start wprking in your lquid yeasts.

[irishsnake]

I agree with previous posters on the wheat beer - 8% wheat does not make a wheat. I've not been particularly satisfied with dry yeast, either. As to the hops, though, really I see little point in adding hops anywhere but the beginning of the boil (for bitterness), or the end of the boil (to capture volatile flavor/aroma compounds). I've played around (a lot) with mid-boil hop additions and have found no impact of use in beer flavor.