What is up with this Hef??

brando · 04-01-2010, 07:46 PM

My first all-grain brew has been conditioning in the keg for 2 weeks and we just tapped it last night. The orange and coriander are great, were it not for the beer. The taste is like drinking a big mouthful of liquid wheat and the brew doesn't taste at all like widmer hef. It really doesn't taste good. I think I will throw it out, and chalk it up to the first all-grain experience and getting used to the keggle, cooler, batch sparge method. Hard to throw out 10 gal of beer though. Is this a hard beer to brew or did I mess up formulating a recipe? Perhaps the white wheat malt did not convert?

shooting for 1.050, sparged with way too much water, hit 1.040
shooting for 1.012 fg, hit 1.005 mash at 155 sparged with 170 deg water.

10 gallon boil...

7.5 lb Pale Malt, 2 Row, US
6.5 lb White Wheat Malt
.5 lb Carafoam
.5 lb Caramunich II

Used Wyeast American Wheat, 2 weeks at 68 deg.

**Shooter** · 04-01-2010, 08:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brando

My first all-grain brew has been conditioning in the keg for 2 weeks and we just tapped it last night. The orange and coriander are great, were it not for the beer. The taste is like drinking a big mouthful of liquid wheat and the brew doesn't taste at all like widmer hef. It really doesn't taste good. I think I will throw it out, and chalk it up to the first all-grain experience and getting used to the keggle, cooler, batch sparge method. Hard to throw out 10 gal of beer though. Is this a hard beer to brew or did I mess up formulating a recipe? Perhaps the white wheat malt did not convert?

shooting for 1.050, sparged with way too much water, hit 1.040
shooting for 1.012 fg, hit 1.005 mash at 155 sparged with 170 deg water.

10 gallon boil...

7.5 lb Pale Malt, 2 Row, US
6.5 lb White Wheat Malt
.5 lb Carafoam
.5 lb Caramunich II

Used Wyeast American Wheat, 2 weeks at 68 deg.

Is this kegged? I tapped into my first keg of wheat the other day and, despite trying to agitate the keg to kick up the yeast, the first pint or two were very yeasty and had an unpleasant yeasty, chalky quality to them. I hated it. However, subsequent samples have been delightful!

homebrewer_99 · 04-01-2010, 08:35 PM

First off, it's interesting that it's not a "hef", an American Wheat or a Wit, but you call it that.

From the list of ingredients it's definitely an orange and coriander-flavored American Wheat.

I wouldn't recommend tossing it though.

If it tastes too yeasty I would say you kegged it too soon and you racked too much yeast into the keg.

For this reason alone I do a secondary for every batch including Hefe Weizens.

If the beer gets too clear just suck up some of the yeast during racking to get it back into suspension.

Personally, I think it needs to age for a few more weeks while more of the yeast to drop out of suspension.

brando · 04-01-2010, 09:40 PM

It is more wheaty-tasting than yeast...2 weeks ferment 2 weeks keg conditioning in a 58 deg garage...

The taste is akin to drinking dry wheat cereal...I'll give it a couple more weeks but is the batch sparge method appropriate for the american wheat style?