Alternative Sugar Beer Honey Wheat

Quantity Grain Use
3.00 lb American two-row mashed
4.00 lb American wheat mashed
2.00 lb Honey Malt mashed
1.00 lb Rye malt mashed

Quantity Hop Form Time
0.50 oz Nugget Pellet 35 minutes

As a note, if you make this, you should probably use some rice hulls with all the wheat and rye.

Roughly 24 hours after pitching, fermentation was going strong so I added 3lbs of clover honey. This will completely mess up any FG/OG readings, but personally, I don't care what the alc% comes to.

I'll post a reply when it's ready to drink as to how it tastes.

oh man that sounds like a good recipe.

I really like the look of this. I think your recipe (or a very close derivative (partial mash, with some of the 2row and wheat replaced by DME to account for my limitations)) is my batch-after-next.

I really like the look of this. I think your recipe (or a very close derivative (partial mash, with some of the 2row and wheat replaced by respective DMEs to account for my limitations)) is my batch-after-next.

I opened the first the other day, it has very little carbonation after a week, so I don't know whats up with that. As for the taste, it's sweet yet has a sharp alcoholic bite, with as young as it is. Will post again when it's ready to drink. Warning though, my estimate as to what the OG with the honey would have been and then the FG coming to 1.008, that puts it upwards of 8%abv.

Ok, tasted again today, carbonated nicely, and it tasted ok. Honey is very prevalent as well as the banana from the wlp300. Alcohol is still strong, so it's going to sit for a month now before I chill another, I'll give more feedback then.

YIKES. 2 lbs. of honey malt?

How did this end up? I'd also like to try to convert this to a partial mash...

sorry for the really slow reply... I liked it but I think I fermented the wlp300 to hot. It is fairly dominated by banannee esters. I would defiantly change the yeast to the American wheat strain.

Definitely let this one age a couple months and withhold judgment until then.

When mine was done, I called it Hefe Candy. I bet your result is similar, though the rye might add a nice bite to it....

Dude said:

YIKES. 2 lbs. of honey malt?

Click to expand...

My honey wheat used the same amount. I mashed high on mine. The result was an extremely luxurious mouthfeel and some great honeylike flavors. Think of it like a dessert beer....

z987k said:

sorry for the really slow reply... I liked it but I think I fermented the wlp300 to hot. It is fairly dominated by banannee esters. I would defiantly change the yeast to the American wheat strain.

Click to expand...

What was your mash temp?

And don't be too quick to condemn the WLP300. Just give it time to mellow. That's a really high ABV you've got there. In addition, you put a lot of honey in it. Honey takes a long time to mellow. Everybody knows that. In short, you've set yourself up for a 2-3 month wait before that beer gets really drinkable.

In my first two Honey Hefes, I made the exact same mistake. That's why the eventual recipe I posted only has a quarter pound of honey.. because it takes a long time to ferment and then mellow. As I recall, my first Honey Hefe had EXACTLY the same 2 lbs of honey that yours does. I thought it sounded right. In my next batch, I dialed it back to a pound, then to a quarter pound due to both the long necessary aging time and also the dryness that the honey imparted.

When I made my Hefe Candy (posted in the recipes), it was only 5.7%ABV, IIRC, and it still needed a full month to be drinkable. And yours has a considerably higher ABV.

As for your recipe, it looks great, though I'm betting you'll wish you used less actual honey. Because, of course, the honey itself, is going to take a long time to mellow. It's really going to slow down your enjoyment of the beer and, when it's done, you'll realize that the dryness could have been more easily and quickly replicated with a lower mash temp.

But then again, that's just my experience.... Cheers!

yeah I brewed this back in September I think. I haven't tried one in quite some time... so it may be time to.

Mash temp was right at 152, so it could have been a bit warmer.... I also think the honey could be backed down to make it ready to drink faster. However I know the banana flavor that was ever so dominate a month or so ago when I last tried it was from the wlp300, and if I remember right the temps got into the mid 70's, which would do that.

I would do it again, with a hotter mash less honey and a different yeast.

z987k said:

yeah I brewed this back in September I think. I haven't tried one in quite some time... so it may be time to.

Mash temp was right at 152, so it could have been a bit warmer.... I also think the honey could be backed down to make it ready to drink faster. However I know the banana flavor that was ever so dominate a month or so ago when I last tried it was from the wlp300, and if I remember right the temps got into the mid 70's, which would do that.

I would do it again, with a hotter mash less honey and a different yeast.

Click to expand...

That's really awesome. You and I both created a very similar beer and largely came to the same conclusions about how it "should be done". That tells me that it's on its way to becoming a style. As well it should. Honey and Hefeweizen seems like naturally complimenting flavors, but in practice is surprisingly hard to pull off.

So tell me what you think of the rye? I think that sounds like a really interesting addition...

And please do try another. I found that my first batch, with 2 pound of honey just like yours, definitely needed a few months to age. I think you're in for a treat at this stage!

The Rye adds a nice spiciness that compliments the hefeweizen taste. Would defiantly keep that in there. In fact I don't think I'd change the grain bill at all, just drop the honey down a bit and either go with American wheat yeast or ferment cooler. The later would probably be best, but this was my first and only time using wlp300 and I'm a bit scared of it now.

I brewed this up ten days ago, transfering to secondary right now. Here's my notes....


I got a terribly low efficiency from this one, my OG was off by almost a whole point. This was my first time working with wheat malt, and LHBS was out of white wheat malt so I used red. Mash temp was a bit lower than usual at the end, but I was only low by about 2 degrees. I added two pounds of honey to make up the lost OG points (I had it laying around a figured I might as well use it).

I used WL 320 American Hefeweizen Ale and fermented around 66-67 degrees.

I'll let you know how it turned out in about 5 weeks or so...