Hefeweizen and aging?

Is it best to bottle you're hefe as soon as FG is stable or give it the usual 2 - 3 weeks in primary? Or is it just a matter of personal preference? It is my understanding that a hefe is best young. What are your thoughts?

I just did one, and I let it sit in the primary 3 weeks, turned out perfect. I was only going to let it stay in the primary for 2 weeks, but I had bubbles in my airlock for 14 days. My FG came down from 1.012 to 1.009 during the last week.

OG=1.050
FG=1.009
Brewing Classic Styles Book Recipe

I leave my Hefes in the primary for about 3 weeks and yes, they are best when young but that does not mean 'green" Once bottled they will still take 2-3 weeks to be properly carbonated and conditioned.

By drinking young it means you don't want to let the bottles sit around for 6-8 months and expect them to be great, although I have had bottles that have been around awhile and they still taste great!

No posts on this thread for some time but I thought this might be a good spot to post. I got a little experimental and did a three gallon batch of hefe and added two gallons of unfiltered natural apple juice. OG was at 1.070 and FG is 1.001 using hefe yeast. I'm basically going for a cider wheat beer. I call it apfelweizen. It's strong and needs to age to mellow out some. But, I'm afraid if i wait too long it will lose its great hefe features. It been in primary for three weeks. Right now its over powered by the apple bite. Any thoughts on aging?

That's a tough one. I've found my ciders to reach their stride (once the flavors mellow and blend together) around 6-8 months old. That's a lot longer than I'd leave a hefe.

Just did a Hefeweizen that sat in primary for 2 weeks and was carbed in 2 weeks. Everyone that tasted it was amazed at how good it was. One person even said, "It was fuc%&ng delicious." Gave a bunch away and only have 4 left. Time to brew another batch! I started it around 72 degrees for 1 1/2 days then moved it slowly down to 64 degrees. It has an amazing balance of banana and clove to the point where it's almost hard to place your finger on the flavor.

Qhrumphf said:

That's a tough one. I've found my ciders to reach their stride (once the flavors mellow and blend together) around 6-8 months old. That's a lot longer than I'd leave a hefe.

Click to expand...

I should've considered that. It fermented really dry. It's at about 7% ABV. I'm hoping that will help it age better than a typical hefe. Only time will tell but It's looking like it maybe more of a cider than anything else.

Apologies for stirring a dead thread, but thought I might be able to chime in with my own experience - I just recently polished off the last bottle from the first batch I ever brewed, a Blood Orange Hefe made 2 years ago, and it was still delicious. Granted there hasn't been any improvement in flavor over the past year and a half, but it didn't go bad either!

Deam said:

Apologies for stirring a dead thread, but thought I might be able to chime in with my own experience - I just recently polished off the last bottle from the first batch I ever brewed, a Blood Orange Hefe made 2 years ago, and it was still delicious. Granted there hasn't been any improvement in flavor over the past year and a half, but it didn't go bad either!

Click to expand...

No worries, that's promising for me. I've got a case left of my apfelweizen. I just put it in the fridge last week after two months bottle aging. I tried a few and they have certainly improved. They have a much bigger head with better retention. Also, I'm picking up more banana and clove indicative of the style. Very awesome. Can't wait to see how it ages even more.

Beer_me_plz said:

No worries, that's promising for me. I've got a case left of my apfelweizen. I just put it in the fridge last week after two months bottle aging. I tried a few and they have certainly improved. They have a much bigger head with better retention. Also, I'm picking up more banana and clove indicative of the style. Very awesome. Can't wait to see how it ages even more.

Click to expand...

How did the apfelweizen aged? Interesting idea.

I've still have a few of these in the back of the fridge. About a month after conditioning they tasted really great. clovey, sharp apple, and yeasty. It's acually really hard to describe the taste. wheat beer and cider is about as close as i can get with it really. It did come out super clear.

If I were to do it again I would combine it with something that ages better. BTW evidently this isn't new. Check out brewing tv. They did an episode on making a Graf. Kind interesting. Anyway my wife enjoyed it and I would drink one on occasion. It has steadily declined over the past few months/weeks and I may end up tossing the last

It has fantastic head upon pouring but quickly dissipates to resemble something more along the lines of a traditional cider.

My thought would have been to brew the cider and hefe separately and combine them in the end (before bottling or kegging). That way you could start the cider much earlier and then brew the hefe once it stabilizes.

This is sort of a hijack-post..

Since I'll be having some friends over next weekend to brew and my kegs were filled by mostly co2, I reckoned I'd need something to serve, so I brewed a hefe. This was 10 days before I'm planning to serve it.

I did this as an experimenal "how fast from grain to glass/banana esters and temp"-brew so let it free rise and only applying temp control to keep it stable at 71F after krausen. It's coming close to what I guess is FG on day 5, but with such a vigorous fermentation will I have a bunch of mud when it comes to flavor on day 10? I will rack it into a keg and let it cool on day 9, and then do the shaking routine on day 10 do get some bubbles. WLP300 week old slurry, pitched more or less according to mr.malty.

If there's any way to do it, cold crash the fermenter before kegging.
Especially if you're going the burst-carb/shake'n'bake route...

Cheers!

day_trippr said:

If there's any way to do it, cold crash the fermenter before kegging.
Especially if you're going the burst-carb/shake'n'bake route...

Cheers!

Click to expand...

Cold crashing a hefe? Maybe semi-cold crash?

Smellyglove said:

Cold crashing a hefe? Maybe semi-cold crash?

Click to expand...

Only because it's easier to carbonate cold beer, not necessarily to clear it


Sent from the Commune

Ah, right. Yes that was the plan actually. I normally cold crash my beers for three days, this time I'll only cool it. I was being stubborn on linguistics

This is good info, to those who stirred up this old tread, thanks! I will be brewing several hefs soon and was looking for some tips.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew