Fruit Beer Lemon-Lime Hefe Weizen

What would you think this would be like if I used Nottingham or some other ale yeast instead a Hefe strain? Im looking more for a citrus american pale wheat as opposed to a clover/estery brew. Any thoughts?

KeyWestBrewing said:

I'm kind of hoping one of the people will chime in or Slim if he knows.

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It's been entered as a fruit beer, Biere de Garde, Weizen and Dunkel Wezen....as for myself, I never enter beers or classify them as a style because I hope every beer that create and that you guys help perfect, doesn't fit any style!

I started this recipe back in Sep. Unfortunately I was sent away to school before it was ready to bottle, so I had to let it sit for another month and a half in the secondary with hopes that it would be ok when I bottled it when I returned home.

I’m happy to say that things worked out well! The beer is great! While I’m usually partial to the heavier beers this time of year, I like popping open one of these from time to time. It goes down easily. For what it’s worth, SWMBO likes this recipe the best so far!

MrBoogaloo said:

I started this recipe back in Sep. Unfortunately I was sent away to school before it was ready to bottle, so I had to let it sit for another month and a half in the secondary with hopes that it would be ok when I bottled it when I returned home.

I’m happy to say that things worked out well! The beer is great! While I’m usually partial to the heavier beers this time of year, I like popping open one of these from time to time. It goes down easily. For what it’s worth, SWMBO likes this recipe the best so far!

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I'm happy it turned out and y'all like the beer...Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!

Brewed this last night. Very easy brew day, and the hydro sample tasted good. My OG was 1.070! so my effeciency was really high for a change... Gonna be a butt kicker when finished!

KCBigDog said:

Brewed this last night. Very easy brew day, and the hydro sample tasted good. My OG was 1.070! so my effeciency was really high for a change... Gonna be a butt kicker when finished!

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Congratulations...post pictures if you can!

This one is kegged Slim. What an easy drinker. Very tasty. Just wish I decided to brew this in the Summer so I could sit on my deck and suck a bunch of these down!!

Callacave said:

This one is kegged Slim. What an easy drinker. Very tasty. Just wish I decided to brew this in the Summer so I could sit on my deck and suck a bunch of these down!!

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Glad you liked it...it does turn a hot summer day in to a relaxing one!

When I bottled the beer, it kind of smelled like butt. Lol did anybody else have that problem?

PackerfaninSanDiego said:

elaborate on "smelled like butt"..like Jennifer Anistons butt or Rosie O'Donnells butt?

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Whoopi Goldberg's butt

That must be rank as f***

You sure it reached terminal gravity? Wheat yeasts give off a good amount of sulpher compounds..

idigg said:

You sure it reached terminal gravity? Wheat yeasts give off a good amount of sulpher compounds..

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It does smell like sulphur! Never thought of that. Next time I should just let it sit when it has a stable gravity

Did you crush the white wheat? Do you only not crush when it's flaked?

Going to try this recipe as my first attempt at all grain as soon as I get all my components.

MedicMang said:

Did you crush the white wheat? Do you only not crush when it's flaked?

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White Wheat is a Malt so it needs to be lightly milled in order to expose the sugars in the malt.

fireslayer said:

Going to try this recipe as my first attempt at all grain as soon as I get all my components.

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Good luck...don't compromise on the yeast/hops and limeade and you will be fine!

Do you suggest some rice hulls to prevent a stuck mash? If so how much and do i have to account for those as part of grain bill to figure out my water usage. I will be using a 10 gallon rubbermaid cooler with false bottom.

with the small amount of wheat compared to pale and Vienna malt, rice hulls shouldn't be needed. that said, it won't hurt to add them if it gives you peace of mind.

Thanks maybe I'll add a few handfulls of them to be safe. I'm also using this calculator to figure my levels and it uses 1.33qts/lb of grain. Will this work as a starting point?

http://www.brew365.com/mash_sparge_water_calculator.php

I'm going to make this as my first all grain batch tomorrow. Can someone just please verify these #'s make sense for this batch. I'm using a 10gal rubbermaid cooler with a false bottom.

Strike water- 3.75gal @ 172
Mash for 45 mins and then drain some slowly to pour back over until it runs clear.
Drain wort from tun
Add 6gal of sparge water @ 170 mix and let sit for 5-10mins
Run off slowly and pour back in until runs clear then run the rest out into boil kettle.
Pre boil wort produced 7.81 gal
Boil for hour add hops and zest at intervals
End up with hopefully 6 gallons in fermenter after boil and cool

Im figuring about .75 gal lost to equipment because I'm just using a bazooka screen about an inch up from bottom of kettle and about .5 gal lost in mash tun with false bottom.

Can someone just let me know if this is close and will work or did I screw up somewhere?

Looks about right to me. Although, what are you fermenting on? Hefe strains are known for blowing off and 6 gal seems to be a bit excessive unless you have a 7.5+ gallon fermenter.

I have a 6.5 gallon acid carboy. I measured it with 6 gallons in it and have quite a bit of headspace. I'll be using a 1" blowoff tube in the top. I'm going off of the recipe that is a 6 gallon batch size.

I think you'll be fine. But be prepared to lose some of that precious beer th blow off. Going forward most hefe strains are very tolerant a high temperatures. I think that what you need to focus on from now on in all grain brewing is temperature control. I wish that someone would have told me that earlier on in my brewing experience. Temperature control is key for proper flavors.

Should be fine with a 1" blowoff. You will def want to keep an eye on it though, and keep the Sani-water in whatever container you have clean. You will get a lot of krausen blowing through. I brewed a Hefe with about 3" of headspace in a plastic fermenter with just an airlock and almost had a Hefe-bomb. Lol

Thanks for the responses. I have a vissani 52 bottle wine cooler that'll be wired with a sct-1000 and some flexwatt heat tape for my fermentation chamber. What would be a good temp to hold this at? I'm using the WL Hefe IV as mentioned.

fireslayer said:

Thanks for the responses. I have a vissani 52 bottle wine cooler that'll be wired with a sct-1000 and some flexwatt heat tape for my fermentation chamber. What would be a good temp to hold this at? I'm using the WL Hefe IV as mentioned.

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66 to 70 degrees is ideal core fermenting temp....I'm concerned that you won't have enough head space, if you are brewing 6 gallons with only a quarter of a gallon head space, then plan on adding the limeade...be prepared for a mess!

The 6.5 gal acid carboys hold more then that. More like 7.5 gal. Here's a pic with 7 gal measured in it.

fireslayer said:

The 6.5 gal acid carboys hold more then that. More like 7.5 gal. Here's a pic with 7 gal measured in it.

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Ok...I must have misread your earlier post!

Well,
Tries my first all grain with this and it was a complete failure. Stuck sparge in my cooler...tried for and hour with nothing. I think it's the false bottom. Going to try and build a manifold for it. Also my brand new banjo kab4 burner setup would only produce nasty orange flames. I played with that for another hour trying to get a good blue flame and couldn't get it even close. So all in all for my first batch I'd say nothing was a success.

fireslayer said:

Well,
Tries my first all grain with this and it was a complete failure. Stuck sparge in my cooler...tried for and hour with nothing. I think it's the false bottom. Going to try and build a manifold for it. Also my brand new banjo kab4 burner setup would only produce nasty orange flames. I played with that for another hour trying to get a good blue flame and couldn't get it even close. So all in all for my first batch I'd say nothing was a success.

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If your scraping the whole thing...my advice would be to empty the wort and save the grain...fix your manifold, put grain back in with hot water, let sit for an hour and see if it works. In regards to your flame, orange means to much oxygen, try and adjust where the gas line goes in.

Me and a friend brewed this two days ago, dialed back to 5.5 gallons. Hit all our targets on the dot. Usually when I do a hefe yeast I have crazy strong fermentation. This time it was bubbling away at about 2 burps a second through a 1.85"ish blow off tube, but no crazy krausen on the top, maybe .25" of it for two days in a 6.5gal carboy. Almost no krausen left as of right now and a nice yeast cake on the bottom. Going to take a reading later to see how much the gravity changed and go ahead with adding the limeade tomorrow.

JoshJoshua said:

Me and a friend brewed this two days ago, dialed back to 5.5 gallons. Hit all our targets on the dot. Usually when I do a hefe yeast I have crazy strong fermentation. This time it was bubbling away at about 2 burps a second through a 1.85"ish blow off tube, but no crazy krausen on the top, maybe .25" of it for two days in a 6.5gal carboy. Almost no krausen left as of right now and a nice yeast cake on the bottom. Going to take a reading later to see how much the gravity changed and go ahead with adding the limeade tomorrow.

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All yeast act different, even ones from the same strain....however I would make sure you are fermenting at the correct internal temperature, because this yeast gets real slow when it's too cold.

SD-SLIM said:

All yeast act different, even ones from the same strain....however I would make sure you are fermenting at the correct internal temperature, because this yeast gets real slow when it's too cold.

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Didnt get around to a reading, but went ahead and added the Limeade, bubbling started back up in a hour.

As for internal temp 76*F at night, and about 79*F during the day.

Once this second phase of krausen dissipates I'll do a actual reading to see how it looks. Looks like beer, smells like beer, all good in my book so far.

EDIT: SG was 1.046 and after 5 days down to 1.012. Which includes the addition of Simply Limeade. Flavor is subtle banana with a refreshing lime flavor. Smell is mildly appealing, and color is limeade. Should be ready to bottle between the 15th and 18th. The yeast cake is the coolest part about this recipe, yeast then lime pulp then more yeast. Still amazed that my fermentation didn't start off as vigorous as previous hefe's.

Here is mine all finished. Turned out very good with a nice punch of lime.

fireslayer said:

Here is mine all finished. Turned out very good with a nice punch of lime.

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That's a good looking beer!

I finally made this beer tonight, the gravity sample smelled very limey.

Eli55 said:

I finally made this beer tonight, the gravity sample smelled very limey.

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This beer will be a great way to start the new year!

fireslayer said:

Here is mine all finished. Turned out very good with a nice punch of lime.

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Fireslayer do you keg or bottle? Curious because mine has no head retention, but it is still fairly young in the bottles. Super tasty though.

I kegged this batch. I force carb and then served it at 11 psi.