Hefeweizen Recipe Review

Hey All,

I am doing my first attempt with a hefeweizen, as requested by some family members, and I'd like to get some thoughts on what I have come up with.

This is going to be my variation on the blood orange batch from DFH in Extreme Brewing. After some thought, I have decided to also use some fresh strawberries (clean, quartered, and sanitized) in secondary, to give it a different aroma to match the interesting flavor.

Here are the ingredients & stats:

Malt
4# Wheat DME
1.5# Munich DME
1# Caramel Pils
1# 6 Row

Hops
1 oz Hallertau (4 AA) 60 min
.5 oz Hallertau (4 AA) 15 min
.5 oz Hallertau (4 AA) 5 min

Fruit
2 Blood Oranges, peeled/sliced/steeped @160F for 20 min; primary 10 days
4# Strawberries, cleaned/quartered/sanitized; secondary for 5 days

Yeast
Weihenstephan Weizen 3068; 1 L 3068 starter

Stats
5 gal batch; 2.5 boil
1.051 OG
1.013 FG
5.03 ABV
12.82 IBU
4.89 SRM

If there are any thoughts on the grain bill or the fruit, I'm open to suggestions at this point. I plan to brew this weekend, so I hope to have some thoughts before I hit LHBS for ingredients in a few days.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

This is my opinion on your recipe...

I'm not sure about the grain bill... I may recommend a simpler 1/2 and 1/2 pilsner to wheat malt to keep it simple but I think your bill looks promising.

The hops look good for the IBU you get.

I did a pepper lime pale ale recently and I had awesome results by using just the zest and juice of my limes around 20 minutes of boil. You may want to consider zesting your oranges to extract more flavour fom your peel, but you prolong the oranges into the primary so you may get high flavour results anyway.

I wouldn't change the strawberry addition because that looks perfect. Your yeast looks good too.

I may be late to comment

Adam

I actually ended up changing it due to some limitations at the LHBS. My final grain bill was closer to 1/2 & 1/2, with one exception. I still have 4# of Wheat DME and 1# Carapils, but I added 1# Vienna to help with the color and malt backbone. I was going with 6 row originally thinking I needed the extra enzymes for the wheat, but after further reading realized this wasn't necessary.

The hops and fruit were all added the same and I'm on day 3 of the strawberries now. I had a bit of a sulfur odor at first, as Wyeast suggested could happen, but that has totally disappeared now in secondary. I should be carbing and enjoying this in about 10 days or so.

Thanks for the feedback!

How'd this one turn out? I'm curious.

Also if you into the citrus ales try looking up my Pepper Lime Pale Ale. It has been a huge hit.

http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/drbuzzs-pepper-lime-pale-ale

Would you try anything different next time?

Adam

This turned out really nice! The strawberries added a slight hint of themselves to the aroma, so I'd honestly do more next time. Maybe 6# or so to really shine through the phenols & esters. I'd also consider finding a way to make the both the strawberries and oranges pop more (making a tea for primary and another for bottling is my thought).

That recipe of yours does sound good! Have you thought of trying ground white pepper with the black pepper (50/50)? Also, what about doing some Saaz in dry hop to enhance the pepper?

I might have to work that into the summer schedule. I already have an American Pale, Belgian IPA, Biere de Garde, and Belgian Wit on the list for the next 3 months or so, but this could be a good one to bridge the gap from summer to fall. Thanks for the idea, and happy brewing!

Cool! Your ideas are valid with the saaz and white pepper. I'll have to try white pepper and see how it tastes.

Your schedule is like mine. I have a hefeweisen next, a BMC cream ale, an apricot wheat, a cherry porter, and then some seasonals. Yours sound good too!

Cheers!