Wheat beer hops: Hallertau vs Saaz

Hey guys. Putting together a wheat beer and have an ounce each of Saaz and Hallertau. Thinking 1 oz Hallertau at 60 minutes and 1 oz Saaz at 20. Thoughts? What would be your ideal combination of these two?

Are you planning a German wheat beer, or American? Either way, adding late hops is usually not to style for wheat beers... For a German style you are looking at having no more than 15 IBU all coming from your first addition and I would personally stick to Hallertau.

OClairBrew said:

Are you planning a German wheat beer, or American? Either way, adding late hops is usually not to style for wheat beers... For a German style you are looking at having no more than 15 IBU all coming from your first addition and I would personally stick to Hallertau.

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Planning on German style ,however I will be adding blackberries in secondary. My calculations had me at 20 IBU if I stuck with my original plan.

I've had good luck with tettnang also. American wheat yeast though.

tgmartin000 said:

I've had good luck with tettnang also. American wheat yeast though.

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Went with 1 oz Hallertau at 60, 1/2 oz Saaz at 20. Safbrew T-58.

Should be good. You really can't go wrong with nobles in a wheat beer, and I think the fruit and yeast are going to cover up any late additions anyway. For that reason, in the future, I'd say skip late additions for wheat beers unless that's your target- I've really enjoyed some hoppy wheats, but those have mostly been american hops.

MarkInBuffalo said:

Planning on German style ,however I will be adding blackberries in secondary. My calculations had me at 20 IBU if I stuck with my original plan.

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I used New Zealand Hallertauer for 17 IBU's in my fresh blackberry hefe. 8 lbs of Himalayan Blackberries, and the Safebrew Wheat. I brew this once a year and love it.

Mongrel said:

I used New Zealand Hallertauer for 17 IBU's in my fresh blackberry hefe. 8 lbs of Himalayan Blackberries, and the Safebrew Wheat. I brew this once a year and love it.

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Sounds great. 8 pounds in secondary? Frozen/thawed and crushed or what?

Picked fresh, frozen, thawed, crushed, and added to primary after 7 days of initial fermentation, then kegged after an additional 2 weeks.

How about Pacific Gem for a hops substitute? I've been wanting to experiment with this hop in a wheat lately.

I used the Pacific Gem in a recent pale ale and was amazed at the berry hop character. It would go well in a wheat as a late addition or possible dry hop.

TBBrewer said:

I used the Pacific Gem in a recent pale ale and was amazed at the berry hop character. It would go well in a wheat as a late addition or possible dry hop.

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Thanks for the input. Now I just need to get my hands on some...

I found them at Northen Brewer.

I'll probably pick them up at Nikobrew because their international shipping is reasonable. Thanks.

How much did you use in your pale ale to get a prominent berry taste? Late additions total of 1/2-1oz is what I'm thinking...

To be honest, it was a mistake. I was shooting for a citrus pale ale and went with Amarillo, Pacifica, and I wanted Pacific Jade, but I grabbed Pacific Gem instead. I threw it in at 60 min and didn't realize until after I did. The Gem came in at 14% AA if I recall and it really bittered a little too much. I only used 1 oz @ 60 and the aroma is there but not huge, but the berry flavor is very forward. Let us know how it works out. I still have a freezer full of the NZ hops I want to try.

It'll be about a month before I can try it. Logistics. I'm making a sudachi wheat this weekend. Sudachi is a unique lime-like fruit made mostly in my prefecture in Japan. I'll probably put together a pacific gem wheat mid Nov. I just have so many other brews in the pipeline right now.

Some of these NZ hops seem so interesting. They don't seem to be as widely used as I would think. Personally, I like experimenting.

I was surprised when you mentioned pale ale because I think fruit would tend to get lost among the hops. If that much at 60 min came through that well, then I'd suppose doing this as a late addition might work out well, even stronger. Thanx for the input.

I'll probably bitter with 1/2 oz homemade centennial coz it's what I have. Then I'm thinking to split an oz of p gem to 15 min and 5 min. Undecided whether to add a little it if Hallertau for aroma.

A spicy Belgian wheat yeast might be nice for this, but I'll prolly go with safbrew 06 just because of availability here.

Check out the profiles of the NZ hops. If I recall correctly, there is one specifically that has a lime character. I will try to find out which one that one was. It may compliment that fruit beer better than the Gem.

TBBrewer said:

Check out the profiles of the NZ hops. If I recall correctly, there is one specifically that has a lime character. I will try to find out which one that one was. It may compliment that fruit beer better than the Gem.

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I recall what you're referring to, but cant remember the name...wasn't an everyday English word. In fact, Japan's sorachi ace would probably accent it well, also. But go figure, it's not available here.

I think what I intended to say may have been mistaken. My bad. It was a little confusing.

I'm making the sudachi wheat this week. With that and 4 other brews planned, this pacific gem wheat will move to 5th in the line, approx mid Nov. So I'm actually planning two wheats. I should be able to get ahold of some pacific gem by then, too. My location warrants long lead times for ingredients and supplies.

May have been this:

Wai-iti

"This hop has a reasonable weight of oil which is further enhanced as a ratio to alpha based on this variety being selected as a low alpha type to showcase its aroma characters which are startlingly of citrus made up of mandarin, lemon and lime zest..really intense. Low Coh adds to the overall quality of the finish which is soft."

I think the hop I was thinking of is Wakatu, but the one you found would be quite interesting and fitting also. Looks like you have big plans for brewing. Let us know how the NZ hopped brews turn out. Sorry if I misunderstood.

I remember seeing that one, too... Wakatu.

I'd love to order a sampler package of all these NZ hops and do a couple SMASHes. Maybe brew one big batch of wheat, split it into multiple smaller secondaries, and dry hop with several different types. I'm thinking of doing this with a pale ale, also, using a lot of these hops and hops blends (the citruisy ones and the Amarillo/Citra substitute blends-Falconer's 7C's and Zythos, for two of them). These would be fun, maybe around December.

My next brew after the sudachi wheat will be a big pale ale with chili peppers in the boil. I'll then be splitting it into multiple secondaries and experimenting with various levels of "dry-peppering". There's a local pepper in my town that is made into a condiment and it's actually pretty popular throughout Japan. I hope to make that into a beer (but can't sell it, obviously). Anyways, once I figure out the pepper level, I'll make a couple other pepper-beer styles from that (choco pepper porter, for one). Hopefully, I can even get a couple other people involved in homebrewing in the process.

I love this hobby.