Advice on improving my hefeweizen.

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benko

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Just bottled my first hefeweizen today, and am pretty happy with the results. I used the Wyeast Weihenstephan yeast, and the flavor was great. I was hoping you guys had some thoughts on two issues.

My setup usually gets around 75% efficiency. On this batch, I only got 65%. I used 6 lbs weyermann wheat, 4 lbs durst pilsener and .5 lbs rice hulls. Mashed ~75 minutes at 153 degrees. Do you think the lower efficiency was due to lack of a protein rest?

Second, although the taste is great, I would like it to have slightly more of a malt backbone and maybe a touch sweeter and darker. I was thinking of going with the exact same recipe, plus a pound of Munich. What do you guys think?
 
A Hefeweisen is supposed to be light and not too sweet by it's very nature. If you want a different beer then it is not a Hefeweisen any more. Wheat makes the beer thin and refreshing. Malt makes more body and Vienna can make it sweeter. So less wheat, more malt, and add some Vienna, a slight scant touch of pale chocolate for darker.
 
That is the great thing about homebrewing, you can adjust the beer to your taste. If you want something maltier, follow WBC's advice. If style calls it a dunkel, then so be it. To you it will be a great beer.
 
A Hefeweisen is supposed to be light and not too sweet by it's very nature. If you want a different beer then it is not a Hefeweisen any more. Wheat makes the beer thin and refreshing. Malt makes more body and Vienna can make it sweeter. So less wheat, more malt, and add some Vienna, a slight scant touch of pale chocolate for darker.

American wheats tend to be thin with lemon and other nonsense in them. German wheats on the other hand... I would not describe them as thin per say. I would also say that a good German wheat does fall on the sweeter side. And if his wheat was that off yellow color that Widmeyer tends to have, then yes, I would also want to darken the color to a nice orange. I would say, depending on how his Hef came out, his adjustments are not going to move his beer out of the Hefeweizen style...
 
I too used to get lower efficiency on my hefeweizens. Wheat berries are smaller and harder (generally) than barley. Since I got my own mill and started double-milling the wheat (once by itself, then again with the barley) my efficiency has improved dramatically, 83% on my last batch. If you have control over the milling of your grain, give that a shot.

I do a step (infusion) mash on my hefe's 111 to 152 to 168.

Before you do anything drastic to get the maltiness you're after try increasing the percentage of barley. I go with 50/50 German Pils/German Wheat.

I also boil my hefe's pretty hard to give them a little more color and increase the melanoidins.
 
Munich would be OK if that's what your looking for. Not too much or you'll have a Dunkelweizen. Try adding a lb of carapils. The mouthfeel that you get from it does nice things to a Hefe...
 
I'm not much of a Hef drinker but, according to my friends that ARE Hef drinkers I'm a pretty respectable Hef brewer.

My stock recipe is...

5 Lbs of Gambrious 2 row
5 Lbs Malted Wheat
1/2 Lb Munich 10L
1/2 Lb Briess Crystal 20L

1Oz of Crystal 4.4 Pellet Hops

And Wyeast #2565 Kolsch.

Dough in with 11 Qts at 148 to target 133 for 20 minutes... Then add 5.5 Qts boiling water to hit 155 for 40 minutes. (note... I do my mash in my boil kettle, not my tun)... Then turn up the heat on the stove and stir, stir, stir until the mash temp hits 165 or so and remove from heat.

Transfer mash into pre heated tun and vourlaf into my pitcher until I can cram all the grains in the tun, then I go rinse out the boil kettle and continue on with separating the grain material from the wort into the boil kettle.

While this is all going on I heat about 3.5 more gallons of sparge water to 170 on my propane burner. Once the wort stops draining, I close the valve pour that 170* water back ontop of the grainbed, stir, and leave it sit for another 20 minutes or so. Then I vourlaf again and let 'er run till I get close to 7 gallons of wort and boil as usual.

I've done this twice now and have hit upper 40's in preboil and mid 50's pitchable... Sure... Maybe that's low efficiency, but, even though not my cup of tea, damn is it good.
 
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