Weissbier Bee Cave Brewery Bavarian Hefeweizen

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Sounds good. Gonna try this tomorrow.

Do you guys calculate the rice husks when figuring the total lbs of grains for the water needed or do you just consider it 11 lbs?
 
i rinsed the hulls in hot water before i added them to the mash so they wouldn't asbsorb that much wort

i didn't include them in the total grain calc.
 
So I brewed this today and it seemed to go well other then me missing my mash temps.

Just to clarify...Original Gravity: 1.052 means a 1.052 gravity reading post boil?
 
So I brewed this today and it seemed to go well other then me missing my mash temps.

Just to clarify...Original Gravity: 1.052 means a 1.052 gravity reading post boil?

yes post boil and also before pitching the yeast and then take your FG number and adjust for temperature.
 
Awesome! Please let us know how this turns out as it's on my list for sure. Before this is Edwort's House Pale ale.

Super excited about both recipes!

Keep us updated on your brew!
Jeff
 
I just bottled this one last night and it came out awesome judging from the hydrometer sample. Nice balance between cloves and bananas and not too strong flavors from either. I tweaked the recipe just a hair buy subbing Munich in for 8oz. of the Pilsner malt just to add a little bit of malt character.

I ended up being more efficient than normal which was great process wise but my OG is a little out of style at 1.056.

I made a 1L starter on my stirplate with the WLP300 and had a nice clean fermentation held at 64* the entire time. Final gravity was 1.010.

Carbed to style on this one using 5.5 oz. corn sugar for the 5g batch.

Can't wait to taste the final results!
 
Awesome! Please let us know how this turns out as it's on my list for sure. Before this is Edwort's House Pale ale.

Super excited about both recipes!

Keep us updated on your brew!
Jeff

Will do. It is bubbling away right now stinkin up my garage heh.

Is this beer really ready for bottling at 10 days or is that if you are kegging?
 
Will do. It is bubbling away right now stinkin up my garage heh.

Is this beer really ready for bottling at 10 days or is that if you are kegging?

Hefes are ready pretty quickly typically. I left mine in primary for 14 days then bottled (absolutely no need for a secondary for a hefe). No diacetyl present, etc. It tasted like it was ready to go.

What temp are you fermenting at? That's the most important factor. If it's on the high side I would let it mellow out for a while in primary.
 
Been sitting at about 68-70 now since Sat. I also used a american wheat and not a german one since my local store didn't have it. Guy there said it wouldn't make a huge difference but who knows.
 
Been sitting at about 68-70 now since Sat. I also used a american wheat and not a german one since my local store didn't have it. Guy there said it wouldn't make a huge difference but who knows.

What strain? (WLP320 or WY1010 possibly?)

If you used an American Wheat strain IMO it will make a considerable difference in flavor. The Bavarian Hefe yeast is what give the style all of it's clove/banana character - you likely won't get as much of that with an American Wheat strain.

Either way it's probably fine to bottle already.
 
No idea what the american wheat was...the guy that worked there said it would just change the color a bit and not the flavor but I was still skeptical.

O well nothing I can do about it now.
 
Smack pack or vial?

I am talking about the grains and not the yeast. The yeast I used was the one in this thread.

Think you guys might be confusing what I said. I used American wheat grains and not german grains.
 
I am talking about the grains and not the yeast. The yeast I used was the one in this thread.

Think you guys might be confusing what I said. I used American wheat grains and not german grains.

Ahh gotcha. My mistake.

Subbing American wheat malt for German is not going to affect this recipe at all. Might change the color and malt profile just a hair but unless you did a side by side comparison you wouldn't notice the difference.
 
Ahh gotcha. My mistake.

Subbing American wheat malt for German is not going to affect this recipe at all. Might change the color and malt profile just a hair but unless you did a side by side comparison you wouldn't notice the difference.

Awesome. :rockin:

I gotta take a gravity reading and possibly bottle this tomorrow.
 
Forgive me if I've missed this in the thread, but I'm looking at buying wheat malt, and I can buy Weyermann Pale or Dark. I'm assuming by looking at the pictures I want the pale? Lovibond 2.4 vs. 7.3 for the dark.
 
So I just bottled this. My OG was 1.050 and I ended up with 1.008. Can't wait to try this around Thanksgiving.
 
Subbing American wheat malt for German is not going to affect this recipe at all. Might change the color and malt profile just a hair but unless you did a side by side comparison you wouldn't notice the difference.

Yep, I've made this recipe using Canada Malt Pilsner & Wheat malt and it turned out very good too. The big key is fermenting temps and Weihenstephen German Hefeweizen yeast.
 
I think I fermented too cool at around 68. Don't seem to have a lot of banana flavor or clove. Kinda seems watered down is the best way I could put it.
 
Yup. I was expecting umm I guess a thicker mouth feel if that makes sense. t is still very good but maybe I just havent had a commercial hef lately so I could tell the difference.
 
I brewed this recipe a while back using the 3056 yeast. It came out REALLY well. It is a beer that everybody seem to like, even the pilsner-only drinkers!

I'm brewing a new hefe tomorrow, with the 3068 yeast, hoping to get a bit more clove and banana taste.

So, my question is, what do you guys think about adding 1 % chocolate malt and about 7 % munchener (replacing a bit of the pilsner malt)? I'm also going to try a mash schedule similar to what they do at Schneider, only with infusion, not decoction.
 
Thanks for the recipe - it is now a staple beer in my kegerator for SWMBO.

Grain to glass in less than a month. I personally do not enjoy some of the flavors in a true Hefe. I thank you Ed for bringing that to the table because most "Hefes" in the supermarket are really just American Wheat beers as far as I can tell.

The important thing though is my wife loves it. She adds a bit of raspberry syrup to hers (OMG!! WTH!!) and thoroughly enjoys the dance of malt and fruit with a touch (smitdgen) of hops.
 
Why is it that almost everything I have read on homebrewing the Hefe style indicates it peaks in drinkability quickly (about 3 weeks from brew day) and then goes downhill? I usually find the 2 month mark to be ideal taste-wise for most of my standard (5-6%abv) beers. I kegged the recipe at the start of this thread (change being I used WB-06 yeast from Fermentis) after letting in sit in primary for 2 weeks, set at 14psi, 40F and served a week later.

It was horrid. I had all but decided that my taste buds were not compatible with the style, and was preparing to give away the keg. I just tried it again (6 weeks from brew day), and I think it is great. Good thing too, since I have another 40 pounds of wheat to use up.

I am virtually certain there was no brewing flaw or infection, and other brewers who tried it concur. So why on Earth would my brewing books say the pinnacle of taste is three weeks from brew day?

Now its actually so good I'll make it again, but 2 weeks ago, I was thinking of it as destined for the drain.
 
Hey Ed, I have been searching for this online for about an 90 min so i thought i would ask the expert. What is the difference between using wheat berries and wheat malt? Is the wheat malt easily converted and the berries not so much? I use wheat berries as an adjunct in a beer of mine and love the nice wheaty taste they lend. what would happen if i used unmalted wheat?
 
IPAAAA said:
Yup. I was expecting umm I guess a thicker mouth feel if that makes sense. t is still very good but maybe I just havent had a commercial hef lately so I could tell the difference.

Did you do a decoction? My hefe's lack the samething. I'm going to start adding munich malt or melanoidin malt to add to the body a bit.
 
We brewed this yesterday and over achieved our efficiency. Hit 80% for the first time! Looking forward to seeing how it turns out with a higher ABV. Had an OG of 1062. Notes to come later. Thanks for the recipe.
 
I brewed this on Sat 1/29 but used WLP380 Hefeweisen IV yeast instead of the WLP300; I've gotten less "banana bomb" when I used 380 in the past. This is about my 8th all-grain batch, and I've been getting lower OG than expected when grinding my grains at the LHBS, so this time I sent the grains through their mill twice. I did use rice hulls to avoid a stuck sparge. My OG came in at 1.060, higher than expected. I put 5.25 gallons (including starter) in the carboy, then put the carboy in the ferm chamber at 68 degrees. I did use a blowoff tube instead of an airlock.

Yesterday morning there was a pretty thick layer of trub at the bottom of the carboy (maybe as much as 1/2 gallon), and only a thin layer of krausen on top. Temp of the carboy was at 68. I was at work for 24 hours so did not check again until today. This morning there is so much blowoff that probably a pint of wort/beer went into the blowoff pitcher, and the carboy temp now reads at 72. All the trub is just churned into the beer (this is my first batch in a carboy instead of a bucket so I never got to see that before).

My questions:

Given that the endothermic activity of the fermentation has increased the temp of my carboy, am I going to get too much ester production?

Is there any way to end up with 5 gallons of beer with this recipe? Seems like by the time it's done fermenting and the trub resettles I will have only about 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 gallons to go into the keg. I used a 6 gallon carboy but seems like more wort would just mean an even messier blowoff.

Will I still be able to wash and harvest my yeast with so much trub? I've reused this yeast before, but that was with an extract batch using hopped extract, so I had no hop pellet residue or other trub to deal with.

Thanks in advance for any info.
 
SteveSD said:
I brewed this on Sat 1/29 but used WLP380 Hefeweisen IV yeast instead of the WLP300; I've gotten less "banana bomb" when I used 380 in the past. This is about my 8th all-grain batch, and I've been getting lower OG than expected when grinding my grains at the LHBS, so this time I sent the grains through their mill twice. I did use rice hulls to avoid a stuck sparge. My OG came in at 1.060, higher than expected. I put 5.25 gallons (including starter) in the carboy, then put the carboy in the ferm chamber at 68 degrees. I did use a blowoff tube instead of an airlock.

Yesterday morning there was a pretty thick layer of trub at the bottom of the carboy (maybe as much as 1/2 gallon), and only a thin layer of krausen on top. Temp of the carboy was at 68. I was at work for 24 hours so did not check again until today. This morning there is so much blowoff that probably a pint of wort/beer went into the blowoff pitcher, and the carboy temp now reads at 72. All the trub is just churned into the beer (this is my first batch in a carboy instead of a bucket so I never got to see that before).

My questions:

Given that the endothermic activity of the fermentation has increased the temp of my carboy, am I going to get too much ester production?

Is there any way to end up with 5 gallons of beer with this recipe? Seems like by the time it's done fermenting and the trub resettles I will have only about 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 gallons to go into the keg. I used a 6 gallon carboy but seems like more wort would just mean an even messier blowoff.

Will I still be able to wash and harvest my yeast with so much trub? I've reused this yeast before, but that was with an extract batch using hopped extract, so I had no hop pellet residue or other trub to deal with.

Thanks in advance for any info.

I don't think 72 is too high, if that's the peak temp. Most bavarian brewers all the wort to heat up like that, from low 60s into 70s. Most ester production should be over.

You can still wash the yeast. Check out the sticky in the yeast forum. However, I don't like repitching hefe yeast, it really loses their ability to produce esters.

I use a bucket for my hefe's, the extra head space helps but you still might need a blow off and shoot for 5.5 gallons to ensure I keg a full batch.
 
I brewed this yesterday and ran into a few problems. Disclaimer: I used 2-row instead of Pilsen and I milled my own grain (first time ever using my mill). This was also my first wheat all-grain brew.

Here were my issues:
1. Stuck sparge. Used rice hulls but that didn't seem to help.
2. Color was very dull. It looked almost grayish-light brown. I did an extract hefeweizen previously and that looked great. All of my AG brews until this one had great color too.
3. It was VERY cloudy with a lot of particulate matter. I use the stainless steel braid in my MLT. I'm thinking that it let a lot of crap into the wort.

At first, I was thinking that I screwed up milling the wheat malt, but my OG reading was actually higher than anticipated due to better efficiency.
 
Brewed 10 gallons of this today! I split it into two different fermenters, left half alone, and the other half has some peeled mandrin oranges! Hope they both turn out great. My OG was a little lower than the original recipe, as I upped the amount of wort (to account for loss due to oranges in fermenter), but didn't adjust the grain bill. It still came out at 1.051!
 
Got our gravity down to 1014 after one week in primary. Plan on bottling it this weekend. Tasted pretty good already and can't wait to age it a bit.
 
My batch is a little over 3 weeks old and it's ok, not great, just ok. It seems like it's not sweet enough. Lacks banana and clove essence. I think I may have fermented at too low of a temp (low to mid 60s). Anything I can do to make it a little sweeter?

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Home Brew Talk
 
A little off-topic, but I went to the Harpoon Brewery tour in Boston on my brother's 60th birthday last Friday. I've been wanting to go to buy glasses. Turns out they have the best prices on Hefe glasses. I bought 2. They are $8 each. One says Hefeweizen and the other says white beer, but they are the same glass.

Regarding the previous post, I thought you get a sweeter beer by mashing at a higher temp - not so much the fermentation temp. I suppose that you could add sugar or dry malt to make the beer sweeter, but that won't add to the clove or banana taste.
 
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