Weissbier Citra Hefeweizen

This was my first hefeweizen. I was going for something on the more citrusy, crisper side as opposed to banana and bready. The banana and clove notes are still present, but are more subdued. The bright, citrus flavor really comes out. This is an excellent summer beer.

All Grain
5 lbs German Pilsner
5 lbs American Wheat
.5 lbs Munich malt
****Mash 153 for 60 minutes****

1.0oz German Tettnang 60'
0.4oz Citra 10'

Oxygen with diffusion stone for 2 minutes.

Wyeast 3068 pitched at 68F.


Notes:
Temperature set to 64F for 5 days. Final gravity was reached by then. Bumped temperature up to 66, then 68 on days 6 and 7. Started lowering by 2 degrees per day until at 60F. Cold crashed for 1 day at 38F, then kegged.

After resting in the keg under force carbonation for 3 days, the beer is ready. The aroma is traditional hefeweizen - banana, clove, some mild citrus. The taste is where the addition of the citra hops becomes apparent. The citrus is more moderate and lasting. It is more prevalent than the banana and clove, as opposed to the other way around with a traditional hefeweizen. The mouthfeel is very light and dry, with a lingering wheat flavor.

I like Citra in a hefeweizen. It should be done more often.

I put some in my roggenbier last weekend. It was 25% rye and 25% wheat with a hefe yeast.

I use it in my American wheat and it works really well with that.

Picked up the ingredients for this today and should brew this weekend. After brewing a lot of hop bombs I'm really looking forward to this one. Thanks for the recipe, I'll let update in a few weeks.

Cool!

You can control the citrus/crisp vs banana/bready flavors by lowering or raising the fermentation temperatures respectively. After brewing this once, I would probably have gone with 62 degrees instead of 64 for the first few days of primary in order to reduce the banana flavors even further.

Conman, meant to ask before, what OG do you typically get for this? Brewed on Saturday and hit 1.050. Seemed a little low and a quick online calculation told me I had something like 68% efficiency. We use BIAB and I forgot to ask LHBS to do a double crush, so I suppose this is reasonable.

This is my first go with 3068. What's should I expect for FG as well? From what I've read it's a very attenuative yeast. I figure a little under 1.010 would be about right for a mash temp of 153°...

All in all it was a very easy brew day and I look forward to making another. So far I've followed your recipe exactly, except pitching temp was 61° and I let it free rise to 64° before temp control kicked in. I'm hoping for a nice balanced profile of banana/clove.

My brewhouse efficiency at the time I brewed this recipe last was also around 68%. Since then, I have started experimenting with mash PH adjustments and double milling at the LHBS, and have improved my efficiency. I would now use about 3/4 to 1 pound less base malt.

For the FG, I would expect something similar to what I got. It is a very attenuative yeast.

Let me know how it turns out!

Dangit! If I had read your recipe more closely, all my questions would have been answered. My bad.

Man, I love this beer! Had it kegged last weekend after about 12 days in primary and carbed in 2 days. It's been getting a little better over the last week but I just don't think it needs much conditioning. Very light, crisp, and flavorful. Beautiful color. I wasn't picking up the citra at first but it's started to come through. Just a little citrusy brightness that peeks out at the end. Perfect! The cooler ferm temps provided a well balanced flavor from the yeast. Neither the clove or banana is particularly intense, just enough to keep things interesting.

About the only change I will make next time is to let it ride 3 weeks total in primary to clear up some of the sulfur. It hasn't been too bad but was definitely there at first. Not much of an issue though because it dissipates just a few seconds after pouring. I have been purging the keg periodically, which has helped.

Thank you for an excellent recipe. I'll definitely make it again soon.

I did something similar to this, used Cascade at flameout.
I pitched US-05 first, then the next day 3068.
The result was great! The more clean profile from the 05 yeast allowed for my cascade hops to come out more, but there was enough character from the 3068 to where it still felt like a hefe. It's something I will brew every summer, making tweaks until it's perfected.

Looks awesome Marvinsjunk! I'm glad it turned out well for you. What was your actual OG and FG if you don't mind me asking?

The yeast blend idea sounds pretty neat. TastyAdventure, once you perfect that recipe you should post it on the forum!

Conman13 said:

Looks awesome Marvinsjunk! I'm glad it turned out well for you. What was your actual OG and FG if you don't mind me asking?

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Almost dead on with your specs at 1.050 and 1.008. I don't even think I'll do anything to improve my efficiency on the next batch. It's wonderfully refreshing and sessionable as is, which is in stark contrast to the 10.25% IIPA that's sitting next to it in the kegerator....

Conman13 said:

The yeast blend idea sounds pretty neat. TastyAdventure, once you perfect that recipe you should post it on the forum!

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Thanks! Next time, I'm going to pitch 1 pack of US-05 and 1/2 pack of 3068 into 5 gal at the same time.
This most recent time I pitched the 3068 1 day after, to give the 05 a head start.

Here is a photo of mine. Maybe a mod could place this on the first post.

I just finished my keg of this. Pretty much everyone that tried it loved it. The only people that didn't were the ones that don't like hefeweizens in general.

I'm going to brew this next week. Quick question, does the "60' " and "10' " next to the hops mean to add them at 60 minutes and 10 minutes in the boil respectively? Thank you!

Jorts said:

I'm going to brew this next week. Quick question, does the "60' " and "10' " next to the hops mean to add them at 60 minutes and 10 minutes in the boil respectively? Thank you!

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Yep, that's correct. Let me know how it turns out!

Conman13 said:

Here is a photo of mine. Maybe a mod could place this on the first post.

I just finished my keg of this. Pretty much everyone that tried it loved it. The only people that didn't were the ones that don't like hefeweizens in general.

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You can edit your post and add the attachment.

Conman13 said:

Yep, that's correct. Let me know how it turns out!

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Thanks for the clarification. I'll let you know how it comes out. I'm looking forward to this one!

I Brewed this 3 weeks ago and I am going to bottle it in the next day or 2. Is it better not to cold crash a hef at all since you want the yeast in your bottles? When I transfer the beer from the primary to the bottling bucket, do I want to try to transfer some of the yeast to the bottling bucket as well? This is my first hefeweizen and only my second all grain brew. Thanks a lot in advance!

Jorts said:

I Brewed this 3 weeks ago and I am going to bottle it in the next day or 2. Is it better not to cold crash a hef at all since you want the yeast in your bottles? When I transfer the beer from the primary to the bottling bucket, do I want to try to transfer some of the yeast to the bottling bucket as well? This is my first hefeweizen and only my second all grain brew. Thanks a lot in advance!

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I'm not sure, personally. Maybe some people with more experience with hefs can comment.

When I did mine, I cold crashed before kegging and still had a significant amount of yeast in suspension. After being in the keg for a few weeks, most of that cleared out, so it didn't really look like a traditional hef any longer. I would think that with bottling, since you are refermenting in the bottle, you are always going to end up with a little bit of yeast sediment on the bottom, which could be swirled around in the glass and poured in to the beer when serving.

I wouldn't try to suck up any of the trub when transferring, that seems like overkill.

What would the recommended amount of priming sugar be for a 5 gallon batch of this? I used this calculator (http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html) selecting bavarian weizen as the style and it recommend using a lot more priming sugar than I would expect.

I'm bottling mine soon and used my info and it said 8.4 oz of corn sugar that's double what I normally use and seems like an awful lot. Beersmith told me with my info about 4.8oz of priming sugar, I'll prob go with that instead but I'd be interested to hear other thoughts too.

I don't think it would be anything different than you normally do.

Hefeweizens need more carb than most other beers. The important thing with using those calculators is to know the exact volume of beer, account for trub/yeast cake loss.
I always rack to my bottling bucket before measuring out my priming sugar. Then give it a gentle but thorough stir

That calculator aims a little high though, I'd shoot for 3.0 vol of CO2

I just made a NEIPA with a similar grain profile using 3068, but with 3 oz of citra and armarillo each at the end of boil. Hoping fermenting at 80F for three days and then down to 75F will bring out more banana to add to the "juice"

After 4 weeks including 14 days of dry hopping, this turned out fantastic! The yeast dried out all the sweetness from the "juice", but I added truvia as a back sweetener at bottling. I know, I know. But don't hate it until you try it. The off flavors many complain with artificial sweeter is masked by the clove and tropical aroma and flavors.

Conman13 said:

1.0oz German Tettnang 60'
0.4oz Citra 10'

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Do you happen to have the AA of the hops you used handy? I'm about to mash in now to give this a try.

Thanks,
-bn

Going to brew this one soon. All my local shop has is Pilsen or Bohemian Pilsner malts. I'm going to try the Bohemian Pilsner in this one and see how it turns out! Also going to sub out the 3068 for wb-06. Tried 3068 on a brew previously and it was way too banana-ey for my liking. Never had a citra hefe so can't wait!