Recipe Help: Honey Wheat

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Bhen

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I've just started reading through the book Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels, trying to make sense of what i can considering i'm very much a beginner. So i've tried my hand at trying to design my first recipe.

Heres what i have to start:

GRAIN BILL
51.5% Wheat 1.038 5.7lbs
35% 2 Row 1.035 4.2lbs
20% Honey 1.033 1.7lbs
3.5% Honey Malt 1.030 0.5lbs

So my first question has to do with the wheat. It is a base grain correct? And if so is 50% acceptable in an American Wheat? I've been trying to style my recipe after it as best to my knowledge. Or is it a bad idea to use such a high amount of wheat? I was looking at other recipes and some had around 30-20% wheat. Should i increase the amount of 2 Row and decrease the wheat?

HOPS
1oz Hallertau 4 - 4.5 %AA 60 mins

Approximately 16.34 - 18.38 IBU

I think the style of an American Wheat goes up to 17 IBU Range? or Maybe 15 IBU i can't remember exactly. But i also know a lot of people can't taste the difference in a range of about 5 IBU. So i'm not worried about being off here a little. But will 1oz be enough? I feel a little weird only using 1 oz of hops in a 5 gallon batch.

Should i be adding flavoring and aromatic hops For this recipe? Perhaps Saaz as well? Like .5 oz at 30 mins and .5 oz at 10 minutes. That would increase the IBU by 11 though if that were the case. Or for most wheat recipes is only one hop used as bittering and i had it correct in the first place?
I could just be over thinking the hop situation.

YEAST
WLP300 Hefeweizen Ale Yeast
(Hopefully a little banana flavoring :ban: )


Last question has to do with the brewtarget 1.2.2 i'm using i downloaded it a month or two ago just to toy around with and it says all my calculations are off Its telling me i'm getting 4 IBU's lower than my calculations are, and the percentage of grains are off as well. I'm leaning on trusting my own calculations, because i've done them multiple times, over the course of the past week with the Designing Great Beers book right next to me. So should i just disregard what its saying? I just realized it also says my beer will be "cloying." But i'm still in the range of the proper IBU for the recipe?


Thanks in advance for any help given, it'll be very much appreciated.
-Bhen
 
Yes wheat is a base grain with high diastatic power. 50% is definitely an acceptable amount but you will want to add rice hulls to prevent a stuck sparge. You also might want to round off the amount of honey to the nearest pound. Weighing honey is a bit of a pain. IMO you don't really need flavor or aroma hops in a hefe. I usually add some flavoring but probably not aroma, last addition at 5 minutes at the latest. I like hallertau and tettnang for hefes. It is important with Hefe's to ferment pretty low, Jamil recommends 64f in Brewing Classic Styles. I'm unfamiliar with that software, trust your own calcs. Try beer calculus but make sure to adjust for efficiency and boil volumes.
 
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