Wheat Beer ideas?

I am excited to start this next brew folks! I live Blue Moon and Widmer, so i decided my next batch will be a wheat beer. I have a few questions and if anyone would like to give me some insight, that would be greatly appreciated.

Is wheat beer normally a grain only brew?

I plan on fermenting in my primary for about 10 days, then switching to my secondary for about two months. However, I have heard adding oranges or lemons to the bucket will impart some great flavors.

How should I cut the citrus? Is it as simple as cutting them in half?

Send me your ideas please!!

Cheers Everyone!

First, what do you mean by, "Is wheat beer normally a grain only brew?" - if you mean All Grain than no, you can do wheats with extract too.

Second, you do not need to secondary and you probably don't want to let wheat beers sit for 2 months. Wheat beers are the one exception where they are typically best drank young. For belgian style Wits I leave them in my primary for 3 weeks then bottle, primarily because the krausen takes a little longer to fall. With my hefe's it's always two weeks in the primary then bottle - bottle conditioning always being 3 weeks.


Rev.

Rev. I appreciate the feed back. Do you brew in carboys? I get the impression that you monitor the fermentation precess. I am not really sure how to do this since I ferment in buckets.

What do you think?

P.S. I thought that Hefe's and Wit's were the same thing basically. Is there a disernable difference?

If your looking for something close to Blue Moon, grab yourself a beer or 2 and read this. It contains some great info. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/blue-moon-clone-65328/

Thanks Frogman!! That was a great forum page. Have you ever done a Blue Moon clone? If so, did you only use orange peel? And was it only in the boil, or did you ferment with it also?

cameronwoolery said:

Thanks Frogman!! That was a great forum page. Have you ever done a Blue Moon clone? If so, did you only use orange peel? And was it only in the boil, or did you ferment with it also?

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Glad to help. I made the clone Wayne1 gave in the thread for my dad's birthday party last summer. I had 3 beers on tap an APA, Centennial Blonde and the Blue Moon clone. Everyone killed the blue moon, I had to run home and grab the second keg.

Frogman,
Did you ferment in a secondary? If so, how long?

A site that I will be getting my kit from, a guy said he fermented in a secondary for 2 months, and it turned out amazing. Thoughts?

No I didn't. The beer was done fermenting at around the 7th day. I kept it in the primary and stuck it in the fridge for 2 days just to help any floaters sink. After 2 days I kegged it. Wheat beers are better when they are young. They are one of the few beers you can go from grain to glass in 2 weeks, unless your making a wheat wine but that's a whole nother animal.

Ok Cool!
I am getting mixed reviews on this, so I may just get two duplicate kits, and do them both ways and see which comes out better.

cameronwoolery said:

P.S. I thought that Hefe's and Wit's were the same thing basically. Is there a disernable difference?

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Wits are Belgian, hefeweizens are German. Hefeweizens do not have coriander or orange peel adjuncts. Widmer is an American wheat, not a German hefeweizen. Widmer does not use the correct yeast strain either.