Brewing a hefeweizen (hefeweizen recipe)

Brewing a hefeweizen soon (probably in a few weeks)
It was my dad's beer request lol

I'm trying to be as traditional as possible, since my dad went to Germany this past October and is in love with German hefeweizens.

Here's the recipe:

5.5 pounds of wheat malt - 61% of malt profile
3.5 pounds of pilsner malt - 39% of malt profile
0.5 ounces of perle hop pellets (8.3% AA) @ 60 minutes.
Wyeast 3068 (traditional hefewiezen yeast)

Double enhanced decoction mash
Medium bodied (saccharification rest at approximately 153 degrees)
3.0-3.3 volumes of CO2 by krausening
Bottle conditioning in 12 ounce bottles

Fermenting @ 68 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 weeks
No secondary

Looks good except I would go with Hallertau for the hops. You are going to want to toss in about 1/2 pound of rice hulls too so you don't end up with a stuck sparge with all that wheat. Keep fermentation temp to 68 degrees if you can and you will have an authentic Bavarian Hefe there.

Ok. thank you!

EdWort said:

I would go with Hallertau for the hops.

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By the way, why would you go with the Hallertau hops and not perle ones? I'm just wondering

credible2 said:

By the way, why would you go with the Hallertau hops and not perle ones? I'm just wondering

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Perle is a fairly intense German hop when compared to Hallertau and a Bavarian Hefe is very low hopped beer.

Take a look at my Bavarian Hefe recipe. I use Hallertau and I don't drop them till 45 minutes left in the boil.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/bee-cave-brewery-bavarian-hefeweizen-35679/

Perle hops are more for a German Pils than a Hefe. I use Perle in my Kolsch recipe and it comes out like a Bitburger Pils.

I personally think putting in Perle at 60 minutes will result Hefe with too much hop profile and too much bitterness.

Awesome. Thanks for the info. I am excited about this soon-to-be-brewed beer.

How would this recipe turn out if I used 2-row pale instead of pilsner malt? My wife wants me to brew a hefe, but I don't generally keep much pilsner malt around.

Rich_S said:

How would this recipe turn out if I used 2-row pale instead of pilsner malt? My wife wants me to brew a hefe, but I don't generally keep much pilsner malt around.

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If she wants a Bavarian Hefe, then go with Pils. It's lighter and kilned differently than 2 Row.

If you are looking for an American Hefe, go for it. It will be slightly darker than if you used pils and have more of a bready character to it.

EdWort said:

If she wants a Bavarian Hefe, then go with Pils. It's lighter and kilned differently than 2 Row.

If you are looking for an American Hefe, go for it. It will be slightly darker than if you used pils and have more of a bready character to it.

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Thanks. I'll probably just get the pils then.

Use two smack packs of the yeast - I could never get my hefes to taste right until I used two packs... and use a blow off tube for the first few days. I had kruasen all over the place and had to switch to the blow off tube mid-fermentation. Not fun. Also learned to get a bright golden color, you need a full boil or else the wort darkens and you end up with a dunkleweiss looking beer. I would add more pilsner as well to get the OG up.

How much of a difference does the double enhanced decoction make to the beer over a simple batch sparge?

Hey there. How much Wyeast 3068 should I use, in order to complete your recipe?

Hi,

this is the recepie I used:

IBU: 18
Gravity: 13P
Color: 16,6 EBC

Wheat Malt light 55,6%
Munich Malt 40%
Pilsner Malt 4,4%
Oatflakes: 220g

Hops: Saphir 4,9% Alpha
70% at 70 Min.
30% at 10 Min.

Mash in at: 45 degrees C
Rest at 45 degrees C for 15
Rest at 63 degrees C for 50
Rest at 72 degrees C for 40
Mash out at 78 degrees

Cooking time 90 Min.

Here is the thead with the pictures of my Hefe in comparison to a Paulaner Hefeweizen: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/german-hefe-help-440937/

If you scale down the wheat to round about 50% you won`t need rice hulls.

Cheers

4.4% pils underneath 40% munich? You won't notice that and don't need the diastatics. Otherwise I think I like the choice of munich, I have had plenty of authentic hefes with that color, despite the usual preference for pils.