My Hefeweizen is high!!

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kenche

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This was my third partial mash batch, and because of low efficiency on my previous two, I decided to add more extract.

I hit better efficiency this time though and have ended up with a german hefeweizen with an OG of 1.068.

Yeast is Wyeast 3638.

I have a couple of questions.....

Will this beer still fall into a hefe style?

I assume that it will require longer than a 10 day ferment before bottling, any idea how long?

Any other suggestions to help this beer?

Thanks,

Ken
 
I might get lucky on the bittering. My lhbs did not have the hops for the recipe I was planning to make. The substitution that they suggested had a significantly higher aau. The clerk, who is rather dim, struggled to do the math to try to hit the orignal bitterness. I told him to foget it and to just give me the original weights as I thought that a bit of extra bitterness in a bavarian hefe would appeal to me.

I am more concerned about whether the 3638 yeast can handle the higher gravity, and whether I need to ferment this for longer than 10 days before bottling. Obviously I will monitor the fermentation and take a gravity reading.

Does anyone have a prediction for the FG of this beer?
 
I'm no partial masher, and this doesn't help your current situation.

But for my own personal knowledge, can you take the gravity of the partial mash, do some quick math and figure out how much extract to add to hit your desired gravity?
 
If you made a starter, aerated your wort, and you keep the temp within the (pretty broad) suggested range of 64-75F, you should get the published 70-76% attenuation. Your FG should be around 1.018.

The yeast shouldn't have any problem with that gravity...you're only looking at 6.5% ABV or so.
 
Warped,

The math is not that quick, but you are right there are formulas to figure that all out. When you have your wort boilong it is not that easy to (for me) to step away and solve a math problem. I am also a bit of a carefree brewer....

Bike n Brew,

Thanks for the reassurance, the yeast was very healthy. The manufacturing date was June 18th, 2007. It reacted vigourously to it's starter, so I believe it will handle the HG well.

Anyone have any guesses to the flavour profile of a high gravity hefeweizen?
 
Same thing just happened to me recently. I am pretty new to AG (doing my third this weekend) and until recently, I never really used calculators or anything. Anyway, long story short, I used too much grain and came out with a OG of 1.065. Dumped it onto a yeast cake of WLP300 and it fermented down to 1.014.
 
Yep I did this on pupose... here is the thread I started. Not sure if there is much info you want/need but here you go

http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=25558


I let it ferment all the way out and bottled. I let it age a bit longer than usual (not sure how long really bc I had other beers I was drinking) but compared to my "normal" hefe and this one the taste is the same but after drinking 1 I had to chill out for a while. My fiance came home and was like "how many beers did you drink?" "I only had 1 baby" "Yeah right..."

anyway it's quite tasty but it'll hit you fast.

Good luck!
 
kenche said:
How did it taste? Was it good, is there a new style waiting to be born?

The Imperial Hefeweizen!

Dont know yet. Going to be bottled this weekend, and I will try it the following weekend. I will let you know.

However, I did taste it and it tasted pretty dern good.
 
kenche said:
Warped,

The math is not that quick, but you are right there are formulas to figure that all out. When you have your wort boilong it is not that easy to (for me) to step away and solve a math problem. I am also a bit of a carefree brewer....

Oh I'm with you...

I'm just curious, because I'm getting ready to do some partial mashings, and hadn't thought of it. I was just thinking I could do an excel spreadsheet put all the necessary formulas in, punch in the gravity from the partial mash, and come out with the amount of extract I needed to use.

I wouldn't even know what the formulas were.
 
1.068 would have you in the weizenbock style. Which is essentially just a hefeweizen with a higher OG.

For a higher OG I would probably think about 2 weeks in primary before you bottle. But checking the SG is the best way to be sure. You don't want to end up with bottle bombs.
 
Warped - I posted my attempt at a formula in a seperate thread in this forum. Lets see if it is right or if there is a simpler one.
 
Well I have drank about 2 gallons of the imperial hefe. I must admit that it is not the first beer I reach for.

Usually I have three options in the fridge. When option 1 or 2 are not available or appealing, well the imperial hefe is always there.

It has a pretty significant alcohol flavor, but it also has a big kick. The bananas and cloves also have a strong presence, but I have to admit that I am anticipating next summers opportunity to do a hefe right.
 
:off: funny how things change. I read this and thought to myself that I havn't hit that low a OG even on purpose in a long time. Your yeast will be fine. Sounds like they get a slight workout this time. Save some. Re-use. At these low gravities your yeasts will be only kind of slightly stressed. Your growing lots of healthy happy yeasties here. :) Split up your yeast cake into 4 or so 12 oz bottles. That's $6/batch of savings for those 4 batches! YAY!!!
 
I had bottled the Imperial Hefe in 3 6L tap-a-draft bottles. The first one was drank over the summer, and was not wel received.

I just now cracked the second 6L, and it is much improved. Reminds me of a unibroue maudite.

I must say that I am happy to have 12L still on hand (3 gallons) for my southern brethren.
 
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