Hefeweizen recipe change last minute

So, original grain bill for my recipe went unchanged, but I had to grab different yeast and hops due to what was available at local HB shop.

4 lbs wheat
3 lbs two row pale
2 lbs light Munich

Hops changed from either sterling or perle to Czech saaz
.75 oz at 60 min
.25 oz at 15 min

Yeast went from wyeast 3068 (German hef) to white labs hef 300

My concern isn't the yeast choice, but changing hops on the fly. Fortunately today's brew day got cancelled due to sick kids and weather, but it also has me worrying about hop choice. Not feeling confident in first all grain.

Oh, and broke the grain mill while milling grains at HB store.

Suggestions?

i think saaz will be fine for hefe, i did mine with saaz but its still in a carboy so i can not tell you if its any good

Saaz should be fine for a hef. I use all Hallertau with good results, but any noble low bittering value hop should do OK. The hops are not prominent in a German Hef. Just stay away from the American citrusy hops.

My concern is the AA seems lower on Saaz compare to sterling, should I increase the amounts?

Yes.

Multiply Sterling Ounces x Percent AA to get Alpha Acid Units.
Then divide by Saaz Percent AA to get Ounces.

E.g. 1oz Sterling x 5% AA = 5 AAU
5 AAU / 4% AA Saaz = 1.25oz Saaz

I think your hops are fine. If I would change anything about your recipe I would use more wheat malt. The typical hefe has 60% wheat. And add some rice hulls if you've got them to avoid a stuck sparge.

AA on the Saaz bag is 2.4 and BA is 3.4. Original recipe was figured with AA of 6 on the sterling

Changed to 1.5 oz @ 60 min and .5 oz at 15 minutes to get me back near my 15 ibu goal.

slarkin712 said:

I think your hops are fine. If I would change anything about your recipe I would use more wheat malt. The typical hefe has 60% wheat. And add some rice hulls if you've got them to avoid a stuck sparge.

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Went with the ratio and grain bill soley based on og and fg, along with malts used from kellerweis at Sierra Nevada description online

15 IBU's is about perfect. As to the wheat ratio, I believe German law says a Hef will be at least 50% wheat. Since we aren't concerned with meeting German law it is not as critical. I usually shoot for wheat malt somewhere in the 52-55% of grist area just to keep it close to authentic. Some German beers go with an even higher percentage, but I find it isn't worth the extra stress of gumming up the mash. At 44% the recipe is below the German standard, but wouldn't make a bad beer. I find 1lb of Munich works great in my recipe to help simulate some of the melanoidens of a decoction mash. You could certainly replace 1 lb of the Munich in the above recipe for another lb of wheat malt which would put your wheat percentage around 55% and up your wheat presence a bit. Either way I think you'll be fine, upping the wheat would just be more traditional.

Going to bottle this recipe today. Was going to use 6 oz priming sugar any thoughts?

The brew pal app that I have calls for 5.6-7.2 oz of priming sugar. So I think that would be just fine.

Polboy said:

i think saaz will be fine for hefe, i did mine with saaz but its still in a carboy so i can not tell you if its any good

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How did your hef end up coming out? I am bottling today.

And btw to the original post, I found perle pellets at my other lhbs so I have a combo of Saaz Leaf and Perle Pellets in this bad boy. I'm excited to try it. Tasted my sample from the FG read and it was pretty good.