FIRST BREW trying a wheat what you think

hello this is my first post but i have been reading all around, and learning allot.I am planning on making a wheat beer for my first beer.
The set up have is a
1. 30 qt ss pot
2. bayou classic propane burner
3. 6.5 for primary and 5 gal for secondary glass carboy
4. auto siphon hydrometer funnel and other assorted items.
5. I am eventually going to make a wort chiller but might not have for first brew.

Recipe plan

1. 2 lb of American crystal wheat. Hold 1 gallon of water at 150f for 30 min with wheat in grain bag.
2. add 3 more gallon water and use 4lb of alexanders wheat LME and bring to boil.
add 1.5 oz hallarteur hops for 45 min
add .5 oz hallarteur 10 min
2 gallons of water in primary fermentor
yeast: wyeast or white labs hefeweizen is there any good dry wheat yeast?

what do you guys think ?of this recipe any suggestion would be great i have a bunch of coriander seeds

Just make sure you take that grain bag out before you bring it up to a boil.

P.S. Is that really a 1 BBL pot you have? Seems like overkill for a 5 gallon batch.

Although I am not big on wheat beers your recipe looks fine. I will admit though that in my reading I can't remember steeeping wheat malt but maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention. Stick with the good liquid wheat yeasts because they are key to wheat beers. Wheat beers ferment pretty hard so be prepared.

Good luck with your brew....got a picture of that 30 gallon?
(Perhaps you ment to write 30 quarts? as that would be 7.5 gallon)

IMO your recipe needs some tweaking...

2 lbs of American crystal wheat equals about 1.5 lbs LME or 1.2 lbs DME

4lbs of Alexanders Wheat LME is about 3.2 lbs DME

That's about the equivilant of 4.4 lbs DME...seems a little light in the malt department.

What is the AA% of the hops? Whole or pellet?

With your malt I would not use more than 1 oz of pellets if they are more than 3.8%

Hefe Weizens use only bittering hops, so you can skip the aroma/flavoring hops also.

For a true to style/flavor German HW you need a good liquid Weizen yeast.
I use WLP351, but it can only be had in Jul/Aug...that's why I wash my yeast and have several vials on stand-by. THERE ARE NO GOOD DRY HW YEASTS for your purpose.

You can try WLP300 or the Weizen Blend which I also recommend. Weihenstephan most definitely.

How familiar are you with HWs? Ever been to Germany? If so, where, when?

I enjoy HWs, but then again, I lived in Germany for 9 years and brewed 6 batches last year.

Damn it homebrewer_99 your gonna scare another one away!

lol j/k very informative post.

Lord Sterrock Hammerson 8 said:

Damn it homebrewer_99 your gonna scare another one away!

lol j/k very informative post.

Click to expand...

I sure hope not... Just trying to help.

PS: Lord HS still wants to see a picture of pot for some reason...so here goes...

Lovely picture i still got a few buds in my stash box.
We better get this back on topic before a mod pistol whips us.

oops ya its a 30 qt pot i fixed it up top

all i know about hw is that i drink them and enjoy them.

the hallarteur i think are about 4.5% so i will bring down to 1 oz of them.

i think im going to go with wyeast American wheat 1010

what do you think i should add more steeping grain or a different kind of grain or more LME or some DME to bring up the DME content

my local brew shop sells alexanders wheat LME think it would be better to just get wheat DME

Depending on what your LHBS has, add either 1 or 2 Alexanders Wheat Kickers LME (unhopped), or if you want another 4lb can of wheat LME will bring you to just under 6% ABV. If you are using the American wheat yeast, then it will be an American wheat, not a HW. The yeast is what makes 90% of the character of a HW.

your recipe will be about 3.4%, + one kicker = 4.4%. +2 kickers = 5.5%

Good luck, enjoy, and whatever you do, have fun

Ok heres the change

1. 2 lb of American crystal wheat. Hold 1 gallon of water at 150f for 30 min with wheat in grain bag.
2. add 3 more gallon water and use 8lb of alexanders wheat LME and bring to boil.
add 1 oz hallarteur 4.5 % hops for 45 min
seems kinda low in hop department?
coriander seed crushed 10 min
2 gallons of water in primary fermenter
yeast: wyeast 1010


one other question once all the instruments are sanitized where do you place them so you the don't get contaminated again? does a dryer sanitize towels or sheets.

homebrewer_99 said:

For a true to style/flavor German HW you need a good liquid Weizen yeast.
I use WLP351, but it can only be had in Jul/Aug...that's why I wash my yeast and have several vials on stand-by. THERE ARE NO GOOD DRY HW YEASTS for your purpose.

Click to expand...

There is a dry yeast specifically for wheat beers. Brewferm Blanche (description says its specifically for belgian/bavarian wheat based beers [this would include hefeweizen I assume]) states that it will give off a banana/clove flavor desirable to these wheat beers. Midwestsupplies.com or Austinhomebrew.com sell this yeast.

Last weekend I brewed a sample batch (2.5g) of wheat (1.044ish OG) with hersbrucker hops for 60 mins and some hallarteur for 10 or so (~15IBU I believe). The yeast started fermenting within 4 hours of pitching with no starter and went strong for 3 days. I'm still getting 1 bubble per minute today, but plan to let it sit in primary for another week prior to bottling (no secondary as I want to get this experiment over with ASAP and wheatbeers are generally cloudy anyway). I plan to bottle with wheat DME and test in 3-4 weeks...

We'll see if I can't disprove the "no good dry wheat yeasts" theory...

ok heres how it went.

2 gallons of water 2 lbs of wheat malt steeped for 30 min at 160
added another gallon brought to boil put 6.5 lbs of alaxanders wheat lme and 1 lbs of honey
put 1 oz hallertau 4 % hops in for 45 min.
last 15 min put lemon zest of 2 lemons in.
fermenter has 2.5 gallons of water in it.
added wyeast 1010 smack pack to fermenter.

when i poured it into the fermenter i left all the hop goop and lemon zest on the bottom. of the pan and measured the SG of a filtered sample
SG 1.100

when i tasted the sample it was sweet with a real strong bitter taste is that normal?

i broke 2 fermenters by putting one outside in the cold and putting boiling water in the other so i am just using my 5 gallon secondary as the primary. with a blow off tube.