Weissbier Honey Orange Hefeweizen

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
And you're new, so don't even worry about taking gravity readings at every step. Heck, I still don't and I've been brewing for almost 6 years... I only ever take two readings total per batch. Just take a gravity reading after you've boiled and then cooled your wort (but before you pitch your yeast.) That will be your Original Gravity, or OG. Then take a gravity reading a couple weeks later when fermentation should be completely done and the yeast have cleaned up after themselves. That will be your final gravity, or FG.

The OG should be right around 1.045 and the FG should be around 1.008 if mashed around 152-154*F

If you're still iffy about mashing I'd recommend doing some more reading. If you haven't, check out the free (but older edition) of Palmer's "How to Brew"
 
Great read!

Thanks for the advise! This forum is the Best!

I was reading somewhere that you can tell when you mash is complete or at its max but taking Sg readings during your mashing. Any truth to this method? I will take your advise and mash in the 152-154 range.
 
Well you can just give it 60 minutes and call it good. It's almost certainly guaranteed to be complete if you have the right temperatures, fresh high-quality malt, and a proper water to grain ratio.

But if you're really concerned about it, after 60 minutes take a teaspoon or so of liquid from your mash and put it on a white plate. Then put one drop of iodine (or iodophor) in the liquid. If it stays brown then you're done. If it turns blue, black, or purple, you still have starches that have yet to be converted into sugars. Hope that helps :mug:
 
Iodine - Just normal Iodine i can buy from the pharmacy?

I will take your advise and brew for 60min and test with the iodine. THANKS!:)
 
Quick question, when i go to add my yeast... how do i mix that up? in a few cups of warm water? Stir and add when i aerate the primary fermentor?
 
This is going to be my first all-grain brew. I'm mixing it up a bit, can I get your thoughts?

Boil Size: 6.5g
Batch Size: 5.5g
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.011
ABV: 3.9%
IBU: 16.9

Grain Bill:
4# Rahr White Wheat
3# German 2-Row Pilsner
1.5# Flaked Wheat
1# Honey Malt

Mash:
Add 13qts of 170 degree water and maintain 154 for one hour.

Sparge:
Over one hour, sparge with 20 quarts of 170 degree water.

Boil:

60 min: .5oz Tettnang
15min: .5oz Tettnang
10min: .5oz Glacier, orange zest, puréed fruit of one orange
1min: .5oz Glacier

Yeast: WLP0300 Liquid

Fermentation:
10 days at 68 degrees

Bottle Condition:
10 days at 68 degrees

I'm thinking of using honey as my priming sugar for this. Has anyone tried this? I know it's more expensive but I have a lot of honey from a local keeper here at home and 6oz isn't that much.

I'm using the Glacier hops for more citrus flavors. I wanted to use Citra but its not available right now.

Being my first all grain, are there any secrets I should know about? Thanks!
 
TheJasonT said:
This is going to be my first all-grain brew. I'm mixing it up a bit, can I get your thoughts?

Boil Size: 6.5g
Batch Size: 5.5g
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.011
ABV: 3.9%
IBU: 16.9

Grain Bill:
4# Rahr White Wheat
3# German 2-Row Pilsner
1.5# Flaked Wheat
1# Honey Malt

Mash:
Add 13qts of 170 degree water and maintain 154 for one hour.

Sparge:
Over one hour, sparge with 20 quarts of 170 degree water.

Boil:

60 min: .5oz Tettnang
15min: .5oz Tettnang
10min: .5oz Glacier, orange zest, puréed fruit of one orange
1min: .5oz Glacier

Yeast: WLP0300 Liquid

Fermentation:
10 days at 68 degrees

Bottle Condition:
10 days at 68 degrees

I'm thinking of using honey as my priming sugar for this. Has anyone tried this? I know it's more expensive but I have a lot of honey from a local keeper here at home and 6oz isn't that much.

I'm using the Glacier hops for more citrus flavors. I wanted to use Citra but its not available right now.

Being my first all grain, are there any secrets I should know about? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sounds excellent! I believe the honey will work fine, any extra you can send my way too! :p lol
 
Will the acid in the orange affect head retention? I took that out because I'm concerned about that... Need lots of head on this beer!
 
I've never had an issue with bad head retention. And I don't think it's the citric acid that would affect the head, it's the oil in the skins (of which there isn't enough to affect it.)
 
Looks really good. Thanks for including a partial mash version.

I have a 3 gallon Rubbermaid MLT. Will it fit 6.5 pounds of grain? I've never tried that much at a time. Anybody know?
 
That seems doable. But go search for "green bay rackers calculator" and on that page will be a "can I mash in it" calculator.

Sorry for not including a link, I'm posting from my phone.
 
Reno_eNVy said:
That seems doable. But go search for "green bay rackers calculator" and on that page will be a "can I mash in it" calculator.

Sorry for not including a link, I'm posting from my phone.
Click to expand...

Looks like it will work.

Would your recommended yeast substitution be the WLP300? I've had bad luck with dry yeast.
 
300 for more banana/clove like a german hefe, 320 for a clean american wheat
 
Brewskier said:
Which would you recommend as a substitute for the dry yeast in your recipe? I'm worried the banana clove would overshadow the honey/orange.
Click to expand...

Okay that question is a bit ambiguous. If you mean you're looking for a substitute that is also dry, I'd say anything neutral like US-05 or nottingham.
 
Reno_eNVy said:
Okay that question is a bit ambiguous. If you mean you're looking for a substitute that is also dry, I'd say anything neutral like US-05 or nottingham.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I was looking for a liquid substitute. I went with WLP300. I figure if the orange/honey gets overshadowed by the banana/clove, I'll still have a tasty hefe. If I used the American hefe yeast, I'd worry about there being not enough flavor.

I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm brewing as we speak.
 
Just realized how quickly this one can be consumed. I brewed it in preparation for a trip I'm taking in the middle of next month... would you recommend bottling to keep some of the hefe character around longer? I usually keg, but I realize that a lot of yeast will go to the bottom after a few weeks. I could always bottle from the keg...


What do you think?
 
Just brewed this up today. I slightly changed the grain schedule just to have the beer finish at 5%, and then since Little Cuties, Clementines, are now out I juiced a pint of Clementines and added it to the end of the boil. Can't wait to see how it turns out!
 
Just brewed this yesterday, can't wait! Although I altered the original recipe: increased grain bill by 15%, increased IBU by 2, using Wyeast 3068 instead of 3056 (LHBS limitation), and used half a jar of home harvested honey (Mom's a bee keeper). We'll see how it turns out. Yeasties are very active right now and OG was 1.061.
 
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Both substitutes of cuties and local honey sound great. Be sure to post your final results :mug:
 
Just brewed this beauty last night. I over estimated my boil off/ water volume (BIAB and ended up with 6 gallons after a planned 90 minute boil) and got a 1.040, but I am sure it will be fine. I am getting ready to pitch this morning (my first no chill). Thanks for the recipe. I will post results when this is ready.
 
Ahh I see... So instead of rapidly cooling the wart he is letting it cool to room temp before "pitching"

I thought I read some where that we cool the wart as fast as possible to prevent any bacterial from getting into the wart before the fermentation process starts.

I made this very receive in November. Being my first all grain it didn't turn out very well. I boiled down to 3.5 gallons from 5. I didn't know we were to start with a per boil volume of 6.5-7gallons. My bad. Lol I learned from my mistake.

I am going to attempt again in a few weeks lol

Thanks for all the help!
 
BakerBeer said:
I thought I read some where that we cool the wart as fast as possible to prevent any bacterial from getting into the wart before the fermentation process starts.
Click to expand...

Typically what people will do is pour boiling wort into a bucket. This will certainly kill any baddies. Then it's closed up until ready for yeast so as long as you have an appropriate sized yeast starter with healthy yeast it shouldn't be a problem.
 
Cracked open my first bottle of this tonight. It carbed up really fast, it's only been conditioning for less than a week. Obviously, the flavor was a bit green still but I got all sorts of honey sweetness in the middle with a touch of orange on the back end. Delicious!

image-573576897.jpg
 
It's good. A bit of toasty/roasty flavor because I missed my OG something fierce and boiled for two hours hoping to concentrate the wort. That's prevalent in the aroma, which is similar to Budweiser. The flavor is completely different, with a nice sweetness and hints of orange. I'm definitely going to enjoy this one.
 
I used 5.9oz if I remember correctly. I used Northern Brewers priming sugar calculator.
 
Nice! I was reading some where a good place to start for priming sugar is around 1 ounce per gallon.... Not sure how true that is but it's a starting point I guess. :)

I am going to my local brew shop on tomorrow to pick up the ingredients to give this one another whirl.

I think I am going to attempt to make false bottom for my brew kettle. My cooler sucks and I lost so much heat durning my mash... I started out around 170 and a hour later I was down to mid to low 140s...

Trial and error I assume....
 
Started at 170? That's way too high of a mash temperature... or do you mean that was your strike water temperature?

And 5oz of priming sugar might be a little high, especially since if you're making 5 gallons you'll likely only end up with 4.5 - 4.75 gallons of bottleable (new word!) beer. I've found I almost always use roughly 4 +/- 0.25 ounces whenever I bottle (rare now.) The only exceptions are when I need low carb or champagne-like carb.

Tastybrew.com bottle priming calculator has you needing 4.5oz to get 2.5 volumes of CO2 if you're priming at 70*F (which you should be ;))
 
Ah gotcha. Are you taking a temperature reading after adding the strike water and stirring well? If not you may just be starting in the low-40's but holding temp the whole hour.

Also, you may just be losing temperature to the mash tun itself. A lot of people pre-heat theirs.
 
BakerBeer said:
Ahh I see... So instead of rapidly cooling the wart he is letting it cool to room temp before "pitching"

I thought I read some where that we cool the wart as fast as possible to prevent any bacterial from getting into the wart before the fermentation process starts.

I made this very receive in November. Being my first all grain it didn't turn out very well. I boiled down to 3.5 gallons from 5. I didn't know we were to start with a per boil volume of 6.5-7gallons. My bad. Lol I learned from my mistake.

I am going to attempt again in a few weeks lol

Thanks for all the help!
Click to expand...

The no chill process is a relatively "new" one, but has been successfully accomplished by aussie homebrewers for a long time now, and of course, others here. So, I did pitch and it has been bubbling away vigorously, just now starting to slow down.


Do you have a fairly wide pot and/or arid conditions? I live in New Mexico, and I add about 10% to calculate my boil off (plus a wide pot to boot) over conventional wisdom. I pretty much hit the marks.
 
Anyone have problems with head retention on this? I'm drinking one now that's been conditioning for 8 days and after an initial rush of bubbles when pouring and then it quickly dissolved to a thin line of nothingness. It also is a bit flat on the mouthfeel. Could it be the CO2 needs a bit more time to get into solution?
 

Similar threads

PashMaddle
Brew day #2 is done.
Replies
22
Views
1K
lumpher
lumpher
hiphoppotamuss
Orange Creamsicle Ale
Replies
13
Views
3K
IslandLizard
IslandLizard
S
Autumn Wheat Ale
Replies
5
Views
1K
kwilson16
kwilson16
tderanleau
Modelo especial clone
Replies
4
Views
2K
tderanleau
tderanleau
Clint Yeastwood
Dry Hopping: Covering up Beer's Best Features?
Replies
5
Views
826
Clint Yeastwood
Clint Yeastwood

Latest posts

Back
Top