What do you think of this Imperial Hefeweizen Recipe?

12lbs Wheat Liquid Extract
4oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

boil 60 mins 1.25 Zeus

Pitched onto Weihenstephan Weizen yeast cake from previous Hefewiezen Fermentation

8.8% ABV
28.0 IBU

Somebody who does a lot of extract brewing needs to chime in here, but from what I recall...Extracts tend to finish with a higher FG than if you were to mash the grain yourself. For a beer that big, I would mash really long and low to get a more fermentable wort. With extract, you're stuck with whatever temperature the manufacturers mashed at (154°?). An all extract brew that big will end up finishing high and be cloyingly sweet. My suggestion would be to cut out a few pounds of the extract and replace with table sugar. That should dry it out some.

Meh, kind of yes and no. You'll probably get 70 - 75% attenuation if the fermentation doesn't get stuck.

I did a barleywine with 10lbs of DME. The fermentation did get stuck around 60% and I had to repitch. Repitching a starter on mine resulted in 80% attenuation.

Some honey to help dry it out and lighten the body might help it to not get stuck and keep it from taking on a wheat bock like character.

There's a name for that style, and it doesn't start with "Imperial."
http://www.bjcp.org/2008styles/style15.php#1c

I don't know that I'd call it a weizenbock with no Munich malt in it, and he is very close to the upper limit of IBUs. Not to mention Zeus isn't typical for weizenbocks.

It's not a wizenbock. First, I'm not shooting for "Rich, bock-like melanoidins and bready malt combined with a powerful aroma of dark fruit (plums, prunes, raisins or grapes)". I just want it to be a stronger Hefe. I don't want the "rich strength and body of a bock," necessarily either. The book "Designing Great Beers" explains the history behind wizenbocks, and it's not just a stronger version of the Hefe, like what I'm making. Besides, it's probably closer to a "wheatwine". However, Pyramid Brewing calls theirs an Imperial Hefe. So I'll follow them.

If you're using Weihenstephan yeast, you're likely to get a result similar to Vitus...

...which is a weizenbock.

Except for the lack of Munich malt and European hops, which would put it into #23 regardless of what he calls it.

What ever it's name, it's bound to taste interesting.

but would it taste good do you think??

If you like hefes, big beers, and Zeus hops, I think you'll like it. It's definitely worth trying. It will probably take more aging than your typical hefe, though.

For my taste buds, I'd change it to DME because I thought I had better results with DME than LME. I'd use 1 or 2 lbs of honey, Candi sugar, or agave nectar to keep the body light. And I'd change the hops to Perle, Saaz, Tennanger, Wlliamette, and/or Progress because I like European hops more than American hops.

944play said:

If you're using Weihenstephan yeast, you're likely to get a result similar to Vitus...

...which is a weizenbock.

Click to expand...

Agreed, Vitus tastes alot like an Imperial hefe to me if there were such a thing. The great thing about weizenbocks is how they can span from the lighter to the more dark and rich.

I just wanted to let everyone know how this turned out. We basically pitched the recipe on a Hefe yeastcake from the Weihestaphan clone (which is near exact). I went climbing, and the temperature rose to 85 and I couldn't be around to regulate, meaning the brew was nearly 83-84' with the cooling I had setup. This was too hot and made BANNANAs everywhere. So I had 4oz Chinook hops, we dry-hopped it with them to cover up some bannana. The final beer was excellent. I highly reccomend it if you have a yeast cake and don't know what to do with it.

Sounds great.
Also, there are definitely pale weizenbocks. They aren't all dunkels, there are definitely helles versions.