Need Hefeweitzen Help

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fosgate

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I'm a 39yr old non traditional student going to college for Business Management and Public Health. Long story but I'm required to take Science of Brewery and 50% of my grade is going to be based on what my lab partner and I whip up and tasters from brewers across the state are going to judge our beers. We are allowed to either design our own from scratch or pick out a beer in production and make any attempt to mimic them or make the recipe if we can find one.

I want to make my first true love of beer. I was stationed in Germany near Baumholder for a couple years and my main squeeze was Maisels Hefeweitzen Original. The closest I have been able to find in the states is Erdinger Hefeweitzen. But anyway I need to try to find the best recipe I can that closely mimics this so I can make it. I also have to find the proper glass and bottles when it comes to pouring the Hefeweitzen. I really don't want to embarrass the style or myself by delivering a substandard product to the judges for this.

Can anyone help with recipe, ingredients and where to find as well as bottles and glasses?
 
Northern brewer has a bavarian hefeweizen that I just brewed. I've been drinking it for a few days and love it. I don't have anything to compare it too though. Find a glass that allows you to place the bottle in it upside down so you can let go of the bottle and let gravity do the pouring for you. A 22 ounce bottle and some cooresponding hefe glasses should please the judges.
 
that kind of beer is actually easy to make, you need about 5.5# dme ( wheat spray extract ), 1/2oz perle@60 minutes, and get Hefewizen type yeast or at least wheat beer yeast and you're set, it takes maybe 10-11 days
 
My wife is from Germany and every 2 years we go visit her family and same like you all I drink is Maisels since we can't get that here. IMO Franziskaner is much closer to Maisels then Erdinger and there are so many clone recipes out there for it as well. Maybe look that up and go from there?
 
Thanks for the quick responses. I agree, the glasses and bottle are just as important as the drink itself. I have tried to find good hefeweizen since I got out of the military in 95 and Erdinger was the closest I could find that even came close. All the others I have found are not even close but the selection is very poor. I think finding a good copy of Franziskaner may be the way to go. One benefit I have is the access to do this in a lab and we have the water mineral mixes for many of the places in Germany so I'm hoping I can get this very close.
 
Are you an extract or all grain brewer?

I can give you an A+ traditional bavarian hefeweizen recipe that is incredibly easy to brew. I would almost urge you to NOT try to make a clone. Clone beer making is often trial and error, and your first attempt to clone a particular commercial example likely will not taste like the commercial example.

I LOVEEE Hefewiezens because the basic recipe produces a fresh, clean, easily-repeatable beer.

Let me know if you are extract or all-grain, and I'll give you a can't miss recipe that will likely be much better than any clone attempt.
 
Have you tried Sierra Nevadas Kellerwies? My favorite by far! I read in a post on this forum (srry no link..but sure you could search for it) that they use an OPEN fermentation style that promotes high esters for a more pronounced flavor. Its fantastic..and I plan on trying this next batch I brew.

By the way..I used the Extract Kit from Northern B. as well, and it was flawless with the Wyeast.
 
Hefeweizens are also the reason I got into homebrewing, after discovering them the first time I visited Germany. They are easier to find here in the states these days, but they're also a lot of fun to brew (and they really are best when fresh).

As said above, brewing them w/ extract is pretty straightforward: You just need enough wheat malt extract (which is already 50% wheat, 50% barley) to get you to ~5.0% ABV, and 0.5-1.0 oz of a German noble hop like Hellertau. The fermentation is what really makes a Hefe. You need a Hefeweizen specific yeast strain (like WYeast 3068, 3056, or 3638), and a controlled fermentation temp in the low 60's (*F).

If you want to amuse yourself for several hours, check out the monster thread on Hefe's from The Northern Brewer's Forums (I hope crossposting isn't a problem here):
http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?t=40751
 
I used the Simple Hefeweizen recipe in the database here. Turned out excellent, and was finished within a week at my family vacation. Make sure its in the bottles at least 3-4 weeks before judging. It's very easy, and very good! Good Luck and sounds like a fun class. :)
 
This is a nice straight-forward style and should make a good first brew.

General tips:

Buy a kit or ingredients from a "high volume" store so you know it is fresh. Don't pick up a dusty can from the corner of the brewshop.
Make sure you get a Hefe yeast.
Research a way to control temperatures. A "swamp cooler" is the cheapest/easiest route. At low 60's temps, hefe yeast will be clean with a mild spice background. If you let the temps get away from you, you can end up with a strong banana taste.
 
Spoke with a couple of the Professors about grain vs. extract. One was telling me that the grain gets a nicer more robust flavor over using extract exclusively usually, but he will often throw a bit of extract in to up the alcohol content. For some of the equipment From what I can tell we Have about a 6-8ft section of copper pipe rolled into about a foot and a half tall coil to cool the brew as it passes through our makeshift cold plate. We have round ice coolers which I am assuming are going to get filled with ice and the coils will sit in there loaded with ice water and salt. Large Glass containers for fermentation.

The Lab. Equipment is just laying around as we prep to clean it. One table has bags of ingredients for a Pale Ale we will be brewing on Wednesday (my classes first).
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Here are the water tables I was talking about. We will start with distilled water and add the chemical components for the region we want to shoot for. There are only 15 students for the five professors in the class. About half are bio chem majors or pre-med. I'm a business management major with a minor in public health thus this class meets one of my requirements. Anyway I'm paired with a premed student and I'm the one with mathematics and Biology so between the two of us we should be able to make something tasty.
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I am fermenting my first hw with Sierra Nevadas Kellerwies yeast and the 'Simple Hefeweizen' recipe. A perfect first step to hefeweizen. I have limited access but I have loved the taste of flying dog and paulaner hefeweizen.
 
but he will often throw a bit of extract in to up the alcohol content.

Great post but upping the alcohol content of a hefeweizen makes no sense at all. It's juvenile imo.... then again I prefer low ABV brew unless the beer TRULY benefits from a higher ABV.
 
drinking a good hefe now, and has been 1 of my favorite styles for years. 6 lbs wheat, 4 lbs pils, .5 lbs rice hulls, 14 ibu of hallertau, mittelfrueh, or hersbrucker, and 3068 yeast
 
Maybe some of you can help me with this dilemma. I'm trying to make this as an authentic experience as possible. I plan on using this as a template for my labels to go on the bottle. Yet I am confused as to what I Should write on the bottle. In Germany they usually have something not only written how it was brewed in accordance to the German Purity Law but how it is brewed in traditions. Other breweries have a poem or story written on their bottles. One of the things I find though in the market here in America is that a vast majority of Americans don't know how to serve a good Hefeweizen. For example I see Paulaner sold in the small 12oz bottles and cans! How are you supposed to properly serve the beer? I believe it should only come from a traditional bottle and be served in the traditional hefeweizen glass. I think many make the mistake of trying a hefeweizen and drink it straight from the bottle or slow pour it in small amounts at a time and pitch the bottle with most of the yeast still at the bottom of the bottle. Others may try the "traditional" lemon which really isn't in the Hefe but often served in the Krystalweisse instead. (I lived in Germany long enough to be called a ***** by my German friends for ordering a Kristallveise with a lemon and then to hear gasps as I tried to add a lemon to hefeweizen.) Anyway I'm trying to think of how to word more of an instruction manual how it comes in the traditional bottle and should be served fresh as possible in the traditional Hefeweizen glass with no garnish. More of an instruction manual. Any Ideas?
 
I believe it should only come from a traditional bottle and be served in the traditional hefeweizen glass.

Interesting. I always drink hefeweizen in my oversized 'I love my cat' mug. I don't have a cat by the way but the mug is pretty cool.
 
This is what rubs me. A so called pro incorrectly showing people how to pour a hefe. With head like that he must be planning on drinking it sometime outside of an hour from the pour.
 
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He's actually exactly correct that this is the proper traditional german pour. You are supposed to have about three fingers of head to let the beer breathe and bring out the yeast banana/clove character in the aroma!
 
He's actually exactly correct that this is the proper traditional german pour. You are supposed to have about three fingers of head to let the beer breathe and bring out the yeast banana/clove character in the aroma!

Dudes got some really fat fingers if that is a 3 finger pour. This is how we always saw the German bartenders pour.

I don't know about the hefe, but any school that requires you to take brewery science for a business managment degree is freakin' awesome!

I know right. University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK) saying among students is you can't spell drunk without UNK! They have some requirements to make extra money off students. The first two years you have to choose what they call a "portal" class. They are designed that you pick a 188 level class in another field IE history majors look at art etc. They make the classes a bit more fun some make the BS class more than what it is. I chose American Culture in Cinema in which the professor thought is was total BS also so we just reviewed the minimum requirements and watched movies while eating popcorn once a week then wrote a one page loosely graded term paper.

This one you have to take the last two years of undergraduate for what they call a Capstone (Capstone Insurance sponsors) and you have to choose one of the same types of classes. I saw this one right away and went flashed my ID and had to get approval with the Dept Chair. Only 15 slots open for students and five professors teach it. Couple are biochemists, one is a history prof, a physics prof and a psychology prof. Good class, lots of stuff presented with the history of beer making, chemistry, physio and psychological effects, (serious science stuff ;)). Brew a batch every Thursday during a 5-6hr lab and we taste other types of beer. Have to record all data and tastes in a lab manual and turn it in. Everyone has to blow under .04 before we leave. Usually cut us off the last hour and lots of chatting for that time. Really fun and interesting class.
 
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Wow I can't believe UNK has a Brewing class! I went to UNL and UNO and we sure didn't have anything like that 8 years ago. Good luck on the hefe. Keep the posts on the class coming. I'm interested to see how it goes for someone without much brewing experience. It sounds fairly intense for a beginner.
 
We've had three students drop from the class as it get's more intense into the mathematics of beer design. The number of equations to know and the various acronyms has me dreaming math at night. One of the professors brought in a bottle of Russian Imperial Stout that he brewed in 2008. Probably one of the best beers I have tasted and I now see why guys put forth the effort and time into brewing a beer that takes so long to ferment. Also tried a couple IPA beers, India and Mercenry that both held my mouth hostage with the power hops taste. (not for me). We advise the beer we are choosing today (Wednesday) and present an argument on 10/3 for our choice. We also bottle our second brew of Black Ale on Thursday and taste some more beer. Bottled out first batch last Thursday and thou a disappointing predicted alcohol content of 3% it should still be tasty. Think we were better on our efficiency with the Black Ale as that one should turn out to be 6%ABV. Strange thing I found about these guys is the wort chiller. Most I see sold online etc run water through the coil and drop the coil into the wort. One of the prof's that taught the sanitation and chemistry portions advised against this as they said it increases the chance of contamination of the wort and aerates the wort when people repeatedly dunk it. They just clean and sanitize the inside of the coil, submerge it in the round coolers with an ice bath and run the wort through it like an old cold plate. With only about 10-15ft of copper coil and constantly stirring the ice bath we were getting our wort chilled down to 20C (68f) with a single pass. We have to get more efficient with our sparging though. The first batch we lost 10 degrees of temp by the time we got our all of our extra sparge water in. This watered down the batch considerably. The second batch we continuously kept our sparge water on a high temp flame when not pouring to make up for heat loss. This last batch of Black Ale we nailed the target SG of 1.054. Not bad for all grain brewing with less than $100 setup per station. The profs have way better setups at home but they show it can be done on a budget.
 
Well, brewed a 2 1/2 gallon batch for our project. We have been struggling to meet our Target SG with our batches and been trying to eliminated inefficiencies. Thought a while that we were just catching too much sparge water after the last one because all said and done we had nearly 3 gallons bottled for a 2 1/2 batch after all the stuff left in the kettle, fermentation bucket etc. Preboil we were at 31 and normally we pickup about 19 on our boil so we didn't worry. But then we realized our preboil volume was 2.45gal and had just tossed our grain. We boiled off a half a gallon and post boil wound up being only 43. Target was 51. Nuts! After assessing we concluded during our 75min mash with checks at T-30,T-60 and T-75 that we were on average of loosing 6 degrees Celsius every 30min being the main cause of our low SG. And the worse part of this is then we are probably not maintaining a high enough temp to draw out some of the tannins the style is known for to achieve that tart refreshing finish. Anyway I think we were efficient as we could have been with the equipment to the recipe. Hopefully it won't be a fatal mistake that we didn't just add another pound of grain.

That was Thursday. We walked into the lab and saw the foam bubbling up through the airlock of the 5gal pail. Wound up having to pull the airlock off and insert tubing into the top and the other end into a beaker half filled with water. Standing next to the pail you could smell the banana scent! Anyway, got a couple weeks for it to ferment, then bottle and presentation and tasting is the first week of December.
 
Just bottled it today. Sugars were all used up and lots of yeast on the bottom. Figuring a final ABV of 4.9% and found we were the only one who had a bad cooler that only gave us a 45% efficiency!! :( Oh well, I chose to do this one due to the amount of leeway others mentioned in the recipe so hopefully it tastes fine for our tasting in five weeks.
 
Are you an extract or all grain brewer?

I can give you an A+ traditional bavarian hefeweizen recipe that is incredibly easy to brew. I would almost urge you to NOT try to make a clone. Clone beer making is often trial and error, and your first attempt to clone a particular commercial example likely will not taste like the commercial example.

I LOVEEE Hefewiezens because the basic recipe produces a fresh, clean, easily-repeatable beer.

Let me know if you are extract or all-grain, and I'll give you a can't miss recipe that will likely be much better than any clone attempt.

I just bottled my first hef 2 weeks ago, but I would love to see an extract recipe that a hef fan vouches for! There's always time for another batch...
 
So, off the top of my head, it's been around 5 weeks if not more. How did this hefe turn out for you?
 
Just tasted it yesterday and going to present it at a tasting in about an hour.

Target OG 1.043
Target FG 1.008, 1.014
ABV: 4.6%
IBU's Failed experimient reading
SRM 7.2

Recipe efficiency 70%
51*100/70=72.8 or 1.073 is 100% recipe efficiency,
Acutal Efficiency=43/73=59% effciency.

Target OG: Past experiments showed we were loosing 10 degrees or more in removing water from the burner and pouring it over the grains during our 30min interval temperature checks on our mash. This resulted in too much water in the mash and to counter we figure out to turn the burner on high an return the pot to the flame immediately when not pouring to maintain heat and lessen the amount of water in the mash. With this learned we figured we could easily hit 70% efficiency with our mash. What we did not predict was to pull a different cooler with a far greater amount of heat loss. Prior mash tun lost only 3 °C trying to maintain a lower temperature. We pulled a different mash tun than we had used in the past that would loos on average 6°C every 30 minutes that greatly reduced our efficincy. We attempted to counter or reduce this negative outcome by reducing the amount of wort yield from our mash. We targeted a 2.5 gallon batch initially but reduced our pre boil volume to 2.5 gallon and boiled off a half gallon for a total yield of 2 gallons.

During bottling we did not loose very much beer to transfer loss due to not having to avoid siphoning yeast from the bottom of the fermenter. We were able to maintain nearly two gallons due to this.

Target FG: We have two numbers here because we measure both with a hydrometer and a refractometer. Due to the presence of alcohol we achieve a false low of 1.008 with the hydrometer and a false high of 1.014 with the refractometer. This should mean we are right in range with the 1.011 Target FG of the style.

%ABV: Even though our OG was lower than predicted, our ABV turned out to be 4.6% which is still within the parameters of the style.

SRM: The SRM value was a little higher than the recipe predicted and higher than the style guidelines, this is probably a result of the reduced volume of final product.

Upon tasting we believe we are within the style however due to our low efficiency we missed a bit of the body and it seems a bit watered down or missing the bread balance. But overall still a tasty beer.

So in the end just DWRHAHB!
 
Have you tried Sierra Nevadas Kellerwies? My favorite by far! I read in a post on this forum (srry no link..but sure you could search for it) that they use an OPEN fermentation style that promotes high esters for a more pronounced flavor...

They mention that right on their site:

sierranevadawebsite said:
Kellerweis is one of the only American Hefeweizens made using the traditional Bavarian style of open fermentation. This difficult and labor-intensive technique adds uncommon depth and flavor complexity. Our hazy-golden hefeweizen is deeply flavorful, refreshing and perfect for a sunny day. To serve, pour two-thirds into a glass, swirl and pour the rest.

I am also a fan of the Kellerweis and would like to try recreating it at some point down the road.
 
Presentation went well. We showed off first since we had the lightest style and was the only one that everyone in the room drank all of what was served them. The ending of the last presentation was kind of funny. They were presenting I believe a Scottish Stout. They kept pronouncing Edinburgh like Edenburg. At the question an answer session at the end when they asked for questions we all froze as we heard a thick Scottish accent from the back of the room. "If you continue to brew Scottish beers in the future do us a favor and learn to properly pronounce the capital of Scottland as Edinburgh and not Edenburg."
 
They mention that right on their site:

I am also a fan of the Kellerweis and would like to try recreating it at some point down the road.

I actually just had a glass of it yesterday. I definitely enjoyed it; its pretty complex but for some reason I felt that was less of a good thing as that sort of covers up the yeast a little bit. I've always considered Hefes unique in that they basically set the stage for the yeast to be the star of the show. To me the yeasty flavor was a bit diminished by it all. But what do I know? I'm pretty much comparing all Hefes to Weihenstephaner anyhow so its sort of unfair. :eek:

Presentation went well. We showed off first since we had the lightest style and was the only one that everyone in the room drank all of what was served them. The ending of the last presentation was kind of funny. They were presenting I believe a Scottish Stout. They kept pronouncing Edinburgh like Edenburg. At the question an answer session at the end when they asked for questions we all froze as we heard a thick Scottish accent from the back of the room. "If you continue to brew Scottish beers in the future do us a favor and learn to properly pronounce the capital of Scottland as Edinburgh and not Edenburg."

Ouch. Wonder how that's going to affect their marks :cross:
 
I brewed my second batch in December on a new setup. I followed the recipe for 70% efficiency since I had no idea where to start. I achieved 87% efficiency on this 10 gallon batch. Turned out really tasty but the only problem is the lack of head. I don't think I put enough bottling sugar in where the last time I put 2/8 more than what the recipe called for and it turned out perfect. Could also be the alcohol content as the body still seems bubbly like a hefeweizen should. Oh well, drink my way through 10 gallons and try again.
 
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