Weizen suggestions

Ok, so we're running another attempt at a wheat beer. Our first attempt was our second brew and it was, blah, to say the least. Drinkable, but just not right.

Here is the recipe as of right now. I'm planning on getting ingredients tomorrow afternoon, but we wont be brewing until this Saturday. Any ideas, suggestions...?

Also, is it suggested to rack to secondary for a wheat, or will too much yeast be lost?

Thanks!

5 gal yield
1 hour boil

4 lbs Dry Wheat extract
.75 lbs Malted Wheat
.5 lbs German Wheat Malt, Light
.25 lbs Pilsner Malt
1 lb Honey
.5 oz Saaz (60 mins)
WLP300

Estimated OG: 1.049
Estimated FG: 1.012
Color: 7.2 SRM
ABV: 4.85%


Jokingly, we're discussing adding blueberries to it if it turns out like the first. Thanks guys!

You're going to mash the grains right? Looks like a good recipe, you don't really need a secondary, just give it 2-3 weeks in primary.

Yes, partial mash. Thanks!

I just made a 12 gallon batch of (all grain) German Hefe with WLP300 and it was great. Boil 90 munutes. Ferment at 65F 10-14 days and Keg and let it age 2 weeks at least. The bananna clove esters balance the malt using WLP300 was right on but in the past I fermented a hefe at 70 to 75F and there was too much bananna ester produced so fair warning on the temperature. I used 60% white wheat to 40% Pilsner Malt.

2 oz Hallertau at 60
1 oz Hallertau at 30
1 oz Hallertau at 10

It's a simple very clean beer but a great one. You will not be disapointed.

Edit: I made a starter from 1 vial of the WLP300.

Bill

For a German-style HW, as indicated by the yeast, I would drop the honey altogether.

What %AAs are the hops? I use 3AAs for 6 lbs of DME so IMO 3 AAs may be making it a tad bitter because you are using less malt than me.

As for a secondary, I do secondaries because I wash my yeast. The more yeast I can get from the primary the better.

In a secondary more of the yeast will drop out, but you can always add more back in when racking to the bottling bucket.

The honey was a toss-up. I have tons of it sitting around and only a little cash to spend so I figured use that rather than adding more malt. The other option was to get the American Hefe yeast. I haven't fully decided yet. We've only used the German variety once and I'm not sure what kind of flavors the American will impact.

The AA% for the Saaz is at 5%. BeerTools is telling me that the bitterness should be around 9.3 falling in BJCP guidelines.

If not repitching during secondary and conditioning could we just call it a krystal, if we decide to go that route?

If the honey is removed we'll put up the wheat malt to a total of 1.5# just to get the gravity where it should be.

Thanks for the suggestions!