Your favorite Hefe kit/recipe? Dark Hefe?

I know have a complete setup with 3 carboys and corny kegs so I can brew a batch a week. I am gonna brew a stout on Wednesday, but need to order the ingredients for my next couple batches very soon. I have a cream ale and a brown ale fermenting, so I want to do a Hefeweitzen after the Stout. So here is my question. What is your favorite extract Hefeweitzen recipe or kit?

Also, my girlfriend is from Germany, and here favorite beer is the dark hefeweitzen she can get on tap there. Anybody have a good recipe for a dark Hefe? Also, being a college student, I would like to keep the cost down. Any good dry yeasts for a hefe? Or, i could do a regular hefe and then a dark one and harvest the yeast, in that case, any suggstions on the best liquid one.

Also, I've heard you usually drink hefeweitzen quite young. what are the opinions on this and aging - secondary fermentation? Thanks, Ryan

There's a number of recipes floating around here for Hefeweizens (not sure about Dunkelweizens, but probably). The basic idea for an extract Hefeweizen is ~6lbs of wheat DME and enough noble hops (bittering only) to get ~10-14 IBU's. For a Dunkel you would need to add some Munich malt and perhaps a touch of crystal to darken it up a bit, but best to find a specific recipe.

I don't know of any dry yeasts that make good Hefeweizens...just go with a liquid Hefeweizen yeast. I've used the Wyeast 3068 with excellent results, other people swear by other strains.

German wheat beers are certainly better young IMO, but I always use a secondary, usually for ~2 weeks. I don't think you'll notice any flavor degradation in 4-6 months.

I actually justed started a dunkelweizen this past week. I can't vouge for the recipe or even the style of beer, as I have never tried a commercial version to my knowledge. It just sounded interesting so I tried making it. I would appreciate any input you might have to the style. Anyway here is the recipe.

2 cans (7 Lbs) coopers wheat malt extract
1/2 lb Black patent malt
1/4 lb chocalate malt
1/4 lb roasted barley

1 oz herbrucker hops (boiling) 60min
1/4 oz hallertauer hops (aroma) 10 min

white labs hefe yeast

should be able to do it for $30

Not sure if it's the same, but the Brewer's Best Weizen is pretty good. It uses Muntons dry yeast and boy, did it fermet like a rabid dog!!!!

mjm76 said:

I would appreciate any input you might have to the style. Anyway here is the recipe.

2 cans (7 Lbs) coopers wheat malt extract
1/2 lb Black patent malt
1/4 lb chocalate malt
1/4 lb roasted barley

1 oz herbrucker hops (boiling) 60min
1/4 oz hallertauer hops (aroma) 10 min

white labs hefe yeast

Click to expand...

This should be an interesting beer and I'm curious to hear your tasting notes once it's ready, but it's definitely not in the style of a Dunkelweizen which would have no roasted grains at all. I'm guessing your beer is going to be pretty near black while a Dunkelweizen would be probably dark brown at best. The color traditionally comes from Munich and/or Vienna malts added to the wheat malt, but many modern homebrew practictioners use a touch of crystal.

The BJCP guidelines are a pretty good starting point for most styles (but you shouldn't feel limited by them):
http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/Category15.html#style15B

Thanks for your input. Here's what I decided to do for my Dunkleweizen. What do you guys think?

6lbs. Wheat LME
.5lbs. Special B
.5 lbs Crystal 40L
.15 lbs. Chocolate (dingemans)
.25 lbs. Honey
.25lbs. corn sugar

Hops
.8 oz. Hallertauer (U.S.) - 60 min.

I.B.U. - 18

S.R.M. - 19

A.B.V. - 4.8%

I am kinda thinking of adding 2 oz. of oats as well, what do you guys think? Maybe it would add a nice smoothness to the flavor. I like the idea of a non bitter, creamy-smooth weizen.

Also, I am gonna use The Safale S-33 dry yeast for this recipe. It says it is good for Belgian Wheats so I thought I'd give it a try.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, I'll let you guys know how it goes. i'll probably brew it in a few weeks.

Thanks for the input. I am interested to see how this beer turns out. It doesn't really fit into the category as described, but I am indeed interested to see how it turns out. I will keep you updated. The fermentation is starting to slow, I would say I will put it in secondary within a few days.

rwillride17 said:

Thanks for your input. Here's what I decided to do for my Dunkleweizen. What do you guys think?

6lbs. Wheat LME
.5lbs. Special B
.5 lbs Crystal 40L
.15 lbs. Chocolate (dingemans)
.25 lbs. Honey
.25lbs. corn sugar

Hops
.8 oz. Hallertauer (U.S.) - 60 min.

I.B.U. - 18

S.R.M. - 19

A.B.V. - 4.8%

Click to expand...

My input (take it with a grain of salt) is drop the Special B, chocolate, honey and sugar. Especially the honey and sugar if you want a creamy smooth beer as these will serve to dry it out as opposed to contributing body. I wouldn't add any oats...I don't think you'll see much added benefit in this style and without a diastatic grain you'll just be adding starch to your beer which will contribute to extra haze (even more than this style calls for) and make your beer less biologically stable.

I'd also add in a pound or so of Munich to make up for the grains I omitted. As a matter of personal taste I would put the IBU's in the 12-14 range, but that's just me.

Again, just my input

Baron von BeeGee said:

My input (take it with a grain of salt) is drop the Special B, chocolate, honey and sugar. Especially the honey and sugar if you want a creamy smooth beer as these will serve to dry it out as opposed to contributing body. I wouldn't add any oats...I don't think you'll see much added benefit in this style and without a diastatic grain you'll just be adding starch to your beer which will contribute to extra haze (even more than this style calls for) and make your beer less biologically stable.

I'd also add in a pound or so of Munich to make up for the grains I omitted. As a matter of personal taste I would put the IBU's in the 12-14 range, but that's just me.

Again, just my input

Click to expand...

Hmm... we'll see. I added the special B because I got very few suggestion from people here and that is what Northern Brewer puts in their kit along with Aromatic and Crystal. Any other suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks for the input.

baron,
I snuck a "sample" while I racked my concoction to secondary. It had a very interesting flavor, the banana notes that are typical of a bavarian wheat (I would cite for instance a Paulaner or Franziskaner example) were very dominant at this stage. It should be very interesting after secondary and bottling. I will keep you updated.