Hefeweizen input

Here is my basic hefe recipe. I just bought the ingredients last week and was thinking of possibly tweaking it.
Not sure if i want to change fermentation temps or maybe add something to secondary?

Anyone have any tips or success stories with experimental secondary additions?

semi disregard the rice. I may or may not still add it.

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1 lbs Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 13.2 %
6 lbs 9.6 oz Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 2 86.8 %
1.00 oz Tettnang (Tettnang Tettnager) [4.00 %] - Hop 3 11.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP300) [35. Yeast 4 -

cvisinho said:

Here is my basic hefe recipe. I just bought the ingredients last week and was thinking of possibly tweaking it.
Not sure if i want to change fermentation temps or maybe add something to secondary?

Anyone have any tips or success stories with experimental secondary additions?

semi disregard the rice. I may or may not still add it.

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1 lbs Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 1 13.2 %
6 lbs 9.6 oz Wheat Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 2 86.8 %
1.00 oz Tettnang (Tettnang Tettnager) [4.00 %] - Hop 3 11.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP300) [35. Yeast 4 -

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Pretty typical extract hefeweizen recipe minus the rice (what are you trying to achieve with that?)

No need to secondary this, hefe's are best drunk young. I bottle mine after two weeks. If your looking to get more banana flavors, ferment mid to low 70's. If you want a cleaner more clove like flavor, ferment in the mid to high 60's. I never added any additions post boil so I can't comment. I do however always add 2oz sweet orange peel and 1 ounce slightly crushed coriander to the boil 10 minutes before flameout. Always a favorite at my place with the misses and friends

I was thinking I would try it to lighten the body and bump the abv a tad. I dont want to sacrifice flavor though. So im on the fence.

I like your boil additions.

Rice is actually fine. I've done it with good results. It will lighten the body of the beer, you may also want to add 1/2lb of oats. They'll amplify the spicey character a bit. It will also counteract the effect of the rice.

The oats can add spice and you won't have a beer that tastes like a fruity american wheat like blue moon.

Sounds like a good idea as well. Thanks

I would omit the rice and would not consider oats in a Hefe. I like a simple approach to let the flavors of the malts and yeast shine through. That is the central flavor in this style. Pale malted Barley, wheat and yeast

Often rice hulls will be included in the recipe for a Hefe to prevent a stuck sparge. Perhaps this planted the seed to use rice in your brew?

Each to their own of course an I certainly can't claim to have tasted an oatmeal Hefe so I am certainly ignorant of what I may be missing.

This is my Hefe. (Edwort's recipe)

that looks delicious.
I cant wait to brew it.

I would skip any flaked adjuncts if you aren't going to use base malt. The adjuncts won't convert and they'll put starches in your wort that will give it starch haze and bad foam. Other than that it looks pretty good. +1 to the temp control affecting your flavor profiles too

Fermentation temperature is always important but with a Hefe it will have a huge impact on the final flavor profile. You can shoot for more clove or banana. I control my ferment at 67 and use WYeast Weihenstephaner strain. 3068 I think.

This is it at peak of krausen controlled at 67F. This yeast is a top cropper so a lot of headspace is needed.

Edit: Same yeast you have in your recipe

Also, have a blow off tube ready, especially if you have 1.5 gallons of headspace or less for a 5 gallon batch. Hefeweizen yeast is top fermenting and will go crazy on you.

Skip the rice and the oats, weizenbier is all about the wheat and the yeast. My wheat (which my wife and father in law from Hannover Germany both swear is the best they have drank) is 60/40 wheat/pilsner. I typically ferment with Wyeast 3068 at 62-65F as this brings out more of the clove which is typical for German Weizenbiers.


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orford said:

Skip the rice and the oats, weizenbier is all about the wheat and the yeast. My wheat (which my wife and father in law from Hannover Germany both swear is the best they have drank) is 60/40 wheat/pilsner. I typically ferment with Wyeast 3068 at 62-65F as this brings out more of the clove which is typical for German Weizenbiers.


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Click to expand...

Agreed. Wheat Pilsner and yeast. Not pale malt as I previously posted. Apologies to the op for my error. Didn't intend to steer you wrong.

Agreed with Gavin above, beware this yeast is a potential bomb. I have had two recent blow offs, one was borderline catastrophic, it was all bulged out and hissing like an angry cat. The other sprayed krausen all over the bathroom...


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blow off tube it is but i think my spiedel can handle it since there is a decent amount of head space usually.

Last time i fermented high, i think ill try low this time and see how it comes out.

Hefe is one of my favorite styles, and I am either always drinking or planning to brew one. Nevertheless, its a work it progress.... trying to maximize my banana-clove while styling within style guidelines.

Anyway - while I don't think the rice is necessarily a bad idea, I agree with the other posters that it has no business in there unless you are partial-mashing (which is easy to do: just do a long 'steep' at 155F with 2lbs instead of one: add a pound of pilsen 2-row; just make sure to account for the extra malt in your calculations). Ideally, you'd want to mash some wheat malt as well to keep your total wheat contribution above 50% (and preferably even higher) for this style.

Also, I would use DME instead of LME unless you've already purchased it. You want to keep this brew light in color, and darkening is a common problem for extract brews. Two tips in this area: 1.) make damn sure the burner is off when you are adding the extract and stir quickly to avoid scorching, and 2.) only do a full-boil with a portion of the extract, and reserve the other portion for the last 15 min of the boil; this reduces maillard reaction darkening.

Enjoy!