Non-Weizen beer with Hefeweizen yeast?

[bknifefight]

A local brewery was kind enough to fill a growler of yeast for me after I emailed them. I had expected some general clean ale yeast, like a WLP001 but they gave me the yeast from a dark hefeweizen. I have no wheat DME and nearly 35 lbs of light DME. Has anyone brewed or experimented with a "non-wheat weizen?"

 

[homebrewer_99]

It'll have the clove and banana flavor on top of the barley flavor, not that unpleasant.

It's more correct name would be a "Hefe Gersten" (gerste = barley in German).

 

[bknifefight]

Hefe Gersten...I like it!

I figure I could do a little experimenting with half batches and see what I come up with. I once made a "Franken Brew" throwing together a bunch of left over ingredients and it was great. This may be version 2 of that.

 

[homebrewer_99]

I did one about 5 years ago when I realized all the yeast I had was HW.

Now I keep a lot of supplies on-hand. I currently have over 100# DME, 115+# assorted grains, 10+# of hops, 25 assorted packets of yeast and 40+ vials.

 

[Tonedef131]

Roggenbier doesn't usually have wheat in it and the weizen yeast esters and phenolics are a requirement of the style.

 

[bknifefight]

Roggenbier, eh? Can you give some more specifics to the style?

 

[Tonedef131]

It's essentially the same as a dunkelweizen with rye instead of wheat.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

Roggenbier doesn't usually have wheat in it and the weizen yeast esters and phenolics are a requirement of the style.

Yeah, but Roggenbier has rye malt in it, so it's still not good. Unless, of course, you will start doing partial mashes with DME + wheat malt or rye malt...?

 

[Tonedef131]

Yeah I wasn't really recommending it, just pointing out that those yeast strains aren't used exclusively with wheat based grists.

I think it would be fine with an all barley beer.

 

[bknifefight]

I don't even do mini-mashing so the Roggenbier is out for me.

 

[yetanothersteve]

There is style called Dampfbier (Steam beer) that uses a Hefeweizen yeast with barley malt.
Eventually I would like to try this.

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=60636