Not that this is anything special to anyone except me, but I turned out great so I'm gonna share 
I picked up a hefeweizen kit at my LHBS, but I'm not a huge fan of hefe, I like a dunkel hefe instead. Three years in Germany gave me a lot of opinions about these things. So, I picked up a book in the LHBS on brewing various weisse and weizen styles and it noted in the recipe section that adding a little chocolate malt to the wheat malt was all that was required and not too much of that. With that info, I grabbed a pound of chocolate malt and got them to crush it.
I ended up adding 8 oz., put it in a grain bag did a small sparge with other water and added to the brew kettle. The kit came with dry yeast and while I wasn't excited about that, I neglected to look at what kind of yeast came with it, I decided to just go with it so I could start brewing. I had purchased an Erlenmeyer flask at the LHBS so I could start doing yeast starters. The yeast did not recommend a start, but did recommend re-hydration. I did that and let it sit for two or three hours. I can tell you that I've never had fermentation like that before. It literally blew the top off the fermenter.
Also an upgrade for this batch, I bought a small freezer off CL and a temp controller. So, I was able to keep the temp at 63 degrees. Then I cold crashed it at the end just to tidy up a bit. FG 1010. Pre-taste was very good, can't wait for it to get carbed up for a real taste test.
I picked up a hefeweizen kit at my LHBS, but I'm not a huge fan of hefe, I like a dunkel hefe instead. Three years in Germany gave me a lot of opinions about these things. So, I picked up a book in the LHBS on brewing various weisse and weizen styles and it noted in the recipe section that adding a little chocolate malt to the wheat malt was all that was required and not too much of that. With that info, I grabbed a pound of chocolate malt and got them to crush it.
I ended up adding 8 oz., put it in a grain bag did a small sparge with other water and added to the brew kettle. The kit came with dry yeast and while I wasn't excited about that, I neglected to look at what kind of yeast came with it, I decided to just go with it so I could start brewing. I had purchased an Erlenmeyer flask at the LHBS so I could start doing yeast starters. The yeast did not recommend a start, but did recommend re-hydration. I did that and let it sit for two or three hours. I can tell you that I've never had fermentation like that before. It literally blew the top off the fermenter.
Also an upgrade for this batch, I bought a small freezer off CL and a temp controller. So, I was able to keep the temp at 63 degrees. Then I cold crashed it at the end just to tidy up a bit. FG 1010. Pre-taste was very good, can't wait for it to get carbed up for a real taste test.
