First hefeweizen - Tweaking the receipie

[cbrown08]

This will be my 8th brew. I've used all coopers brew kits so far and have had great success, I really think their kits are great for beginners. I plan on brewing the "Thomas" version of the coopers hefeweizen. First off, a few modifications:

The yeast that comes with the kit is a standard ale yeast, I plan to replace it with the WLP 300 Hefeweizen yeast. However, I've read it is very aggressive and will often require a blowoff hose. The coopers kit comes with only an airlock, should I rig a blowoff hose with some tubing during the initial, aggressive fermentation? Or brew slightly less and use the airlock?

The kit recommends 500g LME an 300g dextrose. Could I get away with avoiding the dextrose and replacing it with another sugar, perhaps honey? Brown sugar? Molasses? I'd like to experiment with some different techniques to try and alter the taste of the standard sugars coopers provides.

 

[Arneba28]

Get rid of the dextrose and sub out more MLE. Honstly just use the blow off tube and brew the full amount. Try getting some anti foam drops, that always helps with my blowoff. I wouldnt sub out any of those in a hefe. maybe just use the honey in place of the dextrose.

 

[Dang]

nah use the dextrose...in combination with wlp300 that should help promote some of the banana flavor often found in hefeweizen. You will probably not like the results if you use honey, brown sugar, or molasses.

 

[Dang]

On second thought...that's a little more dextrose than I initially thought. I'm not used to seeing measurements in metric. Anyway lower that dextrose addition to around 10 percent of the fermentables. Sub for light DME.

If you'd like to experiment, experiment with a late addition of LME. Such as these instructions: If you're steeping any grains steep in around 150 F water...then dissolve DME into water...add dextrose...bring to boil...add hops...add LME at the mark of the last 5 minutes remaining in your boil (remove boiling wort from heat dump LME in and make sure if fully dissolves)...finish the last five minutes of your boil...and so on

 

[cbrown08]

I will use the recommended sugars then. Also, the airlock hole on the fermenter is quite small, maybe slightly bigger than .25 of an inch. The blow off hose would be pretty small, but I'm assuming as long as the foam has somewhere to go it shouldn't be a problem. I don't think it will pop the lid off or anything, but it could pop the hose out if the hose isn't wide enough to handle the pressure. Should be ok?

Edit: So are you saying around ~100g of dextrose and 700 LME?

 

[cbrown08]

I have done a partial boil of the coopers kits a few times and they turned out pretty well, even though some have mentioned they aren't really meant for it. Instead of doing a full 30-45 minute boil I will usually heat 2 gallons of water a bit below boiling, add the canned extract, stir, add the sugars/lme, make sure it dissolves. Add the rest of the water to the fermenter, then pour in the wort, make sure its at temp (usually is, since the water isn't fully boiling + adding cooled water) pitch the yeast and seal. Worked very well so far. This will probably be the method I use for the hefe.

 

[Dang]

what are you using for an airlock? A bung plus a three-piece?

well pure sugar still has more fermentables to it than LME so maybe 50 g of dextrose and 700 LME? I didn't punch that into a calculator or anything its just an approximation.

 

[Dang]

Well you definitely want to boil...don't go without boiling at all. That can lead to off flavors and infection.

 

[cbrown08]

Well I have the coopers fermenting bucket so it doesn't come with an option for a blow off, so I was asking if it would be possible to set one up somehow considering how aggressive the yeast is. This is the airlock http://www.autho-rity.info/brew2/fixing_airlock.JPG

 

[Dang]

I would just stick one end of a 1/4 inch tube in there and the other in a glass of water or water/sanitizer mix.

 

[cbrown08]

I would just stick one end of a 1/4 inch tube in there and the other in a glass of water or water/sanitizer mix.

This would basically be the setup. The plan was to do this and then replace the airlock after the initial aggressive fermentation had stopped.