Weissbier Honey Orange Hefeweizen

[Reno_eNVy]

@Reno: Out of keg space at the moment, so I'm going to bottle condition this brew. These are the problems I have to deal with!

Oh you poor thing

 

[wittmania]

Reno, thank you for your sympathy. That means a lot.

Just poured my first bottle from this batch for a "lunch beer." It is well carbonated (5.5 oz. corn sugar for 5.5 gal.) and is sustaining a nice pure white head. It is has a cloudy golden honey color that is very appealing. The aroma is a medley of banana and, more subtly, cloves. There's some orange citrus aroma, but it's very faint. The flavor is honey sweet with the orange sweetness in a supporting role. There is a slight earthy, herbal bitterness that comes out as the banana and citrus flavors dissipate.

This beer is very drinkable, and should probably be classified as a SWMBO-slayer. When the Mrs. had a sip she said, "That's really good... WOW. Really, really good." I would agree, and add that this beer really wants me to drink a lot of it.

I'll be interested to drink one of mine side by side with my brother's. We did 11 gal. and split it. I had read that 68* was ideal for this yeast for balancing the banana esters and clove phenols, so I parked mine next to a space heater set to 68*. His was fermented a touch cooler, with some ups and downs during the day. For this kind of beer, the fluctuations may have actually improved it by throwing some additional funky goodness into the mix. It will be cool to compare the two with fermentation temps being the only variable. We each did a 13 day primary, and it's only been 6 days since bottling, but it's already carbed up nicely.

Very pleased with this beer. Thanks for the recipe.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

This beer is very drinkable, and should probably be classified as a SWMBO-slayer. When the Mrs. had a sip she said, "That's really good... WOW. Really, really good." I would agree, and add that this beer really wants me to drink a lot of it.

Well that's an amazing compliment if there ever was one :rockin:

I'll be interested to drink one of mine side by side with my brother's. We did 11 gal. and split it. I had read that 68* was ideal for this yeast for balancing the banana esters and clove phenols, so I parked mine next to a space heater set to 68*. His was fermented a touch cooler, with some ups and downs during the day. For this kind of beer, the fluctuations may have actually improved it by throwing some additional funky goodness into the mix. It will be cool to compare the two with fermentation temps being the only variable. We each did a 13 day primary, and it's only been 6 days since bottling, but it's already carbed up nicely.

Yeah it does great when you drink it young. And if you let it sit for a month or two you have yourself a nice clean krystalweiss.

I'm very interested in the results of the side-by-side tasting. Please post the results! I'd be willing to be the fluctuations your brother reportedly experienced will result in more clove aromas than your batch exhibited.

Very pleased with this beer. Thanks for the recipe.

You are most welcome. Thanks for the kind words and the interest

 

[bjl110]

I'm making this (with a few subs) for my sis in laws wedding. I'm going to use blood oranges instead of navel I think. Has anyone tried that with this recipe? I bet the sweet/tart of the blood orange honey will be a nice interplay.

I was also thinking of fermenting on the cool side (64?) to keep the banana at bay a little. Thoughts? Thanks! Wheat beer is usually not my thing, but I'm really looking forward to this one.

 

[captainoverspray]

just ordered the stuff to brew this one again the same as I did before except using white wheat instead of the torrified wheat. This beer is great to drink anytime. I will post my results of how this is different with the white vs torrified.

 

[HeavyKettleBrewing]

Brewed this recipe for wifey. Changed the grain bill a little as far as volume. LHBS did not have white wheat, had to go with American malted wheat. I had 83% efficiency with the post boil looking at 1.06 OG after boil off. If I finish out near the FG of the recipe, I'll be drinking near 6.5% ABV. I don't know if this is within the style guideline of a Hef but I am hoping it will make the lil' lady a bit frisky

QUESTION: We have a group camping trip on April 20th. Two weeks in primary and two weeks finishing in a keg would be OK? I want to bring this keg but not if it finishes too green. I read that wheat beers finish out a little quicker than all barley recipes.

Cheers and thanks for the recipe. Smelled great BTW!!!

 

[wittmania]

Drink this beer as soon as possible. Wheats like this are meant to be young and fresh. If you leave it in the keg too long you'll see the yeast all settle out and it won't be cloudy like it's supposed to be.

When I made this I bottled it at 3 weeks post-boil and started drinking them, fully carbbed, at the 4 week mark. I almost always keg, but for this beer I like having it bottled. Due to the amount of beer I have on hand right now and a busy schedule, I'm not getting to these as fast as I would like. When I pour the first 80% of the bottle it comes out crystal clear. Then, I swirl the remaining beer around 6-8 times and then pour it in. I end up with a nice, beautifully cloudy beer. I served this at our Mad Men premiere party last night and it was a huge hit with everyone who tried it.

All that to say, this is a beer that is to be enjoyed young, especially if you're going to keg it. You may even consider keeping your keg on its side as you transport it in order to keep more yeast in suspension.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Brewed this recipe for wifey. Changed the grain bill a little as far as volume. LHBS did not have white wheat, had to go with American malted wheat.

It's most likely white wheat malt then.

QUESTION: We have a group camping trip on April 20th. Two weeks in primary and two weeks finishing in a keg would be OK? I want to bring this keg but not if it finishes too green. I read that wheat beers finish out a little quicker than all barley recipes.

Well, first of all, it most certainly won't be green. Even with the boost in % ABV your brew will probably be ready after your two weeks in primary and just enough time to get it carbed up in the keg.

I served this at our Mad Men premiere party last night and it was a huge hit with everyone who tried it.

:rockin:

Thanks for the kind words!

It's funny, I was just about ready to post in here saying we're going to brew this one up this week.... but SWMBO got a little inspiration. She finally designed her own beer recipe for me to put together in BeerSmith and it sounds darn tasty: a South-East Asian style Witbier with ginger root, Asian coriander (the oblong shaped ones, not the spherical American ones), and lemongrass. Mmmmmmm. I'll be sure to make a new recipe thread if it turns out great.



Sorry Honey Orange, you're just going to have to wait a bit more....

 

[Reno_eNVy]

just ordered the stuff to brew this one again the same as I did before except using white wheat instead of the torrified wheat. This beer is great to drink anytime. I will post my results of how this is different with the white vs torrified.

Any results?

 

[HeavyKettleBrewing]

First time with a wheat or Hef. I am glad to hear it is best served young, by most standards. If it tastes as good as it smells, this keg will not last past the first day of camping. If it passes the wife test, it will make it into my regular rotation and I'll need another keg. Certainly looking forward to your lemongrass experiment. I have been meaning to use some in an IPA but think it more appropriate in a Hef. Keep us posted and I'll upload pics of your glorious recipe straight form the campsite! Thank god for HOMEBREWTALK Mobile APP!

 

[HeavyKettleBrewing]

Drink this beer as soon as possible. Wheats like this are meant to be young and fresh. If you leave it in the keg too long you'll see the yeast all settle out and it won't be cloudy like it's supposed to be.

All that to say, this is a beer that is to be enjoyed young, especially if you're going to keg it. You may even consider keeping your keg on its side as you transport it in order to keep more yeast in suspension.

I'll be sure to do that. We'll have this hooked up to a jockey box so I imagine that the yeast will not settle out completely for a weekend trip?

 

[Reno_eNVy]

First time with a wheat or Hef. I am glad to hear it is best served young, by most standards. If it tastes as good as it smells, this keg will not last past the first day of camping. If it passes the wife test, it will make it into my regular rotation and I'll need another keg. Certainly looking forward to your lemongrass experiment. I have been meaning to use some in an IPA but think it more appropriate in a Hef. Keep us posted and I'll upload pics of your glorious recipe straight form the campsite! Thank god for HOMEBREWTALK Mobile APP!

Oh yeah, HBT app is awesome!

Looking forward to the results.

I'll be sure to do that. We'll have this hooked up to a jockey box so I imagine that the yeast will not settle out completely for a weekend trip?

The yeast might settle out quite a bit but the transporting of the keg will certainly kick everything back up into suspension.

But you don't really want the yeast to settle out for this style. It's in the name: hefe (yeast) weizen (wheat beer.) The special strain of yeast adds a lot of the flavor profile.

Now if you leave the keg alone cold for long enough without disturbing it you will end up with very clear beer. It's then become a krystalweizen or krystalweiss.

 

[HeavyKettleBrewing]

Oh yeah, HBT app is awesome!

Looking forward to the results.



The yeast might settle out quite a bit but the transporting of the keg will certainly kick everything back up into suspension.

But you don't really want the yeast to settle out for this style. It's in the name: hefe (yeast) weizen (wheat beer.) The special strain of yeast adds a lot of the flavor profile.

Now if you leave the keg alone cold for long enough without disturbing it you will end up with very clear beer. It's then become a krystalweizen or krystalweiss.

I might just reverse the CO2 into the Outlet side to send all the goodies back into the beer rather than the bottom of the corny. Tipping it is just as simple yet not as fun. Sounds like I know what my morning ritual will be. IMO--I really don't think it will last past the first day.

 

[jEld]

Going to brew this for out by the pool this summer, would you recommend using rice hulls? I'm using a 10 gal Gatorade cooler with a stainless sink hose. Thanks, looking forward to this one for my 2nd AG and first wheat.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Yup. Any time I use adjuncts I use rice hulls just to be safe. 0.5 - 1.0# should do fine.

 

[jEld]

Excellent, thanks for helping out a new guy

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Any time. That's what we're here for!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

I'll be interested to drink one of mine side by side with my brother's. We did 11 gal. and split it. I had read that 68* was ideal for this yeast for balancing the banana esters and clove phenols, so I parked mine next to a space heater set to 68*. His was fermented a touch cooler, with some ups and downs during the day. For this kind of beer, the fluctuations may have actually improved it by throwing some additional funky goodness into the mix. It will be cool to compare the two with fermentation temps being the only variable. We each did a 13 day primary, and it's only been 6 days since bottling, but it's already carbed up nicely.

Did you end up doing a side-by-side tasting? I'm quite interested.

 

[christo636]

I made a batch of this a couple of months ago and it was by far the best tasting beer I have made to date! Not to mention came out at 6.5% abv. My second runner up is a blackberry wheat I made a couple months prior. Kudos to Reno eNVy for the recipe!!! If you haven't brewed this one yet I strongly suggest you try it! If your a fan of wheat beers you won't be disappointed!

I changed it up a little and it came out wonderful. Added a little more zest (7-8 decent sized oranges) and used Wyeast 3638.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Those sound like good alterations. I'm really glad it turned out so well for you.

And thanks for the props!

 

[bjl110]

Wanted to report that I made a batch of this for my sis in law's wedding in May (along with Centennial blond and my house pale) and it was a big hit. I used blood oranges instead of regular ones. The honey/tart orange was a very nice interplay, but I think I'll either use less oranges or more honey malt (or both) next time. The sweetness didn't really start shining until just recently. You could tell it was there, but it was covered by the tarter oranges. Great stuff!

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Sounds like a pretty nice line-up for a wedding! And if you end up experimenting with the different ratios of oranges and honey malt let us know how it turned out!

 

[thx997303]

Well I'm gonna brew this unbastardized and all grain this time.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Awesome! Yeah it's time for me to do this one soon. Luckily the next two on tap will be sessions so we can blow through those quickly

 

[MacGruber]

I literally just brewed something so similar to this yesterday and I happened to stumble upon this thread. I'll post my recipe now and pics with tasting notes when it's ready. The cool thing is, my recipe used Wyeast 1056 American Ale because I wanted the malt and orange to shine through without banana notes.

Batch Size 5 gal.

Decoction mash
30 min at 131
45 min at 153

60 min boil.

6 lbs. Brewers Best Pale Malt
5 lbs Weyermann Light Wheat
0.5 lbs Honey Malt

1oz Tettnang 60 min.
2.5 oz fresh zested orange peel 5 min
1 peeled orange (flesh only) 5 min

1000 ml starter on a stir plate for tweleve hours - krausen had just started

Fermenting at an ambient temp of 66 degrees.

The wort smelled awesome. Fermentation took off within three hours.

 

[inkman15]

Hi guys - thinking about brewing this one this week. Initial post doesn't say anything about how much water/temp for sparging. What have you all used?

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Hi guys - thinking about brewing this one this week. Initial post doesn't say anything about how much water/temp for sparging. What have you all used?

Well sparge water doesn't really vary much in temp... usually just whatever raises the mash temp enough to stop the mash enzymes... 180*F is probably fine. I also left the volume open-ended because I do "no mash-out" and batch sparge but there are many other ways to do it that require different amounts of water.

Plus, due to the dry environment I live in, I have a really high boil-off rate.


But if you really need some guidance, at the end you should collect enough to end up with 5.5 gallons, taking into account grain absorption, mash-tun deadspace, boil-off rates, kettle deadspace, etc. In my case, I try to get 7-7.5 gallons into the kettle.

 

[thx997303]

Brewed tonight.

Got 6 gallons at 1.044 OG Used dried orange peel in place of zest.

In the fermentation chamber now at about 59* ambient.

Oh, worth mentioning. The white wheat I used has about 33% unmalted barley in it. Not on purpose, but I got 50 lbs of it free because of that. We will see how it comes out.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Well aside from having mad amounts of body, the unmalted barley shouldn't do much.

 

[inkman15]

Brewed this on Wednesday. It's sitting in my closet at 68* and started bubbling away after about 18 hours. Excited to taste it soon. A few pics from the brew day: