Hop substitutes for hefeweizen

[Sadu]

I am planning to put down a hefeweizen tomorrow night and are running everything through Brewsmith. Think I'm getting the hang of things now.

The recipe calls for 1oz of Hallertau Hersbrucker hops.

Now that I go into more detail, the recipe is wanting 4% hops and mine are 1.6% according to the website I bought them from. Beersmith says I need to put in 70g/2.5oz to hit the IBU 13 target for the recipe. I had planned on about 40g so I'd need to order more in and shipping is expensive (there is no LHBS where I live).

So here's the question.

Do I bite the bullet and use extra Hallertau as Beersmith says, about 70g instead of 40g and wear the extra shipping charges?

Or can I use my 40g Hallertau and supplement with approx 6g of 7.1% NZ Cascade that I have leftover to achieve target IBU?

Or aim lower for approx 8 IBU for the batch instead of 13 I wanted, which I can do with just 40g of Hallertau.

I could also add the hops at 90 instead of 60 mins for extra bitterness, not sure if that's a good idea or not.

I have read discussions that say hefes are best with a single noble hop like hallertau and to let the yeast do the talking, but other info say the variety of bittering hop is less important and with a hefe being such a low bitterness anyway maybe it's not critical?

I'm short on cash and need to be careful about each purchase, so if subbing with NZ Cascade isn't a good idea I'll probably lean towards making the brew less bitter.

Appreciate any advice.

 

[BigMack]

I can only say what I would do personally, but if it is just a small bittering addition I would just go with the NZ Cascade rather than paying a really big shipping price.

 

[Kjay]

I concur.

 

[b-boy]

It won't taste the same, but I'd probably use the cascade as a bittering hop. The other option is to scale your recipe down so the hops you have on hand are sufficient.

 

[ncbrewer]

I tried using Horizon hops once because the catalog said it has a noble hop charadcter. I was disappointed - it seemed to give it a harsh bitterness that didn't belong in a hefe. One option: If this is a partial boil extract batch and you're planning on adding all the extract to the boil, try adding just 2 pounds in the boil and the rest at flameout (late extract addition). Although there is some disagreement about the utilization formulas, they calculate higher hop utilization with a lower gravity boil, so you'll get more IBUs. I go for 10 IBUs in a hefeweizen with a 1.045 OG.