Weissbier Orange Honey Hefeweizen

[sinisterkid]

Kegged this last week. It taste great, even my brother in law likes it he only drinks miller lite. I plan on another batch here real soon
Thanks for a great recipe. I plan on doing a couple more from your site.

 

[Grasslands]

Just brewed a hybrid of this on Father's Day with my father-in-law - although I added another pound of OB honey at flameout and .25lb of honey malt in the mix with a little carapils.

Just for kicks (and because I've never done it before), I'm going to rack onto about 2-3lbs of pasteurized raspberries in a couple weeks. Raspberry Honey Wheat here we come!

 

[arkowa]

Ekk - after 50+ batches, thinking I've mastered most process steps, this recipe gave me a bit of humble pie. Added honey at flameout, chilled the beer, poured into fermenter through a paint strainer... pitched yeast, and put the lid on. When cleaning out the paint strainer I noticed a thick viscous liquid, felt like a congealed fat. It was also all over the bottom of my kettle. *sniff* HONEY! damn. A little note to anyone doing honey late additions for the first time: Stir it in very well.

Oh well, should still be a kick arse beer, minus 20% or so (I hope it was that little) of honey.

 

[Grasslands]

Also, it's important to stir to prevent the honey from burning/carmelizing at the bottom of the kettle. Hope it turns out alright. I learned that the hard way too, but it was during my first full-boil with extract. Nothing like a nice burnt toast underflavor to your light summer ale, eh?

I'll also throw an update on mine - haven't racked onto my 3 lbs of raspberries yet, but I did have an interesting experience during primary fermentation. Has anyone ever had a beer blow off twice? I'll explain -

I expected WL300 with a starter to push this sucker's primary fermentation pretty hard, so I put a blowoff tube on my carboy and let it do what I expected it would do. After the first 2-3 days, it blew off and subsided a bit. I put an airlock on it thinking I'm all good for now. Wrong. I check back in a couple days and my airlock is filled with krauzen residue and overflowing at the top and all over my carboy & the bottom of my freezer - what fun!

The only culprit I can think of (since this is a first for me as well), was that I increased the temperature of my freezer oh so slightly...like 2 degrees. Lesson learned: keep the tube on there until primary fermentation is over.

 

[aboule13]

That yeast seems very active to me. Its the only one ive actually ever had overflow.

 

[MooMooBrew]

Wlp300 goes like gangbusters

 

[Brewer Gerard]

Wlp300 goes like gangbusters

Pitched yesterday. The airlock was completely stagnant when I went to bed last night. Got up this morning and the krausen is nearly bustin out the top already!

 

[matalec1984]

I think I want to give this Orange Honey Hefe a try, do you think it is ok to replace the orange zest with an ounce of either bitter or sweet orange peel. I have a packet of each sitting around and have been meaning to use them.

 

[MooMooBrew]

Go for it and report back.

 

[Grasslands]

Racked on top of 3-4 lbs of pasteurized raspberries the other night. Kicked fermentation back into gear and I've got another healthy krauzen. That WL300 was hungry! Mmmmmm, raspberries!

 

[Grasslands]

Finally transferred to the keg the other night, had a taste and WOW that's tart! Those raspberries really add a bit of pucker! All that matters is that the SWMBO enjoyed the sample, something in which she rarely partakes. I don't get as much of the honey just yet - uncarbonated it's like a weird mix between a raspberry white zinfadel and an ale. Let's see how she turns out!

 

[luke2080]

I brewed up a 10 gallon batch of this last Saturday to get ready for the girlfriends housewarming party. In screwing with the recipe at work to adjust for my efficiency, I somehow just doubled the Pils as I should, to 10 lbs, but left the wheat malt at 4 lbs. With 2 lbs of honey and my efficiency, I hit what I was targeting, just stupidly screwed up the ratios.

But, had a taste tonight after only 10 days, as I took a gravity reading and moved to a better aging spot, and it tasted fantastic for a green, not fully done, 69* beer. Very much looking forward to pulling my first pint of this.

Not sure if the ratio of less wheat malt will effect this, but I did experiment. Pitched 1 WLP300 pack to one 5 gallong batch. Pitched 2 packs to the other. No starters. I wanted to under pitch the one to see if I get the banana, and properly pitch the other looking for clove. Did both at the same temp, 63* for the first 6 days, slowly going up to 69* after that. Well be interested to see if people can tell the difference.

 

[Carter1932]

Brewed 10 gallon version of this last week, ended up with an OG of 1.050.

Substituted clover honey that I had around the house, bittered with Hallertau and pitched Weihenstephan Weizen yeast. I zested six organic Valencia oranges and am soaking them in 1 cup of Everclear, hopefully that ratio works well with ten gallons.

Thanks for the recipe. Looking forward to serving this one at our brew club summer campout.

 

[BockBurner]

Thanks for this recipe post. It sounds awesome. I ended up at 50 instead of 52 for my OG, but I'm a skoshe over 5 gallons, so I think I'll be good there. Just finished it a couple hours ago. Any suggestion on how to treat the orange zest with a keg? Sorry if you touched on that already, but 'keg' search on this thread yielded zero results.

JB

 

[DubbelDach]

Check the "soaked zest" paragraph on the original post. You extract the oils from the zest, don't actually add the physical zest.

 

[BockBurner]

Ah. Gotcha. You add the vodka, not the zest, right?

 

[DubbelDach]

Ah. Gotcha. You add the vodka, not the zest, right?

You got it. I soak it for a week or two then pour it through a coffee filter rubber banded around a pint glass to strain it.

 

[Carter1932]

I served my version of this beer at most recent Lagers/Fossils brewclub campout; it was huge hit!! Blew through that keg in no time. The beer was perfect for the hot summer weather.

Luckily I made 10 gallons, so I still have a lot more to enjoy the rest of this summer.

 

[kschrodt]

I've always been on the fence about using vodka in my beers. Would it impart any taste, especially when using a dirt cheap vodka?

 

[Carter1932]

A small amount of vodka isn't going to change the flavor of 5 gallons of beer. However, I personally recommend grain alcohol; mine had no flavor at all other than the orange.

 

[kschrodt]

Thanks for the tip, I will give that a try!

 

[fenners]

I'm wanting to serve this on July 4th. I keg. When's the ideal time to brew this? If I do it now, it'll be ~5 weeks.. This likes to get served young, right?

 

[Carter1932]

You should be just fine with 5 weeks head start, and yes its best enjoyed young.

Make sure you start soaking your orange zest now too as it will also take awhile to extract the volatile oils.

 

[fenners]

My zest has been soaking & smells delicious... Two oranges worth of peel in a couple of cups of vodka. I've got two & a half gallons of brew there. How much is too much? What's the best practice for adding it (minus the zest of course) - I don't want to overdo the orange, but at the same time, don't want to underdo it.

 

[MooMooBrew]

I usually put 1cup of vodka per 5 gallon batch. Each cup has ~2 oranges of peel.

 

[Carter1932]

It's a matter of your taste so just be sure to add small incremental amounts until it suits your taste buds.

I need to do this one again. I have some 'skeeter pee' that I'm considering mixing with a wheat, but not sure it'll be anywhere as good as the orange.

 

[fenners]

Thanks for the advice. Put in half a cup of the vodka into the keg. I'll give it a taste test in a day or two, see if more is needed.

 

[fenners]

Thanks for the advice. Put in half a cup of the vodka into the keg. I'll give it a taste test in a day or two, see if more is needed.

So the half batch of this that I put the orange vodka in is a nice wheat, but not orange-y enough IMO. I'm going to add what's left of the orange vodka tonight.

The other half I put a pound of blueberries & a half pound of raspberries in for a week. That is *delicious*. Absolutely delicious. And very pink!

Both are going to go down well at our friends' July 4th party. Keg of the orange wheat, growlers of the pinky-pie beer