recipe for widmer hefeweizen clone?

[JasonOdd]

Maybe the flour addition will do that? But I don't like the idea of "dough balls" in my beer.

Next time I think we'll make the flour into a slurry like you would for soup. After we strained the wort we didn't find the dough and nothing bobbed up to the surface, so I guess they broke apart.

 

[JasonOdd]

I am trying to lock in a Widmer Hefeweizen recipe and after looking at a few different ideas and drinking their beer... We decided to go with a slightly changed version of Saccharomyces's partial mash recipe! Here is exactly what we did:

• 1lb Munich
• 0.25lb Crystal 40
• 5lbs Wheat DME

• 0.50oz Hallertauer 45 min (4.8% AAU@ 1oz)
• 0.50oz Cascade 10 min (6.8% AAU @1oz)
• 0.50oz Willamette 10 min (4.8% AAU @ 1oz)
• 1Tbsp White General Purpose Flour @ Flame Out

Wyeast 1010 or White Labs WLP320

Steep Munich and Crystal malts for 45 minutes at 152°F in 2 gallons of water. Add 4 gallons of water, and bring to a boil. Once boiling remove from heat and add 5 lbs. Wheat DME, stir until completely dissolved. Bring back up to a boil while watching for boil over!. After obtaining a soft roiling boil, start a timer for 45 min and add Hallertauer hops and continue to boil. At the 15 minutes remaining mark, add your wort chiller to the boiling wort to sanitize. At the 10 min remaining mark, add your Cascade and Willamette hops. Once the 45 minutes is up, remove wort from heat and sift/stir in flour. Cool wort to below 75° before straining (not filtering) into primary bucket and then pitch yeast. Store in a dark cool place according to the directions found on your yeast packet. To prevent clogged airlocks use a blow off tube during fermentation.

Notes: Our 40,000 b.t.u. burner and 7.5 gallon pot took a while to reach boil, however the 6 gallons made just enough wort to reach the 5 gallon mark on the fermentation bucket. After tasting the sample vs the real Widmer beer, our hops might be a little weak, time will tell, but it's close! Color looks to be spot on. O.G. was 1.048 (corrected for temp). This is the first brew I had to fight (hard) to stop from boiling over, the DME really locked in the heat on the smaller pot. The flour turned into little dough balls. We used a grain sack and a colander to aerate the wort and try to catch the dough balls (we never found them). It's currently sitting in the cellar at approx 63°. We will not be using a secondary fermentation vessel.

So this is kegged and after waiting ... oh, 4 days we couldn't wait and tasted it (about 9 pints of it).

This is VERY close! The color and unfiltered look is perfect. There are no overpowering flavors and the mouth feel is right on. The wheat smell is a tiny bit lacking so I would add a bit more wheat next time. The hint of lemon is there, begging you add to add a real lemon, just like the real stuff. The head is thick and laceing hangs onto the glass nicely. If the wheat came through just a little stronger, I can't imagine an extract version getting any closer.
My wife and buddies GF could not tell what was the clone and what was the real, they both guessed wrong. To me that's a success since we made it for them.

The best part? 18 days after brew day, it's ready to drink!

Oh yeah.. we did transfer to secondary after a week. So flour slurry, more wheat, transfer to secondary.. that's what I would do different then what I listed above.

 

[cobster]

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[BlueBrew4721]

so if hefeweizen means yeast and wheat then i would say that widmer and pyramid both make excellent examples of that. Even if they are not traditional. just like good music or good automobiles things evolve thank god for good old american enginuity

The fact that a hef is defined by the charactersistics given it by the yeast is why the Widmer Hef is not a hefeweizen. Thats like making a blonde ale with 1056 and calling it a Belgian blond because you used the same malt bill. They are completely different beers because of the yeast.

I don't really think beer styles should evolve either. Widmer made a great beer and called it a Hefeweizen probably because it is more exciting and sells better than calling it a wheat beer. That's not evolution of a beer style.

Of course their beer is fantastic and I think a brewer is free to call their beer whatever they want. I just don't think that because they call it a hefeweizen that we should adjust the definition of a hef, or create a new catagory to accomodate it. Especially when the beer falls very nicely into the wheat beer catagory.

Of course this is all just my opinion so take from it what you will.

 

[Ben McKenzie]

The fact that a hef is defined by the charactersistics given it by the yeast is why the Widmer Hef is not a hefeweizen. Thats like making a blonde ale with 1056 and calling it a Belgian blond because you used the same malt bill. They are completely different beers because of the yeast.

I don't really think beer styles should evolve either. Widmer made a great beer and called it a Hefeweizen probably because it is more exciting and sells better than calling it a wheat beer. That's not evolution of a beer style.

Of course their beer is fantastic and I think a brewer is free to call their beer whatever they want. I just don't think that because they call it a hefeweizen that we should adjust the definition of a hef, or create a new catagory to accomodate it. Especially when the beer falls very nicely into the wheat beer catagory.

Of course this is all just my opinion so take from it what you will.

The Widmer Bros went to Germany and studied beer brewing. When they came back to Portland they wanted to make a American version of the German Hefeweizen. They made their first batch and ever since then that American version of Hefeweizen has been their flagship brew.