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DR9's Hefeweizen

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dr9

dr9

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 12, 2009
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athens ga
Cooling now.

6 lbs Wheat Malt Extract (65% wheat, 35% barley) Midwest Supplies
1 lb light malt extract powder/spraymalt
1/2 pound carapils grains
1 oz Saaz pellets
White Labs WLP300 yeast

Priming: 1 c Orange Blossom Honey- Savannah Bee Co. (that's the plan)

No coriander, no orange peel, letting the yeast and the wheat dominate here.

Ground carapils grain in coffee grinder, pulsing, a rough chop if you will, in small batches.

Add to pillowcase.

Mash for 1 hour between 152 and 158, difficult using electric stove, but possible.

Strain over colander and pot of water.

Sparge: First time.. not sure if I did it right. Used the sink hose to create a "rain effect" over the grains until they swelled, strained, repeated.

Almost 4 gallons tap water with the other malts, had trouble getting the temp over 180, electric stove and big brand new shiny stock pot just radiating the heat faster than the stovetop would heat it. So no boiling, just a hot steep for about an hour with lots of stirring.

Saaz pellets were wrapped in a coffee filter with a rubber band and allowed to steep for just under 2 minutes, removed.

This is cooling now. I've got a gallon just half full of water I'm shaking up like crazy to get it good an aerated, will repeat to top off to 5 gallons and pitch yeast when the temp gets into the 70's.

Is my beer a failure if it doesn't come all the way to a rolling boil?
 
I've since consulted two aquaintences who are former pros. It has to be at a rolling boil, uncovered, for an hour so dimethyl sulfides evaporate, or your beer will taste like corn, especially with light malts like hefeweizen.

I haven't pitched yet, so there is hope. I will split the batch into two smaller pots and go for a rolling boil later today.

The sad part is I will lose my aroma hops. I have a few leftover NorthernBrewer pellets from a previous stout I can try to refinish it with. The closest LHBS is 40 miles away. Sigh.
 
Is 40 miles a long way where you live?

I know distance is a local perception - in Texas, 40 miles it not to far to go for just about anything (unless you just need a coke, or something) but where I grew up in Ohio, anything more than 10 miles was a major trip.
 
40 miles is a long way when it's into Atlanta, and back (80 miles).

Especially since I went into to work in ATL at 1 am last night, and got home 8:45 this morning, after having driven by the place already before I realized my mistake. Basically, I haven't slept. I woke up Saturday morning, and I'm still awake. I'm not a night shift guy. This was a special project. So 40 miles is a long way right now.

I used my remaining two tablespoons of Northern Brewers pellets. 1 tablespoon went in for 30 minutes, the other tablespoon was simply steeped for a minute at the end.

I split the batch to reboil. Worked great. The whole house stunk like creamed corn. There was so much steam the smoke alarm went off. I'm glad I cooked all that out of the wort. I also lost almost 2 gallons of volume (good) so 3 gallons of cold water to top to 5 gallons got the temp down quickly in the bucket so no more Corn Sulphur would form.

Sitting tight waiting to pitch the yeast now, it's in the low 100's, not a yeast killer, but the yeast will have different flavors as it begins to ferment at that temp, even for a few hours, or so I've read. So, I'll wait 2 hours then pitch.
 
Yeast is gangbusters. People on another forum have me thinking apfelweizen.

After primary should be finished in about a week, should I rack to secondary with :

1: Chopped up apple

2: No-additive juice

3: Prime with juice

4: Make a separate hard cider and add it before bottling with orange blossom honey to prime

5: Other


What do yall think?
 
I'd put it into secondary with no-additive juice, especially if you can get some either unpasteurized or just UV flash pasteurized. Lots of great apple flavor can be had that way. Chopped up apples won't give you nearly as much fruit flavor (unless you can press them).

If you prime with juice, then make sure you know its SG before you add it, and calculate the equivalent amount of fermentable sugars... I'm sure you don't want to be making any bottle bombs there! ;)

Otherwise, sounds like a good plan.
 
wayneb said:
I'd put it into secondary with no-additive juice, especially if you can get some either unpasteurized or just UV flash pasteurized. Lots of great apple flavor can be had that way. Chopped up apples won't give you nearly as much fruit flavor (unless you can press them).

If you prime with juice, then make sure you know its SG before you add it, and calculate the equivalent amount of fermentable sugars... I'm sure you don't want to be making any bottle bombs there! ;)

Otherwise, sounds like a good plan.
Click to expand...

I can only get that in the Fall, and only if we don't have a May freeze, and only if we don't have another drought. That has me wondering if I should just hold-off until the Fall to make another weizen, apfel, along with my cider and the Cyser To Rule Them All. I can't wait to see the look on that old timer's face when I clean him out.
 
Splitting the batch. I have a half pound of cherries that have been aged over a year in the back of the freezer, the cell walls are good and broken down. I will microwave these until I hear some popping to break them up further and sterilize. The will go into the fruity batch for a week before I bottle it. I will also add half of a whole orange, also microwave sanitized and lightly scrubbed to get wax off. So, a hint of orange peel with a hint of cherry, and I read somewhere about over-priming it to get more of a nose when it's consumed. I'll probably do that.

The other batch will just be the straight-up recipe I found online (except I screwed up the hops).

cherry.jpg


orange.jpg


More pics of the original ingredients uploading to p-buck* right now.
 
Done. Bottled. Overprimed (1 cup sugar). My sample of the plain hefeweizen that was racked to secondary tastes wonderful, and fruity.

The one I left in the primary and added cherries and half an orange is funkier, sitting on Lees two weeks. I hope the funk will age out a little. I couldn't really detect the cherries or orange either, but perhaps, again, with a little aging carbonation, some notes will be detectable. That's all I was really going for anyway, just adding little hints. I now have learned a valuable lesson. Having tasted the same beer batch, side by side, the difference between sitting on Lees for a week and two weeks is very noticeable. I'll finish this topic off in a couple of weeks when the final product is sampled.

Thanks for indulging me!
 
A drinkable failure.

The Cherry stuff apparently wasn't done fermenting.

Overall, 'slight overpriming' based on 5 gallons was a bad idea because i didn't finish with 5 gallons from lees and a little evaporation. So I really overprimed it.

Nothing blew up, but after opening one, I was smart enough to drag outside where the temps were in the 30s and 20s for the last few days.

The plain hefe is not too bad, but darker in color than what I'm used to in a wheat beer.

The cherry stuff is just a drinkable failure.

But, I learned some lessons and I'll be making this (plain) again.

The Banana notes from the WLP300 is no joke, it's almost obnoxious.
 
Update for log purposes:

The cherry one, that I originally didn't like very much, turned out to be the better one after another week in the bottle. It's already all gone.

The regular one, that I like alot, is now sour tasting and the banana notes are almost completely gone. It was too strong at first, but now it's not even there. And only after another week.
 
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