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Hefeweizen Brewing Day

February 14, 2016 by Gilad

I’ve never been a huge fan of wheat beers – the heavy, bready feel is slightly too much for me as an ale drinker, but since I had a couple of kgs of crushed wheat, I decided to dive into the world of wheat beers a bit and see what I could learn. After some exploration into the various wheat beers (there are many) I found a nice idea: a slightly sour, light wheat beer from south Germany: Hefeweizen. I have yet to buy a beer of that style (probably should by now!), but I had all the relevant ingredients to give it a go, so here it is:

Beautiful mash to create Hefenweizen
Beautiful mash to create Hefenweizen

Mash

 

755g Wheat Malt

380g Vienna Malt

365g Biscuit Malt

5 litres of boiled Brita filtered London tap water, start temp before grains: 74°c, after grains addition: 67°c

Grains taken out and drained (+ squeezed) after 90 minutes total at 60°c.

Roughly 4l mash was left with 1062 gravity at 42°c.

Yeast

6g Brewferm Blanche dissolved in 500ml Brita filtered London water (23°c) and 5g dextrose

Left to activate from mid boil, about an hour.

New yeast to experiment with
New yeast to experiment with

Wort (boil)

4l mash water brought to an immediate boil on a very high flame and another 1L boiled Brita water added

Draining the grains and using only one kind of hops: Saaz
Draining the grains and using only one kind of hops: Saaz

60 minutes: 100g dextrose, 20g Saaz hops (3.1%)

0 minutes: Ice bath

Took 21 minutes to bring to 24°c, sieved. Gravity is 1082.

Fermentation

3L of the cooled wort was added to 1.5L Brita filtered London tap water and the yeast mix

Total of 5L with OG=1050 at 23°c.

Drinking while making

Oh Mama!

Bottling (2 weeks after brewing)

FG=1010 at 20°c, making it a 5.36% ABV beer.

Total of 5L

50g dextrose added for priming to achieve a CO2 volume of 3.2 (wheat beers use high carbonation).

Note: Looks murky with a brown straw colour.

Tasting notes

Foamy and carbonated Hefeweizen
Foamy and carbonated Hefeweizen

Dirty straw colour, murky (but not cloudy!). Lots of carbonation floating about in the glass, holding a very foamy and persistent head.

Sweet yeasty aroma with a caramel finish. Earthy notes and slightly green tasting, could be fresh hay – very refreshing.

Light and slightly sour taste, as you expect from a Hefeweizen, but lacking some body. Very smooth to drink and clean, I wonder if it is too clean for a wheat beer. I think for the next try on this beer I will be adding some oat flakes to increase the body profile and maybe add some banana notes that I’m missing here.

All and all a great beer (even if a bit thin) that has the general profile of a light oatmeal and raisin cookie: yeasty, light, a bit of hay and sourness from the raisins – not too bad!

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Related

Filed Under: Brewing day Tagged With: Biscuit Malt, rewferm Blanche Yeast, Saaz Hops, Vienna malt, Wheat Beer, Wheat Malt

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Categories

  • Beer ramble
  • Beer tasting
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  • Brewing day
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