American Hefeweizen

[Fallen]

Anyone have a decent recipe for a good American Hefeweizen? I used to live in San Diego and I miss a good American Hefeweizen on a hot day.

Cheers

[steve_flack]

There's quite a few recipes in this book

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brewing-Wheat-S ... 173&sr=8-3

Bottom line is you can use pretty much any wheat beer recipe but use a normal ale yeast - some are more like the German wheats with malted wheat and some others use malted and unmalted wheat. A lot of American breweries use either Chico or Fullers strains (WLP-001 or WLP-002). Hopping seems to vary a lot from quite understated to more in your face American hops.

[Rookie]

Wyeast 1010 is my choice for American Hefeizen. I've tried the WLP version and was not all that impressed. Wyeast 1007 is supposed to make a good version too.
50% maris otter
50% wheat malt
lightly hopped with goldings
Wyeast 1010
Can't get much simpler. On a personal note the last batch I made of this (3 gallons) I added a half pound of dried unsweetened coconut to the secondary; turned out great.

[Barley Water]

Well, I am currently drinking an American Heffe however I did a couple of wierd things to it as sort of an experiment. First of all, I did 30% pils malt and 70% wheat, a couple pounds of the wheat was unmalted and the rest was Wyerman's malted wheat. I then ground up the unmalted wheat in a blender and did a cereal mash on it (that was the experiment part). The other thing I did was use a lager yeast (Whitelabs 2006) mostly because I had a nice yeast cake from a previous batch plus I wanted to see what that did to the beer. Unfortunately, I ended up with just a touch of diacetyl in the beer which is just enough to be noticable. Although the beer is drinkable, it would be much better without the diacetyl so next time I am going to leave it on the yeast just a bit longer and maybe extend the diacetyl rest another day or so. Oh yeah, I hopped with Liberty to about 18IBU if I remember correctly, all bittering.

On the plus side, the beer has that unmistakable but at the same time subtle wheat character. Besides the diacetyl, the ferment was pretty clean however the beer is much clearer than I expected. The yeast dropped out pretty fast and for some reason, the protien in the wheat is not causing very much haze at all (you would think that at 70% the beer would be very hazy). Anyway, because of my experience, I would probably not recommend using WLP02 for two reasons. First, that yeast is a known low attenuator, I think the beer is more thirst quenching if it is fairly dry. Also, WLP02 is known to throw off a fair amount of diacetyl and I don't think that particular taste goes that well in wheat beer.

[steve_flack]

I would probably not recommend using WLP02 for two reasons. First, that yeast is a known low attenuator, I think the beer is more thirst quenching if it is fairly dry.p

I've been using that yeast recently and I think its attenuation is more closely linked to the mashing protocol than some other yeasts. Mash low and it will go quite dry. I was getting mid 70's with it when mashing at 64-65C. Indeed the figures that Fullers give for LP and ESB suggest that they are getting pretty high attenuation figures from that yeast.

[Barley Water]

Really, well that shows that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about sometimes. I was under the impression that yeasts which floculate really well tend not to attenuate (and this strain is one of the best if you want clear beer quick). In fact, I use WLP02 alot frequently because I am trying to make a small beer taste bigger than it really is. Is there a strain out there that would be better for this purpose? Of course, the other reason I like the stuff is because I am a big fan of Fuller's beer and I am always trying to emulate those guys.

[steve_flack]

I'm sure WLP002 can be unattenuative if you let it to be but I tend to pitch a lot of yeast and I was aware of it's reputation as a low attenuation so I mashed low.

As for a strain that might be good in small beers....you're probably not going to like this but......Ringwood. I've used WLP-005 a few times and it's a very full flavoured yeast and I didn't get a ton of diacetyl out of it - some but not excessive (that depends on your opinion though). Again I aerate very well, pitch a lot of yeast, keep the temperature stable and have a decent D-rest. I'm about to use the Wyeast equivalent to see if it's any different.

I'm sure a lot of the hassle you read about with ringwood being a diacetyl bomb is due to the American habit of getting the beer out of primary too soon. Leave it to clean up and it will probably be better.

[Barley Water]

I really don't have any experience with Ringwood so maybe I'll give it a try for fun. I really enjoy just a little diacetyl in bitters and brown ales but I think it's lousey in an American Wheat for some reason. I really wasn't expecting that from a lager yeast, I was looking for a very clean fermentation (just another of my epic screwups). I did a German Pils with the previous generation of the same yeast and there is no diacetyl in that, go figure? My next brew will probably be another lager just because I have an available yeast cake from the Octoberfest I just did. After that though, I think it's ale time again. Maybe a 1.045 bitter, Marris Otter with a touch of crystal and some victory or bisquit, I'll need to think about it. The older I get, the more I am interested in relatively lower alcholol beers. Football season is almost on us again (and by that I mean American football) so I need to make sure I have quaffing beers around so I can make it into the fourth quarter.