Hmmmm......Hefe today?

[adm]

I just went to check on my grain to go and brew an Imperial Pilsner, but I don't have enough Lager malt.....

(Have just ordered another sack each of lager and pale so I'm sorted for next week)

I do have Wheat malt, Munich and lots of other specialty grains, plus I have two packs of Danstar Munich wheat beer yeast which I haven't tried before, so I'm thinking of a Hefeweizen this afternoon.

How about:

2.5Kg Lager Malt
2.5Kg Wheat Malt
0.5Kg Munich Malt (or should I just stick with the Lager and Wheat??)

Hops - undecided yet, but probably Saaz to 18-20 IBU

Sadly, I have no oat husks or rice hulls, so I'm worrying a bit about a stuck mash, but I'll probably give it a go anyway.

I might add some orange peel, but then I'll be non-Rheinheitzgebot.....do I care?

Also, I'm wishing I'd got a HERMS/RIMS system sorted out here so I could do a step mash.....but I think it's going to have to be a single infusion at 67C for 90 mins, plus a 90 min boil.

Ferment at 18C and let it ramp naturally ?

Any thoughts on this one ? Has anyone used this yeast before ?

[Garth]

sounds good Alasdair, have a good brewday

[196osh]

You could do a step mash using this calculator without a HERMS.

Would that work?

[adm]

You could do a step mash using this calculator without a HERMS.

Would that work?

Nice.

It would almost certainly work. Whether I can be bothered or not is a different matter!

Off to Tosscos to buy a new kettle before I get cracking on this....

[196osh]

Good stuff. Good luck with the brew.

[adm]

Hmm......reading "Classic Beer Styles : German Wheat Beer", they say a step infusion mash can be used with highly modified barley (which I am sure UK lager malt is) and that a Maltose Rest should be 10 mins to 30 mins.

Then.....they go on to say that for wheat beer the saccharification temperature is "Invariably 70 to 72C".....

So - does this mean a step mash at 50C for 30 mins, followed by raising the temperature for the rest of the mash to 70-72C - which seems rather too high to me!

(I'll probably still just do a 90 min single infusion at 67C......but might go this way to see what happens...but it just seems too high a temp)

[coatesg]

Technically, you should have at least 50% of the grain bill as wheat too to fall in line with German Law, but I'm sure it'll be good anyhow (in fact I did a similar one earlier in the year - 51% Wheat and the rest was 500g munich and maris otter to make up the difference to OG 1052). Personally, I'd drop the hops to 12IBU and I'd leave out the orange peel for a German style wheat - leave that for a Belgian Wit.

Sparging is slow with that much wheat though - but possible if you don't run it off too quick. For my next I'm gonna try and push the wheat up to 65%-75% (but will definitely need the hulls as that has stuck mash written all over it...)

[adm]

Yeah. I'm not going to add any orange as I want to see what this yeast is like by itself - I think I'll drop the Munich as well, and just go 50/50 lager malt/wheat malt.

I'm thinking now about a simple step mash:

Mash in at 50C for 30 mins, then raise to 67C for one hour with boiling water

[196osh]

Sounds good.

[delboy]

Hmm......reading "Classic Beer Styles : German Wheat Beer", they say a step infusion mash can be used with highly modified barley (which I am sure UK lager malt is) and that a Maltose Rest should be 10 mins to 30 mins.

Then.....they go on to say that for wheat beer the saccharification temperature is "Invariably 70 to 72C".....

So - does this mean a step mash at 50C for 30 mins, followed by raising the temperature for the rest of the mash to 70-72C - which seems rather too high to me!

(I'll probably still just do a 90 min single infusion at 67C......but might go this way to see what happens...but it just seems too high a temp)

There is probably quite a lot of conversion going on even at 50C, at that temp though it would probably be simple sugars being produced, the lift to 70 C might allow more dextrin formation.

I would have kept the munich in, i'll round out the flavour and counteract that sharpness of the wheat.

Have a good one.

[adm]

Just mashed in.....and in the end I did keep the Munich. I just dropped the Lager to 2Kg so there's still 50% Wheat.

Went for a single infusion mash in the end as my HLT was already at 75C and i couldn't figure out how to drop some water to 50C and still keep the rest of my mash calculations constant. Maybe next time....or maybe I'll finally get round to the RIMs/HERMs...

[yashicamat]

That munich yeast does lend a nice flavour to the beer (I made a 50/50 MO and wheat beer with it earlier this year). Thing is though, mine completely cleared in the corny within 10 days! It was bright and sparkling . . . but still tasted very nice, so I kept it like that.

[adm]

All the Wits that i've done so far have cleared pretty quickly in the keg as well. I presume this one will do the same.

I guess when they are in the bottle, you can always shake it up a bit before you pour into a glass.

I'm just about done with this beer now, so I'll put a brew days thread in a bit.....I've got a bottle of Paulaner Weiss to drink while I do that!

[Barley Water]

The reason you see many homebrew formulations for Heffe with Munich malt in them is to increase the color a little (check out the Pauliner, it's darker than you can get with just wheat and pils malt) and it also adds some malty toast (ie meloidins for the non decoction crowd). I think that Adm did the right thing to leave it in there, makes it nice. Oh yeah, be careful with the protien rest, in my experience it can kill the head on your beer (and God knows we all want a really big, fluffy white head sitting on top of that lovely golden necter).

I have had Heffe clear in kegs on me also if I let it sit around long enough. Since I am a big believer that the suspended yeast adds to both the flavor and the mouthfeel, I naturally carbonate my kegged heffe, usually with wheat DME (a poor man's krausen). By the way for all you wheat beer fans out there, Sierra Nevada has just come out with a really nice one they call Kellerweiss. Give it a try, you won't be disappointed.

[Zapp Brannigan]

I for one will be very interested to see how this turns out. I am a kit brewer about to go AG, and a proper homebrewed heffe is exactly what I aspire to (along with some dunkels and schwartzbier etc etc). Something along the lines of Weihenstephan or Paulaner perhaps, or maybe Schneider Weiss... MMMmmmm

Yours in anticipation

ZB