first hefe

[yopper]

Going to attempt my first hefewiezien. Had a weihenstephaner last weekend. Fantastic. I have lager malt and wheat malt and whitelabs 300 yeast. any comments from you guys would be greatly appreciated.

[simco999]

Good luck - what hops you thinking to use?

[yopper]

either tettnang or hallertauer

[simco999]

My SBSW (Sim's bog standard wheat beer) is

2.5kg Lager or Pale malt
2.5kg Wheat malt

10 to 20g Bittering hops
40-60g Aroma hops - usually Citra or Amarillo. Though think my next one will be Halletauer.

Last one was a touch over bittered so may cut back to 10g next time.

[greenxpaddy]

The commercial weihenstephan is very bland. Must be fermented very low end I would have thought. So if you are aiming for that pitch and ferment initially at 14c ish and rise slowly to 18c. If you want a real fruity hefe - that is what it should be - a "breakfast beer" - with loads of banana - then 18-20 degrees c.

[Barley Water]

First of all, if you want to make an authentic German Heffe, don't even think about putting American hops into the wort. The "real stuff" has very little bittering hops and basicly nothing else (and they are all German noble varities). Of course, this is home breweing so you can do whatever floats you boat. There are a bunch of tricks involved in making a really good example for competitions but the biggest one involves fermentation temperature as an earlier poster mentioned. I have had the best luck fermenting such that I get a pretty good mix of both bananna and clove, the bananna bombs don't seem to do as well. Also, if you let things get over about 68F you are going to start getting fusels and that in my opinion will wreck the taste. Also, when things get too hot you get bubblegum which is also a no, no. Of all the beer styles, a heffe will teach you more about yeast handling than most other styles because relatively minor changes in technique will cause radically different flavors in the beer. Anyhow have fun, it's a neat style to brew. By the way, WLP300 is a very violent fermenter, I usually end up with a mess unless I use a blow off tube.

[simco999]

The commercial weihenstephan is very bland.

oof - Paddy thats a bit harsh. OK its not the best but I wouldn't call it bland.

...and by the way I'm not saying my Weiss is standard - it is Sim's Bog Standard Weiss after all. Just like to experiment with different hops.

One day I will make the perfect Weiss bier - but it is not this day. (Said in my best Aragorn voice.)

[yopper]

What sort of temps am i aiming for, yeast is white labs 300, I have temp control fridge and i do like bananas.....within reason off-course.

[Cazamodo]

Im trying my first hefe this weekend! Ive been reading up on what to do for a while, I plan to use 3.5kg wheat and 2kgs lager malt, Halletauer (still havent decided on the amount or when to add) and Im going for WLP380 yeast, as its meant to have a bit more clove than WKP300 (in hindsight I wish id got both to compare the two!)
Ive also read, if you like the clove flavour to come through more, do a ferulic(sp) acid rest at around 41-43C for 15 mins before bringing the mash up to 66C fo the rest. Also I plan to pitch at around 15C and keep it cool and let it slowly rise to 18C over the week.
I may of gone a bit overboard but I kept seeing people complain that even with caution the yended up with banana bombs, so I changed the yest as as much as I like a good bit ov banana I didnt want it to overpower the brew.

Good luck with your hefe and let us know the results!

[Lugsy]

Definitely do the ferulic rest at 42ish if you want some clove flavour but you might need to ramp up the temperature at the end to 20C to get the clove to come out. My first hefe I pitched a vial of WLP300 without making a starter (as I'd heard stressing the yeast like this would give off more of the clove flavour) and fermented at 16C. That beer was way over the top on the cloves, tasted a lot like toothache remedy! With my last one I pitched a 750ml starter of WLP300 at 13C and then ramped it up to 17C for most of the ferment but it stuck at 50% attenuation for a week so I went up to 19C to finish it off. It was more banana than clove and I've since been told that the clove only really comes out at 20C. However, there's loads of conflicting information on this on the forums and I'm by no means an expert! Best of luck with it!

[leedsbrew]

This blog post might be of some use to you! Still working on pt 2 though

http://leedsbrew.wordpress.com/2012/05/ ... acid-test/

[Cazamodo]

Im sure I read that a higher ferm temp would be more bananary! haha Well I tried to brew this today, and had problems with the mash and ended up burning the wort i was trying to raise up to 66C. So i shall attempt it again tomorrow, luckily I still have enough ingredients to do anther batch tomorrow.