HefeWeizen

I decided to try my hand at a HefeWeizen last month. I was looking for an easy drinking beer that would be ready in less than 3 weeks. This seemed to fit the bill just fine.

In a bold move, I decided to craft my own recipe for this, despite having never brewed one before. I did some research and came up with a nice easy recipe. Don't be surprised if you have seen recipes very very similar to this around, this is a basic hefe and so it resembles a lot of other recipes.

The key ingredients to a HefeWeizen are: wheat malt, pilsner malt and yeast. That gives you the basic core of the beer. Hops are not a big priority here, just need a little for balance. I used German Magnums, and hopped it to 9.7 IBUs. Use a clean bittering hop for this, you don't want too much flavor coming through. I like Magnums because while they are very bitter, they are also extremely smooth.

For my HefeWeizen, I decided I wanted just a touch of something extra. So I added a small amount (1 lb) of Munich Malt. That adds just a touch of extra maltiness that goes very well with the style, in my opinion.

The yeast and fermentation temperatures make or break this beer. For the yeast I chose White Labs WLP380 HefeWeizen IV Ale. This is a more balanced yeast, giving a nice amount of both clove and banana flavors. It is supposed to be less fruity than other Hefe yeasts, but I found that it added a significant amount of banana aroma, especially while the beer was still young.

White labs lists the optimum temperatures for this yeast as 66°-70°, don't listen to them! If you ferment it that warm you will have a fruit basket on your hands. Make a nice starter for this (use www.mrmalty.com to calculate size) and pitch cold. Like 55-58° cold. Let the beer warm up naturally to 62° and hold it there. Give it lots of time, at this temp the Hefe IV is a bit slow, but worth the wait. In my case I let it go for 1 1/2 weeks and then I let it warm up to 67° to finish out.

The most important step here is controlling your temps, pitch cool, ferment cool and all will be well. If you ferment warmer it will still be drinkable, but in my opinion you won't strike that wonderful balance between flavors.

Here is the recipe:
for a 6 gallon batch at 70%
7 .00 lb White Wheat Malt
3.75 lb Pilsner Malt
1.00 lb Munich Malt
.30 oz Magnum (10.43%) @ 60
WLP380 HefeWeizen IV Ale

Mash at 152° for 75 minutes.

Use a 90 minute boil to drive off any DMS.

Should be ready to bottle keg in a couple of weeks. Enjoy this beer young!

Brown Porter

I brewed up what was supposed to be a brown porter. That was the idea. The recipe was one I found on the internet, it claimed to be a taddy porter clone, but that was a complete lie. It was in reality far more like Black Butte than Tadcaster.

For a 6 gallon batch at 70% efficiency:
10 lb Maris Otter
1.3 lb Crystal 60°L
1 lb Black Patent
.5 lb Chocolate Malt
.2 lb Dark Molasses
1.11 oz Northern Brewer @ 90
.6 oz Fuggles @ 15
WLP007, 2 liter starter

Est OG: 1.053

Mash at 150° for 75 minutes.

I ended up overshooting my OG by 5 points and started at 1.058

Ferment cool at 62-64°. I allowed it to raise to 67° after a week and a half to get full attenuation. WLP007 was very very quick for me. It dropped to 1.019 after just 3 days. After 2 weeks it was 1.017. Only 70% attenuation, but it worked nicely for the style.

I ended up with a dark beer with a very full body and lots of dark roasted grain character. Fantastic drinking. Even on a hot summer day, it's very refreshing. Serve it a little cold for the style and it really goes down smooth.

Wedding beers were a hit!

20 gallons of beer and I have about 3 gallons left. Not too bad. The California Common and the WitBier were the big hits, with the Pale in 3rd and the Stout a distant 4th. Well, I knew that Stout was not all it could be when I made it.

I'm still of the opinion that I left the best beers at home. I whipped up a Brown Porter and a HefeWeizen to have around for family and friends and both of them turned out amazing! Oh well.

Expect recipes and posts on both of those soon.

The Wedding Beers

Well, my wedding is coming up and I'm just about done brewing for it. I'm doing 4 batches total. I wanted to do some lagers, but ran out of time. In the end I decided on the following:

• APA - Good old American Pale Ale, basic, tasty, classic.
• Stout - Formerly an Oatmeal Stout, now Just a Stout.
• California Common - No, not this one. I rebrewed it a few days later, and hopefully made something that doesn't resemble gasoline.
• Witbier - Brewing this on the weekend. Light wheat ale with a hint of citrus. Ferments fast and best drank young. Perfect for the time starved brewer.
  

My brewing disasters continued...

I took a long hiatus from brewing this winter. Life just got too busy and it was too damn cold outside. Once I stopped brewing regularly, it was hard to find the motivation to start brewing again.

Finally last month I got a batch going. Went for an Irish Red. It's a recipe that I have made many times in the past, so I just followed my recipe and managed to miss my OG by more than 10 points. Turns out somebody had been fiddling with my mill and the grain was barely crushed. And I didn't notice until I started the mash. Oops. Oh well, I went ahead and let it finish. It was actually quite tasty, if a little thin.

Next up I brewed a California Common, or that was the plan at least. When making my starter I ran out of malt extract and in a fit of desperation added in some corn sugar (this is bad idea #1). I then proceeded to brew the beer based on the recipe without double checking it (bad idea #2). Turns out it was an old recipe from before I had figured out my water volumes for All Grain. I ended up with more than 6 gallons at the end of the boil. Instead of boiling more, I decided to just go ahead and cool and rack it (bad idea #3). Now remember that starter (see bad idea #1)? Well, it was taking it's sweet time to get going so after a couple of days I just decided to dump the whole thing in, I usually decant and just pour the slurry in (bad idea #4).

That's the end of the truly bad ideas, it fermented like crazy, tons of blow-off, so I thought maybe it would be all OK. Maybe not the best I had ever made, but drinkable right? Wrong! After it fermented out, I kegged it up and since I had a free tap on my kegerator I hooked it up. I drew a pint of it yesterday, thinking it might be a bit green but would give me a good idea of what it will turn into.

I actually spat it out. I couldn't even swallow it. It tasted like rocket fuel, it was horrid. I'm guessing it was probably flavors I introduced from bad idea #1 and bad idea #4 (and maybe a sprinkle of #2 and #3). I might let it age a bit and see what happens, but I'm prepared to dump it as soon as I need that keg free for something that more closely resembles beer.

Just a Stout...I guess

I really have to start paying more attention when I brew. Maybe I'll have to create a checklist of tasks for the brew day.

This past Sunday I brewed an Oatmeal Stout, I intended to at least. Had issues with the crush, the mill and everything else, but I got it done and into the fermenter. I was a few points shy on my OG, but figured it was close enough. That is until I started to clean up the kitchen and noticed the paper bag full of my lovingly toasted, flaked oats still sitting on the counter.

Oops.

I guess it's just a stout now.

Ordinary Bitter

Last Saturday was brew day for me. I finally got around to a style I've been meaning to brew since August, the Ordinary Bitter.

Here is what the bjcp has to say about the ordinary bitter:

Medium to high bitterness. Most have moderately low to moderately high
fruity esters. Moderate to low hop flavor (earthy, resiny, and/or floral UK
varieties typically, although US varieties may be used). Low to medium maltiness
with a dry finish. Caramel flavors are common but not required. Balance is often
decidedly bitter, although the bitterness should not completely overpower the
malt flavor, esters and hop flavor. Generally no diacetyl, although very low
levels are allowed.

I went with a pretty basic recipe for this. Nothing fancy, for a 6 gallon batch at 70%:

• 7.00 lb Maris Otter
• 1.30 lb Crystal 15L
• 1.00 lb Victory Malt
• .85 oz Northern Brewer [8.50%] (90 min)
• .75 oz East Kent Goldings [4.00%] (30 min)
• .60 oz East Kent Goldings [4.00%] (0 min)
• 1 whirlfloc (10 min)
• 2 liter starter of WLP005 British Ale

Estimated OG: 1.040
IBUs: 31.6
Color: 7.7 SRM
BU:GU ratio: 0.787

I mashed at 154° for 60 mins and boiled for 90 mins.

The 2 liter starter was probably overkill for a beer this small, but I bought the yeast back in July so I wanted to make sure I had a good supply of viable yeast.

I'm sure I did now, because I went from 1.039 to 1.011 in 48 hours. I checked on it Monday night and was surprised that the Krausen had fallen already and the yeast had dropped out. I thiefed a sample and got the 1.011 reading. Not bad!

I'm going to leave it a couple of days more, then rack to a keg with a half ounce of east kent goldings to give it a little more aroma.

Should be ready to drink next week!