Home Brew Batch #12: All Grain Hefeweizen

So the weather warmed up quite a bit the last couple of weeks (May '13). I remembered a Hef that I brewed a few years ago that was a big time banana bomb because is fermented really warm. With summer right around the corner, warm ambient temperature for fermenting, and a desire to try an all grain recipe other than all barley, I though a Hef was in order!

The last two all grain batches I have brewed I was only doing 2.5 gallons due to the size of my 4 gallon brewpot that could only hold enough grain for a half batch. I had the idea to do the mash in my 6 gallon fermenter, so I thought I would try a full 5 gallon batch with a lighter recipe like this Hef.

I adapted a recipe from my home brew book Brewing Classic Styles. Here it is for a 5 gallon batch:

- 6 lbs German Pilsner Malt
- 6 lbs. Wheat Malt
- 0.8 oz. Hallertau
- 1 vial White Labs WLP 380 Hefeweizen IV

Brewing was pretty straight forward with the brew in a bag method:

- 4 gal. strike water @ 165 f
- Mash at 152 f for 60 min.
- Rinsed in 1 gallon hot tap water (I should have heated it)
- Boil 30 minutes
- 0.8 oz. Hallertau
- Boil for 60 more minutes
- 1/4 tsp. Irish Moss last few minutes

I used a sink full of water and my wort chiller to get it down to about 75 f before pitching the yeast (1.050 OG). As I said above the ambient temperature was pretty high in the house (high 70's), so the next morning the fermentor was going wild and the temperature was up near 80 f. I tried to put a wet t-shirt on the fermentor to cool it down a bit, but that didn't help too much. I fermented out pretty quick and then the temperature came down.




I left it in the primary for two weeks and then bottled it. After a couple of weeks to carbonate I tried one. The banana was off the chart, but there was a lot of fusel alcohol.

Update: I just finished my last bottle in December '13. Seems like the both the banana aroma and fusel alcohol chilled out a bit. It was really good, especially because I drank it out of a glass Das Boot!

Home Brew - Batches #1 - #9

It's kind of funny. One of my original ideas for starting this blog was to document my home brewing exploits. Here I am a few months in and I don't have even one post about my brewing. So here we go....

A little over two years ago my wife made the mistake of getting me a really nice starter home brew kit for Christmas.

I hoped to have the motivation here to go back and give a little detail on the batches that I have brewed up in the past, but I can't seem to quite get there.

So I though I would just make a list of the batches that I completed prior to starting this blog. These were mostly packaged extract kits from my local home brew shop O'Shea Brewing (Laguna Niguel, CA):

Batch #1 - Nut Brown - my first home brewed beer, so of course it was great!

Batch #2 - All Citra IPA - this one was insane! When you popped the bottle open it smelled like slicing open a grapefruit. Still might be my favorite home brew batch of all time.

Batch #3 - Hefeweizen - changed the yeast to White Labs Hefeweizen IV (WLP 380) and fermented a bit warm. The banana aroma was off the chart. This one fermented so fast that it actually blew the top off of my fermenter bucket. I thought it would be contaminated, but it turned out just fine.

Batch #4 - Red - wasn't my favorite at first, but over time it got better.

Batch #5 - Belgian Pale - turned out nice. Finally got tired of bottling with the 12 oz. bottles that came with my brewing kit, so I switched to 22's.

Batch #6 - Imperial Nut Brown - couldn't get this one to carbonate. I even tried popping a cap and adding a little extra yeast to one bottle. That didn't work. Turned out that the bottles were just too cold. They were sitting on a tile floor in my pantry right next to an exterior wall. Moved the bottles to an interior pantry and they were ready to go in a week!

Batch #7 - Belgian Wit - Hoegaarden clone for my wife. Turned out really clean, but not too much orange peel or coriander came through. I actually submitted this one for the OC Fair home brew competition, but I didn't plan ahead and the bottles didn't have enough time to carbonate. Better luck next year...

Batch #8 - Belgian Saison - Liked this one a lot. Fermented a bit warm and it seemed to have some good spiciness to it.

Batch #9 - Oatmeal Stout - my grain sack for steeping was too small so I didn't get a good soaking of the grains because the oatmeal swelled up. It ended up tasting OK, but was a bit light on the flavor and maltiness.















I learned a ton making these beers, and luckily didn't have any major screw ups, so I decided to take my confidence and start with all grain batches...