Hefeweizen

Hefeweizen Recipe

This beer would not have been legal when Germany still had its purity law. Why? Because it contains wheat. And wheat wasn’t one of the three ingredients allowed under the law (barley, hops and water). Thankfully, this beer style survived the iron grip of government regulations and we can all enjoy its unique banana and clove flavours which are often complemented with spiciness. If you’re not a hop head or you want an easy-sipping beer on a hot summer day, this beer will take good care of you.

Recipe Profile

  • Method: 1 gallon BIAB (Brew-in-a-bag), single stage
  • Target OG (Original Gravity): 1.047
  • Target FG (Final Gravity): 1.009
  • Bitterness (IBUs): 14
  • Estimated ABV: 5.1%
  • Boil: 90 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1.75 lbs German Pilsner Malt
  • 4 oz Caramel Wheat Malt
  • Weihensephan Weizen (Wyeast #3068)
  • 0.15 oz Hellertauer Hersbrucker Hops at 60 minutes
  • 0.05 oz Hellertauer Hersbrucker Hops at 15 minutes

The Mash

  1. Bring 10.75 litres of water to a temperate of 155°F. Add your grains and give everything a good stir until the whole thing looks a bit like oatmeal. Shut off the heat, cover with a lid, and let it steep at 158°F for 90 minutes.
  2. Then you need to “mash out.” You put the heat back on, and raise the temperature to 168°F (75.6°C) and keep stirring for 7 minutes.
  3. Remove the grains and prepare for the boil. If you’re using a bag, just pull it out and let it drip near-dry above the pot. If you’re using a colander, strain to remove the grains, preserving the wort, which you’ll add back to the pot.
  4. Check that your gravity is on track and correct it, if neededYou need 62 gravity points for this recipe, and our target post-boil volume is 1.3 gallons.

The Boil

  1. Start the boil by bringing your wort up to a boil. Once boiling, start your timer. Add your bittering hops, as prescribed above.
  2. Meanwhile, prepare your sanitizer solution.
  3. Just before the boil is complete, make an ice batch in your kitchen sink. Load it up with as much ice and cold water as you can. Once the boil is over, transfer your pot to the sink to cool your wort to pitching temperature, as prescribed on the yeast pack. Remember to sanitize your thermometer every time you check the temperature.
  4. Meanwhile, thoroughly clean and sanitize your carboy, screw cap, airlock, funnel, and strainer/colander. You want everything to be ready to go once the wort is at the right temperature.
  5. Once the wort is at pitching temperature, transfer it to the carboy by passing it through a strainer overtop the funnel. Do not fill the carboy higher than the one gallon mark.
  6. Aerate the wort.  Cover the fermenter with a screw cap and gently rock the carboy back and forth for a few minutes to mix in some air.
  7. Pitch the yeast! Use sanitized scissors to cut open the package and pour in only half the yeast.
  8. Seal the carboy by filling the airlock with sanitizer. Fit it in the screw cap. Move the carboy to a dark spot, free of the home’s daily commotion for at least 14 days (but ideally not more than 21).

Bottling Day

  1. Move the carboy to a the countertop, if it wasn’t already there. If the wort got lots of movement during transfer, let it sit so that any stirred-up yeast has a chance to re-settle.
  2. Sanitize everything that will come in contact with the beer: bottling bucket, auto-siphon, tubing, filler, bottles, and bottle caps.
  3. Dissolve 0.59 oz (16.7g) corn sugar in enough boiling water to dissolve it. Add the dissolved sugar solution to your sanitized bottling bucket.
  4. Fill your auto-siphon and hose with sanitizer before submerging in the carboy. Transfer the solution to a spare container until the beer has completely replaced all the sanitizer in the tubes. Now you can place the end with the bottle filler in the bottling bucket, which should also be on the floor and gently transfer the beer from the carboy to the bucket.
  5. Transfer all the liquid up and the point where it reaches the sediment. Leave the sediment in the carboy.
  6. Now, move the bottling bucket to the counter and siphon the beer quietly into each bottle. When the liquid gets to the very top of the bottle, remove the bottle filler, which will leave the perfect amount of headspace at the top of the bottle.
  7. Cover each bottle with the sanitized caps and cap them into place, or secure your sanitized swing-top caps if using those.
  8. Store the bottles upright in a quiet, dark corner at temperatures between at 65F (18.5C).
  9. Wait 30 days, if you can. If you’re way too curious (I can’t blame you!) try and hold out for 14 days. If you absolutely can’t wait, you can try after 7 days, but the beer really needs at least 14 days to condition.

Comments

12 responses to “Hefeweizen”

  1. Mike

    Why do you use 2 gallon of water for a gallon batch. Is it to compensate for evaporation during boil?

    1. Hi Mike,

      Yes, it’s to compensate for water absorption in the grains, and principally to water evaporation. Each brewhouse is different. These ratios work very well on my setup. After you brew one or two recipes, you’ll be in a good position to calibrate the perfect amount of water for your brew process. Good luck!

  2. Mike

    I tried this RECIPE today. I was a little SKEPTICAL in the beginning as of why I need almost 3 gallons of water for 1 gallon batch, but I decided to trust your judgement. I followed this exactly like you described and bought exact same ingredients. I had my malt GRINDEd an hour BEFORE in the brew shop and everything was fresh. I also made sure to keep an eye on the temp recommended by you for each step. I ended up with over 2 gallons of worth that measured 1.019 OG before pitching yeast???
    I ended up dumping more beer that I put in the fermenter. Because the grain was deluted by so much water, it didnt produce enough fermentable sugars. Thats what I suspected in the beginning and thats how it ended. My beer now sits in the fermenter for 2 days and nothing is happening, since there is barely any fermentable sugar in it. Thanks

    1. Hi Mike,

      I’m sorry the beer didn’t work out. There could be any number of variables that could have contributed to this — it’s tough for me to troubleshoot from afar, but some notes:

      1. How much/little you stir the grains.
      2. How the temperature held up during the mash.
      3. Rate of evaporation during the boil. This is the single biggest variable from one brewhouse to another. My pot is quite wide and conducts heat very well, so I need a bit more water to make it work. It sounds like your pot evaporates to a lesser extent.
      4. I always end up with a bit more wort than I need. I prefer to have a bit left over, so I can be sure I’ll fill the carboy. My recipes thus include more grains and more water than a typical one-gallon recipe. I have done this to account for various brewhouse setups, erring on the side of ensuring folks have a bit of extra wort.
      5. There are ways to correct the gravity reading before you pitch the yeast. I have yet to cover how to do this, but I will do so in the next week or so, to help the next person who ends up with a low gravity reading. I’m sorry I didn’t have this resource available for you already, but I appreciate you raising this.

  3. Steven

    I made this today and it did take a long time to boil down to 1.5 gallons of wort but i hit an OG of 1.046. Close enough for me. Cant wait to taste it iN a few weeks.

  4. Kent

    dO you have this in a 5 gallon recipe or do you only supply 1 gallon batch recipes?

    1. Hi Kent, my site is focused on small-batch sizes, but you could easily scale any of these recipes to 5 gallons by multiplying amounts by 3.85.

  5. Ian Charette-Brousseau

    Hi Joseph,

    I thought Hefeweizens were supposed to have at least 50% of wheat. How come this recipe only contains 12%?

    Thank you!

    1. Wheat police

      And even that is not normal wheat!

  6. David

    Hi, for the hefeweizen recipe, I just wanted to confirm all the hop additions go in at 5 minutes remaining in the 60 minute boil. I am new to this so wanted to make sure there wasn’t a typo. Thanks!

  7. Matty

    Is the strike temp supposed to be lower than the mash temp? Looking at other recipes, should it be 165*? I did as written and my og and fg were waaaay off

  8. Andy

    HEy, great recipe. I noticed that your sugar for carbonation is the same amount as other recipes, but i’ve read that hEfewEizens require more sUgar. Can you confirm the 0.59 oz is correct? Thanks for posting!

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