Hefeweizen - the results

I finally have my two hefes on tap.

A quick recap: One was brewed purely with pale ale and wheat malts, with an ounce of Perle, aiming for a more refreshing summer wheat beer.

The other beer was brewed with less hops (half an ounce), but 500g of the grain (barley & wheat) were home-roasted.

How do they stack up ? I won't review them formally as that would be a little self-indulgent. However, it's fair to say that the aims have been attained (this is in spite of my earlier post where I was a bit discouraged.... always give the beer time in keg/bottle to settle and smooth out).

Hefe 1 (summer style - on the right): light and crisp. Touch tangy, with a nice bitterness at the back. More an American Wheat style than a hefe, but the clove is evident.

Hefe 2 (traditional hefe style - on the left): more rounded body, nice bread & biscuit nose and taste. More prominent clove character. (Note I reused the yeast from Hefe 1 for Hefe 2). Notice the darker colour.... and that was only a tenth of the grain, 60 minutes in the oven at 175C.

I think I'm hooked on home-roasting. It wasn't perfect by any means; I'd like to get more caramel than I did, but it was my first go and it will only improve.

Brew Day: hefeweizen with homemade toasted malt

The results of the my recent hefeweizen were mixed.

(see http://aussiebeerblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/hefe-brew-day.html).

The brew day went fairly well, and the plate chiller work superbly. However I think the resulting beer is too light in body, probably due to some oversparging and not enough boil time.

And an ounce of Perle seemed to create quite a bitter presence in the finished product, so will cut back on that in future.

So for today, I've got the remaining 2.5kg of Pale Malt and 2.5kg of Wheat Malt. But I've taken a tenth of each, mixed together, split into two, and toasted in a 175C oven.  The first went for an hour, and has come out nutty and darker than when it went in. The second got a soaking in hot water, then went in for a similar time. This produced some caramel, which seemed inclined to stick to the tray. Baking paper next time, I think.

Needed some quick repair on my mash tun (esky). The pipe through the outlet hole seems to not be sitting in the grommet as nicely as it used to, so as I was adding hot water pre-dough-in, I reckon most of it leaked out onto the ground. Quick trip to the hardware shop, and I picked up a long brass nipple, a couple of cistern outlet washers, and two brass nuts (all 15mm).  That settled it.

Mashed at lower temperature this time, doughing-in at 73.5, (opposed to 75.5).  Incremental batch sparging (8 litres hot water into the wort, lauter, then a 6 litre batch, and another). Brought the pre-boil volume to about 25 litres. Half ounce of hops, and an hour boil.

So, it's now in the fermenter, with yeast from the last batch. Should start up strongly, and with the current temperature in the low-mid 20's (C), should also kick off some good hefe aromatics.

I snuck in a quick taste, and there are distinct toasty, nutty flavours, over and above the wheat characteristics. This is reassuring, and possibly opens a new dimension in DIY brewing..... homemade crystal & toasted malts.

Hefe Brew Day

A lovely still-ish day in northern Sydney, so a good time to kick off a brew. I haven't yet tried my plate chiller, so plenty of interest today.

I'm brewing a hefeweiss, as it's my wife's favourite (mine also). This is arguably the simplest recipe I've brewed to date:

2.5 kg Pale Malt
2.5 kg Wheat Malt
28g Perle (60 minutes)
Safbrew WB-06 wheat ale yeast

One thing I like about hefe is the mouthfeel and slight semblance of sweetness. Most recipes call for a touch of Munich for colour & biscuity/bready notes, or a little crystal/cara for some caramel sweetness. But this recipe will produce a pale beer, with some mechanical adjustments needed to get more mouthfeel and sweetness.

I normally mash my grains at 65-67C, which generates a higher proportion of fermentable wort than higher temperatures. Since I want some more body and sweetness (provided by more complex carbohydrates), I'll mash at 69C, which requires a strike temperature (today) of 75.5C. This results in a "thicker" beer, and not as much alcohol post-ferment.

So, I'm at that stage. 15 litres of hot water has been put into the mash tun, stirred to cool to strike temp, and the grain stirred in. I'm now sitting back, catching up on some blogging, and gaining inspiration by having a taste of the benchmark: Weihenstephaner.

Weizen tasting - results

The overall winner of the day was Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier, with an overall rating of 4.05, which equates to A- (excellent) on the Beeradvocate rating scale.  Runner up was Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse, with 4.00 (B+ very good).

                                                                   

Scott's top 5 were (scores out of 5):
Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier 3.90  (equal 1st)

Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse         3.90  (equal 1st)

Schneider Aventinus                  3.85

Schofferhofer Hefeweizen          3.50
Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier           3.50

Michael's top 5 were:
Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier 4.20
Franziskaner Hefe-Weisse         4.10
Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier           3.80
Erdinger Weissbier                    3.50
Schofferhofer Hefeweizen          3.45

As expected, the Germans took all the top spots. The two Australian offerings did not perform very well along style lines. One of them performs better on tap, the other drinks well but seems to be more of an Aussie pub ale than a creamy, clove & banana hefeweiss.

Weizen tasting this Saturday

My good mate Scott gave me his Weber kettle BBQ the other day, gratis. I thought the least I could do was get him round for a BBQ, and some beers.

So this Saturday is a wheat & smoked meat day, in a Bavarian way.  We'll have a taste-off of popular hefeweizen, from Germany & Australia. Here's the range:

Astute observers will note that one of these beers is not in fact hefeweizen. Which one ?