A traditional Bavarian Hefeweizen: medium body, cloudy, malty, and spicy, with a smooth mouth-feel and dense, whipped-cream head.

Recipe

This is the full grain recipe for a 5 gallon batch

Grains:

  • 5.5 lbs Weyermann Pale Wheat malt
  • 4 lbs German Pilsner malt

Hops:

  • 1 oz German Tettnang for 60 min

Yeast:

  • Fermentis Safbrew WB-06 Dry Yeast

Target O.G: 1.049

I converted this to a partial mash using the following tweak

Grains:

  • 5.5 lbs Weyermann Pale Wheat malt
  • 0.5 lbs 6 Row
  • 3 lbs lbs dry malt extract

Hops:

  • 1 oz German Tettnang for 60 min

Yeast:

  • Fermentis Safbrew WB-06 Dry Yeast

Target O.G: 1.049

At the end of the brew I recorded an original gravity of 1.045.

The Result

Ferment for two weeks and bottle condition for another two weeks and then enjoy. I recorded a final gravity of about 1.020 before bottling. Today is the first tasting day, observer the first pour

First Taste
First Taste

As desired, a nice traditional Hefeweizen: cloudy appearance with a fruity aroma. This beer came out with a nice smooth, sweet, and light flavor. It will be a perfect spring beer, which is exactly what I was aiming for.

The only concern I have with this beer is that my sugar conversion was not very efficient. As a result, the bottle conditioning has resulted in a “well carbonated” beer. Word of warning if I give you one of these, please open over a sink because it will immediately overflow the bottle!

Additionally, the recipe specifically does not include a secondary fermentation stage and this has resulted in more sediment than I really like in the bottles. The reason to skip the secondary is to help maintain the cloudy body of the beer. However, if I were to brew this recipe again, I would definitely do a secondary stage. The secondary stage would most likely help with the conversion issue as well.

Either way I am still going to enjoy this batch. I have included a few more pictures of my brewing process below, enjoy!