Melissa’s Weizen

Grain Bill / Fermentables

  • 6 lbs Pilsner
  • 4 lbs Wheat
  • 8 oz Flaked Wheat
  • 8 oz Flaked Oats

Hops

  • 1 oz Hallertau (3.8% AA)

Yeast

  • White Labs WLP300 German Hefeweizen

Gravity

  • OG 1.042
  • FG 1.010
  • ABV 4.20%
  • IBU 21

Brew Day

Heat 5 gallons of water to 163°. (All filtered Dover city water.)

Gently dough in grains until all grain is covered by water.

Mash grains at 152° for 1 hour.

Remove “grain bag” and allow grains to drain.

Rinse grains using a colander and get every last drop of wort potential.

Bring wort to a boil, add 1 oz Hallertau hops and continue boil for 60 minutes.

Reduce wort temperature to 68° and take OG reading.

Sufficiently aerate and transfer to primary fermenter and pitch yeast starter.

Allow beer 2~3 weeks in the primary to adequately ferment and cleanup any diacetyl produced during fermentation.

Bottle and wait another 1~2 weeks…

Enjoy!

Notes:

  • June 18th, Brew Day
    • Adjusted mash pH to 5.4 using 1/4 tsp citric acid.
  • Did not get the boil-off expected and had 5.5~6 gallons of wort and a lower OG than anticipated.
  • Beer is fermenting quite hot with the water bath registering ~75 degrees as the initial fermentation started.  Ambient room temperature is 65~70 degrees.
    • WLP300 has been an aggressive fermenter for me in the past, blowing through several airlocks, when I first made this recipe as an extract. At that time I did not take temperature measurements, however the banana character was very strong, so it was likely also a very warm fermentation.
  • After six weeks in the bottle this is a decent brew. Wheat beers seem to take a lot longer to bottle condition that many other styles.
18 Hours