WTHefeweizen

What the Hefeweizen, snow in April!?

Today’s plans were cancelled due to the weather. So, we’ll brew. 🙂

Grain Bill / Fermentables

  • 6 lbs Pilsner
  • 5 lbs Red Wheat Malt
  • 1 lb Flaked Wheat

Hops

  • 1 oz Hallertau (3.8% AA)

Yeast

  • Mangrove Jack’s M20 Bavarian Wheat Yeast

Target Stats

  • OG 1.049
  • FG 1.012
  • ABV 4.79%
  • 5.5 Gallons
  • IBU 13.05

Final Stats

  • OG 1.055
  • FG 1.020
  • ABV 4.59%
  • 63% Attenuation
  • 5.25 Gallons

Brew Day

Heat 7 gallons of water to 117°. (All Dover city water with a campden tablet to remove the chlorine.)

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

Mash grains at 110° for 20 minutes for ferulic acid rest.

Heat water to 157°, reintroduce grains and continue mash at 153° for 90 minutes.

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 0.75 oz Hallertau hops and continue boil for 45 minutes.

Add 0.25 oz Hallertau hops and continue boil for 15 minutes.

Reduce wort temperature to 68° and take OG reading.

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

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

Bottle and wait another 1~2 weeks…

Enjoy!

Notes:

  • April 7, 2018, Brew Day
    • Adjusted mash pH to 5.3 using 5/8 tsp citric acid.
    • Pitched yeast into 72° wort and dropped carboy into 65° heat sink. Fermentation room is 63.3°, which is a bit too low for this yeast.
  • 18 hours, positive pressure in the airlock, after going negative from the cooling wort. No krausen, likely due to the low, 64°, fermentation room temperature. Began raising the temperature to 72° to hasten fermentation.
  • 24 hours, small krausen has formed.
  • 40 hours, full, fluffy, white krausen. 🙂
  • d yas, fermentation room smells amazingly fruity.
  • 4 days, krausen dropped out.
  • 5 days, turned off additional heat source in fermentation room.
  • 15 days, took final gravity reading. It smells amazing.