Simple Wheat Beer

Tyberious Funk · Post by **Tyberious Funk** » Monday Jul 25, 2005 11:38 am

I'm really keen on doing a a wheat beer for summer and I wouldn't mind trying to do it from scratch (ie, no kit). Into my demo version of BrewSmith, I plugged in:

1.5kg Liquid Wheat Extract
0.5kg Light DME
0.5kg Honey
40gm Hallertau (15mins)
Safwheat

This is for a small (15l) batch, so the volume of fermentables is low. My aim is to get something like the Hefeweizens I drank in Germany. The honey is just sort oy a personal flourish. Short of buying a liquid yeast, do you think this would come close (without getting too complicated)?

peterd · Post by **peterd** » Monday Jul 25, 2005 12:52 pm

It will not be very close to a hefeweizen/hefe Weissbier (but hell, you can buy them here, in delightful 500ml roll-top bottles, at around $6 - common ones include Weihestephaner (the original), Paulaner, Erdinger, Shofferhoffer (aplologies, no umlaut) ).
To get close, you will need the right yeast, plus unmalted wheat (as well as malted wheat and barley).
Not to say you wont have a perfectly fine wheat beer (your recipe will get much closer to Redback than a weizenbier).

db · Post by db » Monday Jul 25, 2005 6:29 pm

what ibu's does beersmith give you for that recipe TF? i'd imagine it wouldn't be too bitter as you dont have a bittering hop addition.. i'm not sure what ibu's a wheat beer usually is (i guess low 20's?).. i'd try adding less hops later in the boil (something like 20g for 10min) & maybe 20-30g boiled for 45-60min (start of boil). i'd advise setting your boil volume, & hop alpha acid %'s in beersmith & play around with your additions until you cme up with something close to 20-25

Evo · Post by **Evo** » Monday Jul 25, 2005 6:51 pm

I've also found that wheat beer is best fresh (ish) so I wouldn't be making it too much before summer. I could be on my own with that one though.

Tyberious Funk · Post by **Tyberious Funk** » Tuesday Jul 26, 2005 7:23 am

I can't recall, but I think Beersmith calculated the IBUs to be around 13-15, which is within the "accepted" range for the style (something like 10-20). Wheat beers shouldn't be too bitter.

I'm not actually planning on brewing this yet... I'm just trying to plan out a bunch of brews for the next few months before my Beersmith demo expires

I'm finding it really useful.

db · Post by db » Tuesday Jul 26, 2005 7:58 pm

Tyberious Funk wrote:I can't recall, but I think Beersmith calculated the IBUs to be around 13-15, which is within the "accepted" range for the style (something like 10-20). Wheat beers shouldn't be too bitter.

I'm not actually planning on brewing this yet... I'm just trying to plan out a bunch of brews for the next few months before my Beersmith demo expires I'm finding it really useful.

cool.. sounds as tho your on top of things TF

i was the same with my demo of beersmith

i ended up biting the bullet & buying it.. its a great prog imo.. & pretty cheap too if i recall.