This is a 5 gallon batch
Based on my experience, the American wheat beer, or white beer, is very different than the true German Hefe-weizen. The German wheat beer or Weissbier has a more pronounced profile of the clove characteristics that come from the yeast. For my American wheat beer I used the following ingredients.
- 6 LBS. Wheat Malt (LME)
- 1 LB. Wheat Grain, Crushed
- 1/2 LB. Carapils Grain, Crushed
- 1 Oz. Hallertau hops (bittering)
- 1 WYEST #3068 Weihenstephan (Smak-pack)
- 3/4 cup priming sugar
- 1 Muslin sack
- When ordering your grain it is better to have the shop crush them because they have the right equipment that will make the perfect crush. This is important to have a perfectly crushed grain because if the crush is not done properly, you will end up loosing flavor in the final product.
- I recommend not using a hop sack because I use hop pelts and they will expand once introduced to the wort. This might cause some of the hops oils and flavor to be trapped. I prefer to introduce my hops directly into the wort and use a cauldron to strain them out later.
- Do not use an aluminum pot for this recipe. You might get some bad off flavors.
DIRECTIONS
- Activate your "smack-pack" 24 hours before starting your brew. If the package swells up the you know you have good active yeast. If not, take it back to the shop and exchange it for a new one. (This rarely happens but if it does, make sure you have the good pack sit at room temperature for 24 hours before steeping grains.)
- STEEP THE GRAINS- Place the crushed grains in a grain sack "Muslin sack". In a 3 gallon enamel pot, bring 1 gallon of water to 170 degrees Fahrenheit hold temperature between 165 and 170. If you go above 170 you will get some weird off-flavors. Dip the grains like a tea bag into the water, then let sit in the water for 30 minutes. Take the bag and let it drain off some of the water into a heat resistant bowl then put the runnings back into the pot.
- BOIL THE WORT- Add the liquid malt extract to the grain water and keep the heat low so that you do not burn the extract. Be sure to stir the extract until it is completely dissolved in the grain water. bring the mixture to a boil slowly. Once its boiling, add the hops and continue to boil 20 minutes. When 15 minutes are left in the boil, add your Whirlfloc Tablet (JUST ONE). Once the 15 minutes are up, remove the wort from the heat and set the pot in a ice bath or sink-full of cold water. (be sure not to contaminate the wort with the cold sink water.)
- FERMENT- Prepare 2 gallons of cold water in a sanitized fermenter (plastic bucket or carboy). Add the wort to the fermenter, after the wort is cold down some, dump the wort into the bucket of cold water. Aerate the wort by dumping it from one vessel to the other. be careful in this method of aeration. The wort is vulnerable to air contaminants during this procedure. (I've never had a problem doing it this way?)
- add additional cold water to just over the 5 gallon mark on the bucket or in the carboy. Once the wort reaches 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, pitch the yeast. (If you want more pronounced clove flavor like the German beers, you will need to get the wort down to about 59 deg. Fahrenheit then pitch the yeast.) You can achieve this by putting you 2 gallons of cold water in the refrigerator overnight.
- Once you have pitched the yeast, check the gravity and write it down (should be around 1052)
- Place the lid securely on the bucket and store in a tempered area that stays around 70 deg Fahrenheit. (Be sure to let it sit for 7 to 10 days. fermentation will slow after 4 or 5 days, do not be fooled into thinking it is done fermenting.)
- BOTTLE- get 48 sanitized 12 oz. bottles. Make up the sugar by adding 3/4 cup of priming sugar to 1/2 cup of water and stir until it is dissolved. Introduce it to the bottling bucket then start syphoning your fermented beer into the bucket.
- Allow bottled beer to condition for 2 weeks.
