German Hefe Weiz

Classification: wheat beer, weizen, hefe-weizen, all-grain

Source: Rick Garvin (rgarvin@btg.com), HBD Issue #1168, 6/24/93

The recipe performed as expected for my set up with extraction of 29 SG points/lb for a decoction. I use a 48 qt cooler with the copper slatted wort collector that we have all seen. I do not beleive that the geometry of the picnic cooler mash-tun (wider than tall) gives as good a grain bed, clarity, or extraction as I have gotten with the insulated Zap-Ap style (taller than wide). But, the cooler is more workable for 14 gallon batches.

Ingredients:

15 lbs Ireks Wheat Malt
10.5 lbs DeWolf-Cosyns Pils Malt
2 oz 4.6% German Hallertauer Pellets (assume 25% utilization) 60 min
Weihenstephan Weizan Yeast (96? 69?)

Procedure:

Preboil all water, chill, and siphon off of sediment.
Mash in at 99F, hold for 15 minutes.
Boost to 122F, hold for 15 minutes.
Perform first decoction with thickest 40% of mash. Heat in 15 minutes to 160F, hold 15 minutes. Heat in 15 minutes to boiling. Boil for 20 minutes. Mix back into mash tun over 10 minutes.
Hold at 147F for 20 minutes.
Perform second decoction with 30% of mash. Heat in 15 minutes to 160F, hold 15 minutes. Heat in 15 minutes to boiling. Boil for 10 minutes. Mix back into mash tun over 10 minutes.
Sparge at 172F to collect 15 gallons.
Boil two hours.
After hot break occurs collect one gallon of speise (wort) for priming.
Add hops for last 60 minutes.
Pitch yeast at 58F. Allow temperature to rise to 65F over three days.
Bottle with 1 4/5 qts speise per 5 gallons.

This process took about 10 hours from start to clean up excluding pre-boiling the water. I am quite happy with this beer. It has a smoothnes that I have not tasted with my other Hefe Weizen's that I attribute to the unhopped speise. I found Eric Warner's book quite helpful and pretty much followed his guidelines verbatim. I was surprised at the very easy sparge. I did stir after one hour and recirc 1/2 gallon. The run-off was clear and I had no stuck mash problems.