Hefeweizen Beginnings

It's time for another batch of beer to begin! For our last beer of the summer, we decided that we wanted to make a beer that makes us think of summer with it's crisp flavors and lots of carbonation: a Hefeweizen. The name "hefeweizen" has a fairly simple translation. "Hefe" means yeast and "weizen" indicates wheat. Thus, Hefeweizen's are a combination of yeast and wheat. And the yeast reference goes beyond just the fermentation process. A true hefeweizen will also retain some yeast -- if you pick up a bottle of hefeweizen in the store you should be able to see a bit of that yeast floating around in the bottom of the bottle. It helps produce some of the extra carbonated zing as well as providing the beer with some of its distinct flavors.

What do you need to put together a Hefeweizen?

Hefeweizen Components

Our recipe comes from the helpful people at the Homebrew Shop in St. Charles, IL. (I'm going to review some homebrew shops in the future, but right now I'll stop and say that the Homebrew Shop was completely worth the long driving trip we had to take to get out there to them). The components?

• 1 lb Cracked Pilsner Malt (German 2-Row)
• 1 lb Wheat, Cracked
• 6 lbs 55% Wheat/45% Barley Malt Extract
• 1 ounce Hallertau Hop Pellets
• 1 Tube of While Labs Hefeweizen Yeast

Doesn't seem like very much, does it?

To get things rolling, John wanted to make sure that his yeast were happy, active and well expanded before pitching them onto the top of the wort. To do this, he first needed to make some "growth media" for the yeast. And what could be better than something similar to what will make up the beer?

Creating the Yeast Media

John put about 100 g of the malt extract into 1 L of water and boiled it. The boiling process helps to sterilize the media so that nothing but the yeast will be inclined to grow. After all, sugars are great food for a variety of microorganisms.

John Cultures His Yeast

After the liquid had cooled below 80 degrees F (yeast will get killed by boiling solutions just as easily as less desireable microorganisms will) John put the yeast into solution, covered them up, and took them to a nice cool dark place in the basement. To keep them growing and active, he would go downstairs and swirl them around every now and again.

Putting the beer together after that was really easy. Hefeweizens are relatively simple and don't require too much effort if you brew with malt extracts. The first thing we did was put our grains in a bag and steep them in 160 degree F water for 30 minutes. That helps to extract some of the sugars, proteins and flavors of the grain into the wort. This process, is called "sparging" (I think).

The Wort After The Sparge

After the sparge, the liquid reflects the mild color of the grain. Now it's time to add the malt extract and and bring the wort to a boil. Once the wort gets to a boil, you add the hops and let the boil continue for an hour. Just like boiling the yeast media, boiling the wort helps sterilize the wort. It also has an impact on the sugars and the alpha acids in the hops. Hops added early in the boil are added as flavoring or bittering hops, hops added at the end of the boil are added for aroma.

The Wort During the Boil

See how the color of the wort has changed? Some of this comes from the color of the malt. But some of it also comes from carmelizing the malt sugars in the boil.

We learned a special trick with th yeast when it comes to getting a flavorful hefeweizen. Hefeweizens are often noted for their banana and clove flavors. Clearly, though, there are no bananas or cloves added to the beer. Those flavors come from the yeast. In order to get the yeast to make those flavors however, you have to give them a cold shock. To do this, you chill the wort down to 58 degrees F before you pitch the yeast. This temperature shock affects the physiology of the yeast and gets them to make the compounds that impart the clove and banana flavors to the beer. The beer doesn't need to be maintained at that temperature (hefeweizen yeast can't divide at temperaturs quite that low) so after pitching the yeast we just took the ale pail down to the basement bathroom to equilibrate. By morning, the temperature of the wort and the room temperature were similar and the yeast had begun their magick as the banana essences had definitely begun to waft through the room.

We set this beer up on August 6th, and on Sunday night we moved it to it's second ferment. We took a little taste and we both liked what we sampled pre second ferment, so we're hopeful that we have another winner here. And the alcohol content will be a bit milder than previous beers. Our measurements of specific gravity suggest it's going to be right around 5.4% ABV. Hefeweizens don't require a lot of aging, so we're anticipating kegging on Friday night so that we can take some with us to Michigan this weekend when we head there to see the Michigan Fiber Festival and to pick up the small chest freezer that plays a role in the next phase of homebrewing chez Keyboard Biologist. Stay tuned...