I brewed a Hefeweizen over the weekend. It was a tense process, but I went through it without issues. Right now, the Hefe is in the fermenter for 2 weeks before I bottle it.
Here’s how brew day went:
I went over the recipe carefully. A bit here or a bit there and things may have looked different.
Extract Hefeweizen (Tasting notes here):
1 pound Wheat DME
4 grams Perle at 45 minutes
4 grams of Danstar Munich
I measured 5 litres of water and set it to boil. I needed 4 litres of wort so I calculated that I would lose about 1 litre to evaporation. I added the wheat DME and mixed it in the water. I took my time to do this as I didn’t want any clumps in the wort.
Once I saw small bubbles through the foam on the wort, I hovered around: things could go well or there could be a boil over. I waited with bated breath and lo and behold, the bigger bubbles came through and the foam parted to give way to the rolling boil, much like the parting of the Red Sea.
The recipe had 4 grams of Perle added at 45 minutes. While it was boiling, I worked on my cooling setup.
A few days prior to brew day, I started made blocks of ice and left them in the freezer. At the end of the 45 minute boil, I moved the boil vessel to a tub filled with water and ice blocks. It took a full 25 minutes to cool.
While the wort was cooling, I hydrated the yeast. Once the boil was over, I added the required amount of yeast to a cup, added some water and wort and stirred it. After 15 minutes, the hydrated yeast was ready to go into the fermenter. The wort looked darker than what I expected and I believe it was because it was an extract recipe. An all-grain would have looked much lighter.
I put the yeast into my fermenter and added the wort and shook it for aeration. I closed the fermenter and left it in a dark area.
I cleaned everything I used on brew day. The entire process took about 2 hours. Not bad for a first brew!!
Notes:
- I cleaned and sanitized all utensils including the fermenter with bleach but made sure I rinsed out the bleach completely.
- I apologize for not taking any snaps as I was really excited and forgot the camera altogether.
- I will explain the priming and bottling process after the priming and bottling day.
Here’s how brew day went:
I went over the recipe carefully. A bit here or a bit there and things may have looked different.
Extract Hefeweizen (Tasting notes here):
1 pound Wheat DME
4 grams Perle at 45 minutes
4 grams of Danstar Munich
I measured 5 litres of water and set it to boil. I needed 4 litres of wort so I calculated that I would lose about 1 litre to evaporation. I added the wheat DME and mixed it in the water. I took my time to do this as I didn’t want any clumps in the wort.
Once I saw small bubbles through the foam on the wort, I hovered around: things could go well or there could be a boil over. I waited with bated breath and lo and behold, the bigger bubbles came through and the foam parted to give way to the rolling boil, much like the parting of the Red Sea.
The recipe had 4 grams of Perle added at 45 minutes. While it was boiling, I worked on my cooling setup.
A few days prior to brew day, I started made blocks of ice and left them in the freezer. At the end of the 45 minute boil, I moved the boil vessel to a tub filled with water and ice blocks. It took a full 25 minutes to cool.
While the wort was cooling, I hydrated the yeast. Once the boil was over, I added the required amount of yeast to a cup, added some water and wort and stirred it. After 15 minutes, the hydrated yeast was ready to go into the fermenter. The wort looked darker than what I expected and I believe it was because it was an extract recipe. An all-grain would have looked much lighter.
I put the yeast into my fermenter and added the wort and shook it for aeration. I closed the fermenter and left it in a dark area.
I cleaned everything I used on brew day. The entire process took about 2 hours. Not bad for a first brew!!
Notes:
- I cleaned and sanitized all utensils including the fermenter with bleach but made sure I rinsed out the bleach completely.
- I apologize for not taking any snaps as I was really excited and forgot the camera altogether.
- I will explain the priming and bottling process after the priming and bottling day.
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