A wheat beer in a wheat beer glass. You can brew this with extract if you follow this recipe.
If you’re a malt extract brewer who wants to make an outstanding hefe-weizen, try this recipe. It’s a little more involved than most extract recipes, but the results will definitely be worth it. See also the series on German hefe-weizens, which is still in progress. There are two versions posted here, one using English units and the other in metric. All-grain recipe to come.
Klinkerweizen
Extract (Partial mash); English units
DESCRIPTION
A classic Munich-style hefe-weizen for extract brewers. This recipe employs a partial mash and you will need a 3-gallon (or 5-gallon) beverage cooler with a spigot and a steeping bag large enough to line it. The partial mash will give the beer the full bready flavor and aroma of wheat malt, and the yeast will produce a nice balance of clove and banana (provided you follow the yeast selection, pitching rate and fermentation temperatures recommended). If you’ve never done a partial mash, this is a great recipe to begin exploring partial mashing. (They will all seem easy after this one.) You will need to bottle this in heavy bottles, so enjoy some commercial hefe-weizens before brewday and while the beer is fermenting.
INGREDIENTS (for 5 gallons)
Water
for 9.0 qts. of water used in partial mash:
distilled or RO water with 0.5 tsp. gypsum and 0.5 tsp. calcium chloride added
for other water:
filtered tap water
Malts (for an OG of 1.053 at 70% efficiency and 5 SRM)
4.25 lbs. red wheat malt
1.75 lbs. Pilsner malt
2.5 lbs. wheat malt extract
Hops (for 20 IBUs)
Hallertau hops (20 IBUs)
1.4 oz. (at 4% alpha acids), boiled for 60 mins
Yeast (for an FG of 1.013 and 5.1% ABV)
Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Wheat) or White Labs WLP300 (Hefeweizen) yeast
(1.5-qt. yeast starter)
Other
10.5 oz. corn sugar (for priming to 3.5 volumes CO2)
PROCEDURE
Make yeast starter 2–3 days ahead of time. Heat 9.0 qts. of water in your brewpot to 111 °F. Place the crushed grains in a large nylon steeping bag and dunk them in the water (in your brewpot). Use a large brewing spoon to break up any clumps. Once mashed in, your temperature should be around 100 °F. Start heating your brewpot, stirring your grains almost constantly. Take the temperature as you go. When you hit 109 °F, decrease the heat so that it takes about 10 minutes to ramp up to 113 °F. This is a degree every 2 minutes. (Or, just stop anywhere between 109 °F and 113 °F and hold for 10 minutes). Resume heating and heat at the rate of roughly 2 degrees per minute until you reach 122 °F. Hold the temperature there for 15 minutes. Then heat the mash again until you reach 148 °F and hold for 20 minutes. Next, heat the mash to 158 °F and hold for 20 minutes and finally heat the mash to 168 °F.
Always stir while you are heating, and you may need to apply short bursts of heat during the rests to hold the temperature steady. Don’t worry if temperatures drop a couple degrees during the longer rests. Apply heat in short — less than 1-minute — bursts, then stir and wait a few minutes before taking the temperature. It takes awhile for the heat to equalize, so always shut off the heat a couple degrees below your target and let it rise. (Essentially, heat from the metal in the pot will continue to be transferred to the mash after the burner is turned off.) While the mash is proceeding, heat 6.0 quarts of water to 168 °F in a separate pot.
Lift the bag and let it drain into your brewpot, then place it in your 3-gallon beverage cooler. Gently scoop or pour the wort from your brewpot on top of the grains. Rinse the brewpot when it’s empty. Drain 1 to 2 cups of wort from the cooler at a time and pour them back on top of the grain bed. Repeat until you have recirculated about 20 cups, or stop earlier than this if the wort clears substantially. Now, drain two cups of wort and place it in your brewpot. Replace this liquid by pouring 2 cups of 168 °F water on top of the grain bed. Repeat until your are out of hot water, then keep drawing off wort and putting it in your kettle until the grain bed is dry.
If the liquid doesn’t want to drain from the cooler, lift the bag so the bottom of the bag rises up off the bottom of the cooler, then twist the bag by 90 degrees and gently let it back down. If the liquid stops flowing again, repeat the bag lift, then pause about a minute or two between each time you draw off the wort. (Slowing down the rate you are sparging may also increase your extract efficiency.) Heat the wort in your brewpot as you collect it so that it comes to boil right when you are done collecting wort.
Add water, if needed to make at least 3.5 gallons of wort in your brewpot. Boil hard for 60 minutes, adding hops at the beginning of the boil. If wort volume dips below 3 gallons, add water to bring it back up to that level. In the final 15 minutes of the boil, dissolve malt extract in wort and stir into the boil. (You can do this in shifts.) Cool wort to 65 °F and transfer to a bucket fermenter. Add cool water to make 5.0 gallons of wort. Aerate and pitch yeast. Seal fermenter and affix airlock. Ferment at 68 °F. Once fermentation starts, remove airlock and then the bucket lid (so you don’t suck airlock liquid into the beer). Replace airlock and leave bucket lid on loosely for next 2 days. Seal bucket again after this time.
Bottle in heavy bottles, such as 500 mL hefe-weizen bottles. Siphon the beer into the dissolved sugar in your bottling bucket and stir well enough to even out the distribution of sugar. However, don’t stir so hard as to splash or otherwise aerate the beer. Keep the bottles somewhere warm (optimally between 70 °F and 75 °F) for a couple weeks while carbonation develops. Move to cold storage when a test bottle indicates the beer is fermented. As an option, you can add a teaspoon of dried lager yeast to your bottling bucket to help with bottle conditioning.
Klinkerweizen
Extract (Partial mash); metric units
INGREDIENTS (for 19 L)
Water
for 8.5 L of water used in partial mash:
distilled or RO water with 0.5 tsp. gypsum and 0.5 tsp. calcium chloride added
for other water:
filtered tap water
Malts (for an OG of 1.053 at 70% efficiency and 5 SRM)
1.9 kg red wheat malt
790 g Pilsner malt
1.1 kg wheat malt extract
Hops (for 20 IBUs)
Hallertau hops (20 IBUs)
38 g (at 4% alpha acids), boiled for 60 mins
Yeast (for an FG of 1.013 and 5.1% ABV)
Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Wheat) or White Labs WLP300 (Hefeweizen) yeast
(1.5-L yeast starter)
Other
300 g corn sugar (for priming to 3.5 volumes CO2)
PROCEDURE
Make yeast starter 2–3 days ahead of time. Heat 8.5 L of water in your brewpot to 44 °C. Place the crushed grains in a large nylon steeping bag and dunk them in the water (in your brewpot). Use a large brewing spoon to break up any clumps. Once mashed in, your temperature should be around 38 °C. Start heating your brewpot, stirring your grains almost constantly. Take the temperature as you go. When you hit 43 °C, decrease the heat so that it takes about 10 minutes to ramp up to 45 °C. This is roughly a degree every 4 minutes. (Or, just stop anywhere between 43 °C and 45 °C and hold for 10 minutes). Resume heating and heat at the rate of roughly 1 degree per minute until you reach 50 °C. Hold the temperature there for 15 minutes. Then heat the mash again until you reach 64 °C and hold for 20 minutes. Next, heat the mash to 70 °C and hold for 20 minutes and finally heat the mash to 75 °C.
Always stir while you are heating, and you may need to apply short bursts of heat during the rests to hold the temperature steady. Don’t worry if temperatures drop a couple degrees during the longer rests. Apply heat in short — less than 1-minute — bursts, then stir and wait a few minutes before taking the temperature. It takes awhile for the heat to equalize, so always shut off the heat a couple degrees below your target and let it rise. (Essentially, heat from the metal in the pot will continue to be transferred to the mash after the burner is turned off.) While the mash is proceeding, heat 5.7 L of water to 76 °C in a separate pot.
Lift the bag and let it drain into your brewpot, then place it in your beverage cooler. Gently scoop or pour the wort from your brewpot on top of the grains. Rinse the brewpot when it’s empty. Drain 1 to 2 cups of wort from the cooler at a time and pour them back on top of the grain bed. Repeat until you have recirculated about 20 cups, or stop earlier than this if the wort clears substantially. Now, drain two cups of wort and place it in your brewpot. Replace this liquid by pouring 2 cups of 76 °C water on top of the grain bed. Repeat until your are out of hot water, then keep drawing off wort and putting it in your kettle until the grain bed is dry.
If the liquid doesn’t want to drain from the cooler, lift the bag so the bottom of the bag rises up off the bottom of the cooler, then twist the bag by 90 degrees and gently let it back down. If the liquid stops flowing again, repeat the bag lift, then pause about a minute or two between each time you draw off the wort. (Slowing down the rate you are sparging may also increase your extract efficiency.) Heat the wort in your brewpot as you collect it so that it comes to boil right when you are done collecting wort.
Add water, if needed to make at least 13 L of wort in your brewpot. Boil hard for 60 minutes, adding hops at the beginning of the boil. If wort volume dips below 11 L, add water to bring it back up to that level. In the final 15 minutes of the boil, dissolve malt extract in wort and stir into the boil. (You can do this in shifts.) Cool wort to 18 °C and transfer to a bucket fermenter. Add cool water to make 19 L of wort. Aerate and pitch yeast. Seal fermenter and affix airlock. Ferment at 20 °C. Once fermentation starts, remove airlock and then the bucket lid (so you don’t suck airlock liquid into the beer). Replace airlock and leave bucket lid on loosely for next 2 days. Seal bucket again after this time.
Bottle in heavy bottles, such as 500 mL hefe-weizen bottles. Siphon the beer into the dissolved sugar in your bottling bucket and stir well enough to even out the distribution of sugar. However, don’t stir so hard as to splash or otherwise aerate the beer. Keep the bottles somewhere warm (optimally between 21 °C and 24 °C) for a couple weeks while carbonation develops. Move to cold storage when a test bottle indicates the beer is fermented. As an option, you can add a teaspoon of dried lager yeast to your bottling bucket to help with bottle conditioning.
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