It has been awhile since I brewed a hefeweizen, almost 4 years, and it was when I first moved to Ventura. I remember it was a learning experience in water chemistry. Not really having paid attention to water chemistry before, it was shocking to find out the water here is pretty unsuitable for brewing anything other than a stout, porter, or other similarly roasty type of beers, without some kind of adjustments and treatment for a pale beer, because of the extreme alkalinity of the water. The hefe wasn’t undrinkable but had a unpleasant astringency on the finish. Ditto the next beer I brewed, a Belgian pale ale. Narrowing down the possibilities I figured it could only be the water, so I looked up the local water report.
Ventura is one of the few cities in California with it’s own water supply. Since we have been in a drought a major percentage of our water is well water and it is really, really hard. Water with a high alkalinity has a high pH leading to problems with pale grists not able to drop the pH to a proper level for mashing and leaving a harsh minerality and astringency. Almost every brew I do now is at least 50% RO water with filtered tap water to get it into an acceptable pH range and mineral content. Even then I usually dose with lactic and calcium chloride.
Anyhow, this is a pretty simple recipe with pils, wheat, and a dose of Munich for color. All German malts on this one. Brewed it Sunday and it’s already done this Wednesday. Will cold crash for a day and then keg. The krausen on this beer is like nothing I’ve seen before. It started with a nice inch of foam and then settled down to just producing huge soap like bubbles while it was churning away. I was a little worried so did a little research and thankfully this is not that uncommon with the White Labs Bavarian Hefeweizen strain. Tasted great out of the fermenter when I pulled a gravity reading.
6 gallons
Estimated OG: 1.048
Estimated FG: 1.010
Estimated Color: 4.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 18 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
ABV: 5.0%
Grain
6 lbs German Pilsner (2 SRM) 46.2%
6 lbs German Wheat Malt (2 SRM) 46.2%
1 lbs Munich (9 SRM) 7.7%
Schedule
60 minute Boil
28.00 g Hallertau [3.8%] – First wort 60 min 12.6 IBUs
28.00 g Hallertau [3.8%] – Boil 15 min 5.7 IBUs
Whirfloc or Irish Moss 20 min
1tsp yeast nutrient 15 min
Mash and Sparge
50% RO water
50% Ventura (high bicarbonates and sulfates)
4g Calcium Chloride added to mash water
3ml lactic acid added to mash water
2ml lactic acid sparge water
Mash in 5 gallons water 162F and let stabilize to 152F for 60 min
Mashout 170F
Batch sparge 4.5 gallons cold
Yeast
WLP351 Bavarian Weizen Yeast
Fermentation
Ferment until done 70F
Cold crash one day
Rack to keg and carbonate using your preferred method