Honey Weizen – Homebrew Batch #2

Three weeks had passed since my first homebrew session, and I was pretty excited to get brewing again.  My second brew would be the Weizenbeer kit from Williams Brewing. I probably should have started out with this one, since it was a bit more straightforward and involved no specialty grains. If nothing else though, the slightly increased simplicity did help me feel a little more relaxed for my second brewday.

I was still just trying to get myself acquainted with the whole process of extract brewing in general at this point, but I couldn’t quite fight the urge to at least try to personalize this brew kit to some small degree. Some tasty (and nicely priced) clover honey from Trader Joe’s sounded like just the right addition – drive up the ABV% a bit, and possibly impart a bit of sweetness to the Hefeweizen.

So, with all of my gear ready to go, kitchen cleansed and sanitized ahead of time, I headed to the grocery store to get six gallons of bottled water to start my wort. An hour later, after making it through the checkout line and realizing that I had left my wallet at home, running back to my house, back to the grocery store, fighting the teeming masses, and heading back home yet again… I was finally ready to get brewing at almost 9pm on a Monday night.

In any event, the following is a brief rundown of the recipe, and my experience brewing my second batch of beer. This is primarily for my own records, but I figure some other new homebrewers may be able to pick up something useful from my ramblings and scattered notes, too.

Honey Weizen

Brew Date: Monday, 2010.03.01
Recipe: Williams Weizenbeer kit, plus TJ’s clover honey
Batch Size: 5 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
OG =  1.055
FG = 1.018
ABV = 4.9%

Malts / Fermentables:
—————————
6 lbs blended liquid wheat malt extract
1.5 lbs Trader Joe’s clover honey

Hops:
——-
1.12 oz Hallertau @ 55min
0.5 oz Hallertau @5min

Yeast:
——–
Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat Blend
– basic yeast starter attempted 2days ahead, see this post for details

Procedure:
————-
8:50pm  - 5.5 gal bottled water in kettle, lid on for heat retention;  filled carboy and bucket with StarSan mixture

9:40        - boil reached (~50 min);  killed heat, added LME

9:55        - heat turned back on

10:05      - boil reached again (10min)

10:10      - added 1.12 oz Hallertau pellets

11:00      - added 0.5 oz Hallertau pellets

11:05      - killed heat, added 1.5 lbs clover honey;  kept wort above 170 ੦F for 10 min (to sterilize honey)

11:15      - placed sanitized immersion chiller in 180 ੦F wort;  chilled 180 ੦F -> 70 ੦F over 25 min

11:40     – transferred wort to carboy, using funnel with built-in strainer

11:45      - pitched entire yeast starter, sealed carboy, cleaned up

Notes:
——–
- I had the heat off for too long while adding the LME – cut this short in the future by heating extract in water bath ahead of time
-  Need to remember to take sample for original gravity reading while / before transferring wort to carboy. It’s a pain in the arse to have to use the beer thief for a sample afterwards.

AS you can see in the photos above, the yeast starter seemed to do its trick, and the fermentation was in high gear by the following evening. After ten days in primary (03.11), I found that the temperature of the fermenter was hovering a bit too low for the yeast’s preferred range, so I moved the carboy from the basement closet to my office closet. I transferred the beer to my secondary fermenter on 03.16, and then bottled on 03.23, when the specific gravity had leveled out at 1.018. (primary = 15 days; secondary = 7days)

This beer was drinkable well before my first batch. Early samplings were rather dry, but the batch has seemed to mellow and get a bit sweeter over time. Quite the pleasant hefeweizen, actually – crisp, clean, just a hint of banana. Perfect summertime beer. I may have to brew another weizen before too long.