German Hefe II

	80^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.020	1.021	1.064	5.64 %

Ingredients

· ½ lb German Wheat Malt

· ½ lb. German Pilsner Malt

· 6 lbs. Bavarian Wheat Dry Malt Extract

· ½ oz Spalt Hops (Bittering Hops)

· ½ oz Spalt Hops (Flavoring Hops)

· White Labs Hefeweizen IV Yeast (WLP380)

Brewers Log

Beer Date 07192008: <Day 1>

I received some new equipment in the past few weeks.

The biggest item would be my birthday present for myself, a kegerator. I had been monitoring refrigerators on craigslist.org for a while now but when my friend had swapped cars with a family member and was driving a minivan for a few days I decided it was time to pull the trigger. I found a place less then 1.5 miles away with a fridge for $50. It was awesome. I know you are not supposed to transport a fridge on it’s side, but it was only positioned that way for ~ 10 minutes, and it was only $50 so if I do ruin it then I will be sure not do that again.

The fridge works great, I used a cup of water and a digital thermometer with a probe to calibrate the temp to the recommended 38 ^oF - 40 ^oF. When I felt confident in the quality of the fridge I decided to invest in the kegging and tap equipment.

Also, some friends were cleaning their house and they decided to get rid of their brewing equipment. It turned out to be a lot more stuff then I was expecting from the text message and brief phone call, but I gladly picked it up hand brought everything home. The big items of interest were the 10 gallon brew pot and the immersion chiller, these are two items that were on my list of things to buy in the next few months. I will get use out of several other items in the bundle as well, but I was really excited to get those two items.

An immersion chiller is a long tube of copper coiled up that connects to a hose. After the boil is complete, the chiller is submerged into the wort and you run water through it. The water running through the chiller absorbs the heat of the boil and helps to cool down the wort quickly. In the past I have done this step using an ice bath in my sink. The ice bath method works alright for a partial boil, because I use a 5 gallon pot that fits into my sink. But jumping to a full boil in a 10 gallon pot will need a chiller like this as a 10 gallon pot will not fit into my kitchen sink, and it would take too much ice to do this in my utility sink. Here is a picture of an immersion chiller.

I wanted to brew using the new equipment, and to put into the keg. I probably put the least amount of time ever into the recipe picking process. I decided that the style was obvious, basically all my friends like Hefe and that seemed the natural choice to initiate my kegerator with. If I wasn’t so busy at work, I may have spent some time looking up recipes on line, but I decided to just ask the dude at the store for a recommendation.

The night before the brew, I decided to test out the immersion chiller, boy did my obsessive attention to detail and preparations pay off this time. It turns out that the seal between the copper and the plastic tubing wasn’t tight enough and not only did it drip, but it eventually disconnected under pressure. This could have been really bad if this happened in the pot after boiling for an hour, this could potentially contaminate the entire batch with tap water running through a garden hose. After the boil nothing is supposed to touch the wort that hasn’t been properly sanitized. In a very early morning trip to Lowes I picked up a couple of clamps to help, but it didn’t work, guess that I will be doing a partial boil afterwards L

Washed out brew pot and threw filled with 2.5 gallons of bottled spring water.

I decide to start out inside. Last time I had a rough time trying to cook at a controlled temperature on the outside burner, so I planned on steeping the grains inside. The grains were supposed to boil at 154^oF. While the water was heating up I put the grains in a grain bag.

· ½ lb German Wheat Malt

· ½ lb. German Pilsner Malt

Once I hit the > 150 ^oF mark I dropped the heat to low and move most of the pot off the burner. This seemed to let me easily way to control the temperature for the ½ hour of steeping.

Once the grains were done I moved the pot to the outside burner and fired it up. It didn’t take long at all to get the temp up nice and hot. It couldn’t have been more then 10 or 15 minutes to get the temp up to a little over 200^oF.

The recipe didn’t say to add the extract yet, I said to add all the extract for the last 15 minutes of the boil. I decided to add at least some of the extract now, I hear that this really helps the boil extract from the hops. So I killed the heat and began adding the malt extract.

· 1 lb. Bavarian Wheat Dry Malt Extract

As expected, the wort came to a boil very quickly once I put it back onto the heat. It slowly foamed up more, and more, and more until it was almost even with the top. I remembered how hot the handles got last time so I had hot mitts with me when I pulled it off the burner before it boiled over. After the foam settled down, I put it back on the burner and it boiled away.

I tried something new, I decided to use a grain bag for the hops pellets. Oddly enough as I added the hops, a few drops of rain began to fall. You can only imagine the thoughts running through my head. I killed the fire and brought the pot inside. Good thing I went with a partial boil, doing the full thing on the stove top would take a long time.

· 1 oz Spalt Hops (Bittering Hops)

After 45 minutes of boiling I pulled the pot off the heat and removed the hops bag while I added the remainder of the dry malt extract.

· 5 lbs. Bavarian Wheat Dry Malt Extract

We stirred it in and then put the pot back onto the heat to bring to a boil before putting back the bittering hops and adding the flavoring hops

· 1/2 oz Spalt Hops (Flavoring Hops)

While this boiled for 15 more minutes I sanitized everything. After the boil completed I put the in the sink and packed ice around the outside of it. Then I went ahead and poured a 1.5 gallons of bottled spring water into the mixture. This did wonders for bringing the temperature down in a timely manner.

We poured the wort into one of my sanitized buckets straining out the hops. The grain bags did a good job, there was very little that leaked and only a minimal amount of goo in the filter. I then filled the bucket up to the 5 gallon mark with the remaining bottled spring water. I was hoping to siphon into the 6.5 gallon carboy, but there was some specs on the inside that I couldn’t get with my brush and needed to soak it further. So the 5 gallon carboy will have to do. In the past the Hefeweizens have really foamed up a lot and I was really hoping for that extra room in the carboy, but I guess I will just have to clean the foam out of the hose when I am done, or just replace it.

I shook the carboy to mix in a bunch of air and then I poured a bit out to take a temp and specific gravity reading.

	80^oF	Adj
SPGR	1.062	1.064

I shook up the vial of the yeast and opened it slowly. One of the last times it leaked a little bit under the pressure.

· White Labs Hefeweizen IV Yeast (WLP380)

I pitched the yeast and capped the carboy with a hose going into a bucket of water. This will keep air from coming up the hose into the carboy, but will allow gas to easily escape without clogging the air lock if there is a great deal of activity. The water temperature in the cooler seemed a bit warm, so I added some ice to bring it down quickly, I didn’t want to warm the wort back up.

Beer Date 07312008: <Day 12>

	80^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.022	1.023	1.064	5.38 %

Beer Date 08042008: <Day 16>

	80^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.020	1.021	1.064	5.64 %

Beer Date 08082008: <Day 20>

	80^oF	Adj	Orig	Alcohol
SPGR	1.020	1.021	1.064	5.64 %

Yay, kegging day J. This was pretty much the easiest thing ever. I spent most of my time sanitizing the keg and siphon equipment. I siphoned straight from the carboy into the keg, and after a few moments I was done. I sealed off the keg, put it in the fridge and connected the gas line. The kegerator pamphlet recommended 10-12 psi, so I dialed it in to 12 and left it alone to work its magic.

Beer Date 08212008: <Day 33>

2 weeks after kegging, it is time to have a drink!!! I picked up some chicken and ribs for dinner after pool league, and hoped to enjoy a nice cold beer with my food. The first couple of pours had a LOT of foam. There was a very strong banana aroma, not a good sign as I was hoping to avoid the banana flavor

My first couple of sips were mouthfuls of foam, so I poured a little out so I could actually get to the beer. It was alright. It wasn’t outstanding like I was hoping for, but a very drinkable beer.

There is an unmistakable banana flavor which immediately disqualifies this from my favorite beers list, but I know that a lot of people feel this is what makes a good hefe so it will definitely be enjoyed.

Beer Date 08232008: <Day 35>

Yesterday Jim came over and tried some and commented about it being a little under carbonated. I poured a little after work and agreed. The night before I was more focused on the banana taste washing down my chicken and ribs dinner and didn’t notice. I checked on the pressure, and it was actually at 14psi, so I bumped it up a couple to 16psi. That definitely helped, when I tired it today it had a much better head then before. I am hoping that it will continue to get better.