Hefeweizen is a great summer beer and can be brewed very easily.
Do you yearn for the taste of wheat and yeast? If so, then there is a good chance you rank hefeweizen among your favorite beer styles. This beer style offers the great taste of wheat malt with strains of yeast that impart flavors ranging from bubblegum to banana and beyond.
Making a batch of hefeweizen doesn’t have to be difficult. There are some complicated recipes, but if you’re a beginner to the craft of brewing beer, it would be best to start simple and build up from there. Here is a very simple beginner’s hefeweizen recipe:
Ingredients:
6.6 pounds (3 kilos) malted wheat extract
1 ounce tettnanger hop pellets
Hefeweizen ale yeast
Bring five gallons of water to a boil and add the wheat extract and hop pellets. After one hour of boiling, cool quickly and add ale yeast. Ferment and bottle using the usual procedure.
See what I mean? You can’t get much simpler than this. It is a basic malt extract recipe with no special ingredients or special processes. The recipe doesn’t even call for finishing hops. You just combine everything and boil for one hour, then proceed with the fermentation and bottling processes.
Many homebrewers will be tempted to add other ingredients or different hop varieties to “spice” up such a basic recipe. This is fine, but try to stick with ingredients that are going to be compatible with hefeweizen beer. For example, if you’re going to select a different type of hop, stick with another German hop, Saaz, or something else native to the same region. Any variation is fine, and like with other homebrewing, it is all a matter of personal taste.
Cheers!
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