This is exactly the information I try searching for when I decide to brew a new style. This was great information that was well thought out and presented in a clear and understandable format. I appreciate your efforts and look forward to your future videos on different styles.
Great work. With the specialty malts carahell may have been used for colour adjustment. For the rest of the world adding centigrade would be appreciated Cheers
Thanks for your videos. The format is perfect for anybody wanted to build a receipe. I really appriaciate the effort. Looking forward to future videos!
Thank you! It's definitely the engineer in me that looks at recipe formulation as a set of variables that need to be solved, but I've learned the hard way that subjective sensory analysis play a big part as well when you're seeking the best beer you can make. Don't forget to taste ingredients, Burn into memory the way things taste (or are supposed to taste), always check for ingredient quality, and build up in your mind what you want your beer to be before you develop a recipe.
Strange you didnt talk about open fermentation. All breweries in Bavaria use open fermentation method for hefe beers, was looking for more info on that.
at the homebrew scale it doesn't matter. you're not going to develop much head pressure in a small vessel and the head pressure from an airlock is practically nothing.
Hefe is a great style to learn how to break away from the traditional single infusion... either by using a step temperature or decoction. If you're greedy with your lautering or recirculation you'll get a stuck mash and a cavitated grain bed, this style will teach you patience.
There is a thing with brewing for competition. More often then not the beers that do well is the ones that stands out from the crowd. And that is likely the more extreme variant of the style. If you are a brewer aware of how to brew for a competition you will brew a beer that is almost a caricature of the beer style. So when you study winning recipes you may not encompass the best attributes of the beer style, but the extremes ends of the style.
Completely agree. A beer that is brewed for competition may not translate to be a best seller for the general public. But at the end of the day, the winning beer has to be the best beer on the table. This is why we're using medalling beers and not just beers that scored over a certain score at a competition.
@@MeanBrews Perhaps what Bjorn means is the "mean beer" will be just that - average... and won't stand out in the flight, which kind of flies in the face of the series. Personally I think your mean recipes are a great way for somebody to enter into brewing style for competition, execute it well, then perhaps iterate towards the extents of the data as their palates deem worthy!
@@goodolarchie good points. I've entered the straight "mean" beer and won and also failed horribly. this is a good starting point but also a means of keeping within the bounds of style by looking at what others have done
Nice summary. There's an English translation available of an excellent Braumagazin article from 2015 that provides a detailed analysis of the various factors influencing flavor production in hefeweizen. One thing it mentions is the use of open fermentation to promote banana flavors. I've tried it with positive results. Did you run across any other discussion of open fermentation in your research?
Kunze onlty talks about it by reference when stating that harvesting yeast from a fermentation is done by top skimming an open fermenter. It is discussed by Warner in his book stating that there's been research that more 4-vinyl guaiacol and 4-vinyl phenol is retained in an open fermenter. He only speculates the reason being that C02 scrubs these volitile compounds out more than the open fermentation does. Definitely would like to explore this more and I would think if C02 scrubbing is producing beers with less character that fermenter shape would be more important than just having a completely open fermentation.
Another great video! I have a question, because in the video you mentioned the saccharification rest should be on low fifties, but then in the recipe you recommend to go for the high fifties. Could you please explain me why you made this choice? Thanks for your dedication and time in advance!
very good question I didn't touch upon in the audio. I tend to find the beer to be too thin for style when I mash in the low 150s. Hitting the high 150s will leave some longer chain carbohydrates and help the body a bit.
@@MeanBrews thanks for the answer! Gonna brew it Next week, along with 4 lagers, munich Helles, marzen, Czech pilsner and Czech dark lager. Do you think I can do a yeast Starter for w-34 instead of buying more packs(Im broke but still want beer ;))? I only have 1 liter erlenmeyer flask but maybe I could do a 2 stage Starter or use something else for starter. What would you recomend? It's 21 liter batches around 5.5 Gallons
@@pedroreis9352 well, I personally think you need at least a 2 liter starter for lagers using fresh yeast. I think you should make your batches back to back and transfer to secondaries. MAke the helles firsst, then Czech pils, then marzen then Czech dark. Pitch on the yeast cake. You may need to remove a bit of trub on the 3rd and 4th batch.
@@MeanBrews Ok, my idea is the following so: I will buy a 5L erlenmeyer flask and do the starter there. I leave atleast 24h on a stir plate a 2liter starter or more. Then, when's it's done, I put on fridge and then decant it to atleast 1 liter and transfer it to a smaller erlenmeyer flask and do more starter in the big one. I can do this some days before the actual brewing day. I want to do all this beers in 2 consecutive days to be able to keep all temps equal since I have to put them inside my chest freezer. Thanks for the tips, let's see how it goes :D
Very informative tutorial! I see that you recommend adding salts when ramping up to the saccharification rest. I always begin with RO water due to the highly variable mineral content of the tap water in my area. For an efficient ferulic acid rest, which salts (and to what concentration) should I add to the initial mash to hit the right pH; and what should I add when ramping to the sacch rest?
I recommend not adding salts during the acid rest to produce as much ferulic acid as possible, then adding salts immediately after the rest to get the phosphate reactions going. If you're acidifying your mash as well, don't add acid malt or mash acids until after the acid rest. to determine the salts to add, use a program like Brunwater or the calculators in Beersmith or brewfather. I find the brewfather calculator the most simple and intuitive to use.
Thanks for the video and information. Interesting that there is no beta rest in your final recipe. Eric W's book has a 10-20 min beta rest after the decoction is recombined. Have you made this beer? Is so, how did it attenuate? I like thick hefeweizens but would be scared of only using a low alpha rest and still reaching 1.009-1.010 Thanks!
I've made it many times (and so have others) with decocted versions really performing well in competition including best of shows. I don't have the numbers in front of me.
I've been trying to master this style for some time. Agree it's a 'simple' beer by recipe but difficult to perfect. I loved this video! One thing that has not been discussed is oxygenation. What proportion of recipes you studied used oxygen. My method has been to avoid oxygenation to influence the strain on the yeast. Any thoughts on this?
the only place I've seen a mention of oxygen is in the book brewing classic styles where Jamil recommends fermenting at 62 and clearly states to oxygenate. Most recipes are silent on oxygenation requirements unless they're very high gravity beers. OPINION HERE: I would think you can try to stress the yeast by either pitching the right amount and oxygenating as normal, or not oxygenating a beer you might actually have overpitched. I have not tried the latter. key is to stress the yeast in some way.
Very nice interpretation of how to get to a winning recipe. Is there data available of mash pH and the addition point during the mash for the calcium chloride, e.g. after the ferulic acid rest?
Yes add your additions after acid rest to extract the most ferulic acid. You want a high pH at the acid rest. Shoot for 5.7 or 5.8 before that rest. I just experimented adding chalk to a hefe at dough in to see if I can get even more before saturation
Hi Matthew, I notice your brewfather recipe has a boil time of 60mins, not the 80mins that you suggest in your video. Which should I go for, and wouldn't that affect the gravity and bitterness if I retain the other elements (hops, grainbill etc) in the recipe? Thanks!
Hello, just brewed my hefeweizen following your recipe along with my other lagers. This hefe had a small problem. I followed everything exactly as the recipe Said but my thermostat had a problem and went off after pitching yeast so it raise the temp to 22.5 degrees celsius and I only found it after 15-16 hours and fixed it back to 16,5c . Do you think this can make a big impact on the beer? Im gonna ramp up to 18c tomorrow and keep following the schedule in the hopes it all ends up good. Wish me good luck and thanks for all the help!
should be ok, just finish the beer in the 23C range to clean up the beer at the end. May have more banana than you desire but I personally like that ester in my hefe.
@@MeanBrews ok so I ramp up to 23c in the last 2-3 days? Thanks for the help, I had to do 5 beers in 2 days, I didnt even sleep... And then my all in One kettle overheated because it was working for 32h straight and I had to dump a hefe and do another in the Next day... Things you learn while brewing, if they finish decent it'll be worth for me. thanks!!!
@@MeanBrews Update on the hefe after 10 days. Density is at 1,028, so I'm almost sure there was some kinda temperature shock after lowering it to 16,5C from 22,5C and it stopped?, right now the temp is at 22C after ramping up continuosly and atleast for 2 days in a row it keeps at 1,028, yesterday I re-suspended the yeast but without removing the airlock and I'll measure the density again. I'm using a refractometer but I can double check with a densimeter too. For the 4 lagers, everything seems alright I guess, 2 days ago it was 1,021 for pilsner and munich helles, and 1,032 for marzen and dark lager, gonna check them today again to see if it's decreasing. fermentation temps of lagers it's around 10.5C to 11C.
no I have not and honestly had to look it up! Looks interesting. I have done a Hochkurz mash and do not notice a difference in efficiency, mouthfeel or flavor in the finished beer so I stopped as it overly complicates. I think the key for hefe is to not acidify or add mineral additions the mash during the acid rest. Make the acid rest as akaline as possible. If you don't you get acid saturation before extracting as much ferulic acid as possible.
So I was only able to get wyeast relativity fresh. Never done a vitality starter before, seems there's a few ways of doing it. Do you have a recommendation on how you would do it? Thanks.
Please tell me, in which bottled beer can you find the yeast WLP 300? For example, the yeast W68, I took from the beer "Schneider Weisse Original (TAP 7)"
Thank you, your info was like reading 10 books in 30 min. I appreciate your time.
Glad it was helpful!
Wow man... Talk about doing your homework...I'm damned impressed. My next self-brewed glass will be raised for you.
Thanks!
This is exactly the information I try searching for when I decide to brew a new style. This was great information that was well thought out and presented in a clear and understandable format. I appreciate your efforts and look forward to your future videos on different styles.
Glad you enjoyed it!
In depth, well done. I’m ready for a hef now
This is the best brewing tutorial out there. Thanks a lot!
Thanks!
The best info yet on Hefe’s. A statistical look at the best of NHC, Gold medalist, etc. -Super helpful!
Glad it was helpful!
The best recipe explanation and exploration i'v ever seen !! keep doing that for the rest of the styles, amazing job !!
Thank you! I'm already working on the next style. It will be American Wheat! Some interesting data in this one.
Great video, thank you!!!! I love brewing Hefewizens. I definitely learned from it.
Great to hear!
Great work. With the specialty malts carahell may have been used for colour adjustment. For the rest of the world adding centigrade would be appreciated Cheers
Great comment. Will add dual units next video
Huge work, dude! Thanks for your cooperation and sharing. So much precious information. Congrats.
Much appreciated!
This is excellent content! Thank you for aggregating and sharing this data. Cheers!
Glad you liked it!
Love the tutorials, doing a great job, looking forward to more👍👍
Thanks!
Thanks for your videos. The format is perfect for anybody wanted to build a receipe. I really appriaciate the effort. Looking forward to future videos!
Thank you! It's definitely the engineer in me that looks at recipe formulation as a set of variables that need to be solved, but I've learned the hard way that subjective sensory analysis play a big part as well when you're seeking the best beer you can make. Don't forget to taste ingredients, Burn into memory the way things taste (or are supposed to taste), always check for ingredient quality, and build up in your mind what you want your beer to be before you develop a recipe.
Great informational video! Thank you for taking the time to create these! Keep up the great work man!
I will start my first brew very soon and I am giving the CBS exam... Looking forward for more beer styles
Awesome! We're covering American wheat beers next. should be up next week
Starting gravity 1.048
Gravity after 3 days: 1.012
Final gravity: 1.010
Fermentation temp
Awesome! Come back and tell me how it turns out
Impressive work. Very helpful, thanks! Greetings from Germany!
Strange you didnt talk about open fermentation. All breweries in Bavaria use open fermentation method for hefe beers, was looking for more info on that.
at the homebrew scale it doesn't matter. you're not going to develop much head pressure in a small vessel and the head pressure from an airlock is practically nothing.
@@MeanBrews Very valid point, didnt thought about the scale of comercial brews and increased pressure. Thanks
Wow, excellent content! I'll be suggesting your channel to all the members of my homebrew club at our next meeting. Well done.
Thank you!
Thanks alot! keep doing these videos, they are super helpful :)
Thanks, will do!
Your work is amazing, I subscribed to your channel. Thank you so much.
Thank you so much!
Hefe is a great style to learn how to break away from the traditional single infusion... either by using a step temperature or decoction. If you're greedy with your lautering or recirculation you'll get a stuck mash and a cavitated grain bed, this style will teach you patience.
good points. I also rely on rice hulls when recirculating this style.
Great stuff - thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
magnificent videos -fantastic -thank u
Many thanks!
Great info!
There is a thing with brewing for competition. More often then not the beers that do well is the ones that stands out from the crowd. And that is likely the more extreme variant of the style. If you are a brewer aware of how to brew for a competition you will brew a beer that is almost a caricature of the beer style. So when you study winning recipes you may not encompass the best attributes of the beer style, but the extremes ends of the style.
Completely agree. A beer that is brewed for competition may not translate to be a best seller for the general public. But at the end of the day, the winning beer has to be the best beer on the table. This is why we're using medalling beers and not just beers that scored over a certain score at a competition.
@@MeanBrews Perhaps what Bjorn means is the "mean beer" will be just that - average... and won't stand out in the flight, which kind of flies in the face of the series. Personally I think your mean recipes are a great way for somebody to enter into brewing style for competition, execute it well, then perhaps iterate towards the extents of the data as their palates deem worthy!
@@goodolarchie good points. I've entered the straight "mean" beer and won and also failed horribly. this is a good starting point but also a means of keeping within the bounds of style by looking at what others have done
Thank you for the information
No problem!
Nice summary. There's an English translation available of an excellent Braumagazin article from 2015 that provides a detailed analysis of the various factors influencing flavor production in hefeweizen. One thing it mentions is the use of open fermentation to promote banana flavors. I've tried it with positive results. Did you run across any other discussion of open fermentation in your research?
Kunze onlty talks about it by reference when stating that harvesting yeast from a fermentation is done by top skimming an open fermenter. It is discussed by Warner in his book stating that there's been research that more 4-vinyl guaiacol and 4-vinyl phenol is retained in an open fermenter. He only speculates the reason being that C02 scrubs these volitile compounds out more than the open fermentation does. Definitely would like to explore this more and I would think if C02 scrubbing is producing beers with less character that fermenter shape would be more important than just having a completely open fermentation.
wow, must be a lot of work. How long it took to make this video? thanks
Very!
Another great video! I have a question, because in the video you mentioned the saccharification rest should be on low fifties, but then in the recipe you recommend to go for the high fifties. Could you please explain me why you made this choice? Thanks for your dedication and time in advance!
very good question I didn't touch upon in the audio. I tend to find the beer to be too thin for style when I mash in the low 150s. Hitting the high 150s will leave some longer chain carbohydrates and help the body a bit.
@@MeanBrews thanks for the answer! Gonna brew it Next week, along with 4 lagers, munich Helles, marzen, Czech pilsner and Czech dark lager. Do you think I can do a yeast Starter for w-34 instead of buying more packs(Im broke but still want beer ;))? I only have 1 liter erlenmeyer flask but maybe I could do a 2 stage Starter or use something else for starter. What would you recomend? It's 21 liter batches around 5.5 Gallons
@@pedroreis9352 well, I personally think you need at least a 2 liter starter for lagers using fresh yeast. I think you should make your batches back to back and transfer to secondaries. MAke the helles firsst, then Czech pils, then marzen then Czech dark. Pitch on the yeast cake. You may need to remove a bit of trub on the 3rd and 4th batch.
@@MeanBrews Ok, my idea is the following so: I will buy a 5L erlenmeyer flask and do the starter there. I leave atleast 24h on a stir plate a 2liter starter or more. Then, when's it's done, I put on fridge and then decant it to atleast 1 liter and transfer it to a smaller erlenmeyer flask and do more starter in the big one. I can do this some days before the actual brewing day. I want to do all this beers in 2 consecutive days to be able to keep all temps equal since I have to put them inside my chest freezer. Thanks for the tips, let's see how it goes :D
Very informative tutorial! I see that you recommend adding salts when ramping up to the saccharification rest. I always begin with RO water due to the highly variable mineral content of the tap water in my area. For an efficient ferulic acid rest, which salts (and to what concentration) should I add to the initial mash to hit the right pH; and what should I add when ramping to the sacch rest?
I recommend not adding salts during the acid rest to produce as much ferulic acid as possible, then adding salts immediately after the rest to get the phosphate reactions going. If you're acidifying your mash as well, don't add acid malt or mash acids until after the acid rest. to determine the salts to add, use a program like Brunwater or the calculators in Beersmith or brewfather. I find the brewfather calculator the most simple and intuitive to use.
@@MeanBrews Thanks!
Thanks for the video and information. Interesting that there is no beta rest in your final recipe. Eric W's book has a 10-20 min beta rest after the decoction is recombined. Have you made this beer? Is so, how did it attenuate? I like thick hefeweizens but would be scared of only using a low alpha rest and still reaching 1.009-1.010 Thanks!
I've made it many times (and so have others) with decocted versions really performing well in competition including best of shows. I don't have the numbers in front of me.
I've been trying to master this style for some time. Agree it's a 'simple' beer by recipe but difficult to perfect. I loved this video!
One thing that has not been discussed is oxygenation. What proportion of recipes you studied used oxygen. My method has been to avoid oxygenation to influence the strain on the yeast. Any thoughts on this?
the only place I've seen a mention of oxygen is in the book brewing classic styles where Jamil recommends fermenting at 62 and clearly states to oxygenate. Most recipes are silent on oxygenation requirements unless they're very high gravity beers. OPINION HERE: I would think you can try to stress the yeast by either pitching the right amount and oxygenating as normal, or not oxygenating a beer you might actually have overpitched. I have not tried the latter. key is to stress the yeast in some way.
Very nice interpretation of how to get to a winning recipe. Is there data available of mash pH and the addition point during the mash for the calcium chloride, e.g. after the ferulic acid rest?
Yes add your additions after acid rest to extract the most ferulic acid. You want a high pH at the acid rest. Shoot for 5.7 or 5.8 before that rest. I just experimented adding chalk to a hefe at dough in to see if I can get even more before saturation
@@MeanBrews Which bicarbonate concentration are you aiming for by adding chalk before the acid rest?
Hi Matthew, I notice your brewfather recipe has a boil time of 60mins, not the 80mins that you suggest in your video. Which should I go for, and wouldn't that affect the gravity and bitterness if I retain the other elements (hops, grainbill etc) in the recipe? Thanks!
good catch. Let me fix. you should always adjust to your system specifics (boiloff rate, efficiencies, dead space, losses, etc)
Thanks @@MeanBrews
Hello, just brewed my hefeweizen following your recipe along with my other lagers. This hefe had a small problem. I followed everything exactly as the recipe Said but my thermostat had a problem and went off after pitching yeast so it raise the temp to 22.5 degrees celsius and I only found it after 15-16 hours and fixed it back to 16,5c . Do you think this can make a big impact on the beer? Im gonna ramp up to 18c tomorrow and keep following the schedule in the hopes it all ends up good. Wish me good luck and thanks for all the help!
should be ok, just finish the beer in the 23C range to clean up the beer at the end. May have more banana than you desire but I personally like that ester in my hefe.
@@MeanBrews ok so I ramp up to 23c in the last 2-3 days? Thanks for the help, I had to do 5 beers in 2 days, I didnt even sleep... And then my all in One kettle overheated because it was working for 32h straight and I had to dump a hefe and do another in the Next day... Things you learn while brewing, if they finish decent it'll be worth for me. thanks!!!
@@pedroreis9352 yes as fermentation slows ramp back up.
@@MeanBrews Update on the hefe after 10 days. Density is at 1,028, so I'm almost sure there was some kinda temperature shock after lowering it to 16,5C from 22,5C and it stopped?, right now the temp is at 22C after ramping up continuosly and atleast for 2 days in a row it keeps at 1,028, yesterday I re-suspended the yeast but without removing the airlock and I'll measure the density again. I'm using a refractometer but I can double check with a densimeter too. For the 4 lagers, everything seems alright I guess, 2 days ago it was 1,021 for pilsner and munich helles, and 1,032 for marzen and dark lager, gonna check them today again to see if it's decreasing. fermentation temps of lagers it's around 10.5C to 11C.
Hey sorry for all the ? 's but are you cold crashing before transfer or leaving some yeast in suspension?
I wouldn't cold crash
@@MeanBrews assumed not, thanks man.
Have you ever used the Herrmann method mash?
no I have not and honestly had to look it up! Looks interesting. I have done a Hochkurz mash and do not notice a difference in efficiency, mouthfeel or flavor in the finished beer so I stopped as it overly complicates. I think the key for hefe is to not acidify or add mineral additions the mash during the acid rest. Make the acid rest as akaline as possible. If you don't you get acid saturation before extracting as much ferulic acid as possible.
So I was only able to get wyeast relativity fresh. Never done a vitality starter before, seems there's a few ways of doing it. Do you have a recommendation on how you would do it? Thanks.
yes just make a small starter (1L/5 gallon batch)
and in the middle of its heaviest activity is when you should pitch it
@@MeanBrews simple enough, thanks.
Please tell me, in which bottled beer can you find the yeast WLP 300? For example, the yeast W68, I took from the beer "Schneider Weisse Original (TAP 7)"
weihenstephaner
@@MeanBrews Thank you so much for your answer. And thank you for your efforts and your recipes. I wish you health and happiness!
11 days seems a little short to be fermenting, isn't there risk of diacetyl still being around?
As with all fermentations, play it by ear!
Is this data ok a site I can login and consume ?
Happy to pay for access.
the raw data? no. But the presentations are on meanbrews.com
I see your FG was 1.017, was that your target?
thats just as calculated per Brewfather. Not sure what my last batch was
@@MeanBrews right on thanks, gonna brew this for a comp next month.