I’ve long awaited this night. Well. I’ve waited a week for this night. For tonight is the night I pop the top on my recently brewed hefeweizen beer.  I was excited to brew my hefeweizen. This is the third beer I’ve brewed so far;  the first pale beer I’ve brewed. 

I found the recipe at the home brew store on Oahu. I’ve not yet to follow a recipe to-the-T. For this recipe, I made a mistake and added twice as many hops as I was supposed to add, but managed to follow the rest of the recipe quite well. Not worried about the hops, I added the wort to the fermenter, added the yeast and placed it under the cupboard to do it’s business. 

Two days later the top blew off the fermenter. I skimmed the foam and resealed the fermenter using a make shift lid of a plastic container and baby bottle nipple, which seemed to do the job. I was worried about contamination, of course. 

Too long a time later, I tasted and bottled the beer hoping for the best. With all bottles primed and filled, I stored the bottles for their last week of fermentation. 

So tonight is the night. I’ve opened a beer and this is what I found: my beer was surprisingly not contaminated. It’s darker than it’s supposed to be, but it’s quite tasty. It seems to have good head. I bottled it a little late – bottled a bit sooner, it would have been more bubbly I think. Not that it’s flat, but ideally it would be more carbonated. Although the color is not ideal, the flavor is pretty good. There is a definite hefeweizen flavor to it, but I think the addition of double hops has altered the overall flavor. 

The following recipe is what resulted in my beer. For the original recipe, reduce the hops by half.

Recipe:

1/2  lb. Light Crystal Malt 10?L  Grain

1/2 lb. Wheat Malt Grain

7  lbs. of Wheat syrup malt extract

Liquid Hefeweizen Ale Yeast WLP300

2 oz. New Zealand Hallertau Aroma/O Hops

Bottled Hefeweizen beer.

A wonderfully poured "hefeweizen" beer.