Hefeweizen Color :(

I've been trying to brew a fairly standard hefeweizen using 70% wheat malt 2.0srm and 30% pale malt 2.0srm with a touch of ibu's from pearle and hefe iv wlp380 yeast. I do enough to target about 1.050 SG for an abv of around 5%. I've probably done this same recipe 7-8 times now and have had different results as far as color goes. Sometimes the color is decent, sometimes its a little gray and murky looking.

I do a single step mash and sparge. My mash water is about 172F when it goes in and I do about a 90 minute mash. I sparge at arount 180F. My efficiency is always around 72%-74% for this beer.

I love the taste... .but I'm wanting to try and get a BETTER LOOKING beer. I want it to pretty much look something like this:

http://www.gastrotap.com/index.php/tasting/60-tasting-yazoo-hefeweizen.html


That picture was taken by me and beer reviewed by me. I love how the color pops and is bright yellow


Thoughts?! Help! I would love to get a better more refreshing looking beer so the visual matches the taste. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

redbone said:

I've been trying to brew a fairly standard hefeweizen using 70% wheat malt 2.0srm and 30% pale malt 2.0srm with a touch of ibu's from pearle and hefe iv wlp380 yeast. I do enough to target about 1.050 SG for an abv of around 5%. I've probably done this same recipe 7-8 times now and have had different results as far as color goes. Sometimes the color is decent, sometimes its a little gray and murky looking.

I do a single step mash and sparge. My mash water is about 172F when it goes in and I do about a 90 minute mash. I sparge at arount 180F. My efficiency is always around 72%-74% for this beer.

I love the taste... .but I'm wanting to try and get a BETTER LOOKING beer. I want it to pretty much look something like this:

http://www.gastrotap.com/index.php/tasting/60-tasting-yazoo-hefeweizen.html


That picture was taken by me and beer reviewed by me. I love how the color pops and is bright yellow


Thoughts?! Help! I would love to get a better more refreshing looking beer so the visual matches the taste. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Click to expand...

Your color is sometimes gray?  That doesn't sound good....does it taste fine?  Which way are you trying to go from your current color?  Are you looking to go lighter?  If so then I would try substituting some of the grain bill with an adjunct during the boil....like sugar or corn starch.  That would help keep your gravity at its current level without adding more to the color.

P.S. if you do this then you might want to up your mash temp to compensate for the loss of body.

+1 Berkyjay!
Solid advise! My latest version of Wifes Wit (VIII) uses 2lb of honey. I cut back on both the wheat, (pils) barley and added oats to for more haze. It is in the primary right now.

Cheers
Preston

The taste is fine.  I hate to quote him, but not liking the idea of adding corn sugar, other things, or varying the recipe.  I had quite a few conversations with Linus Hall at Yazoo Brewing company.  Here is an email that he sent me:

"Hi there,

Our hefe recipe is pretty simple, the yeast does the hard work. 70% pale wheat, 30% pale barley malt. Just a touch of IBUs, about 11 IBUs from Perle at the beginning. Use a true hefe yeast like WY3068, or Whitle Labs Hefe IV. Ferment at cooler temps - 64-68F for more clove. For homebrewing, remember that even if the surrounding air temp is 68F, the beer might be as much as 10 degrees hotter. Get a good temp probe and rig up some way to maintain temps, if you want a really clean and crisp hefe. If you can do an all-grain rest at 111-117 F for 20 minutes, you will enhance the clove phenol. The warmer temp you ferment at, the more bananna and bubble-gum you will get. WY3068 puts off a lot of bubble gum at higher temps if I remember right.

Cheers,

Linus Hall
Yazoo Brewing
"

From the instruction, it sounds pretty simple.  Definitely no sugars... straight grain.  I've even confirmed this with face to face conversations.  I'm not doing a protein rest.  The only thing I don't see is what the mash temp should be.  I got my mash temps from looking at some other single infusion instruction.


I'm wanting the color to be around 2-3srm.

Again, the taste is always fine... amazing... very well accepted by many people.  I actually have many people crave it and ask me all the time "when are you making the hefe next?"  I'm just not satisfied with the color. Yes, I do describe it as gray/murky (I'm not talking about yeasty/haze like a hefe should be).  I'm probably being harder on it than it really is... but its not as pretty as most.


Do you see anything wrong in my mash or sparge temps?  What about "white wheat"... should I be using something a little darker and more color other than the 2.0srm white wheat?  The reason I chose this is to just try and get it as light as I can... I'm wondering now if the white part of it is whats making it look a little gray and murky to me.

Here are the actual grains I got last time for a 6 gallon batch:

Weyermann Light Wheat Malt (by the pound) 7.7
Briess 2-Row Malt (by the pound) 3.3

Hefeweizen (per BJCP) can be from 2 to 8 SRM, and yours is all 2 SRM grains, correct?  So you're currently on the pale end.  I would suggest some German Vienna for a nice golden touch and to darken it slightly, maybe a half pound from the wheat portion. 

As to the gray, if you're sparging with 180F water, is it possible you're extracting some off-color from the husks?  The gray may also have something to do with your water profile in combination with the hot sparge water. 

I would recommend sparging with 170F (max) to reduce that risk. 

If I may offer up some advice.  I feel that you may be trying too hard to follow a set formula for a specific style.  Just because a Wheat recipe calls for 70% wheat malt and 30% pale malt and a mash temp of 154 for 60 min, doesn't mean it's not a Wheat if you use 50% wheat and 50% pale.  It just means that this is your Wheat recipe now and not someone elses.  The great thing about being a home brewer is that you can create and change whatever recipe you want and if it tastes good, then it has been a successful brew.

Now, with that being said don't be afraid to change your recipe to fit your desires.  You will still get a tasty brew even if you replace a pound of grain with a pound of sugar.  It will just taste different and still be a wheat.  But, if you do want to askew sugar then try swapping out the pale malt for pilsner.  This grain tends to produce a more golden hue than most pale malt do.  As far as mash and sparge temps, I don't see this affecting your color too much.  Maltlicker is right with the sparge temp, try to keep it in the 172 range.

Thanks for the reply guys.

I think the next time around I'm going to mash and sparge at lower temps.  I think I'll chose a little darker wheat as well.  Maybe wheat - red malt might be enough.

Keep in mind, that I have made a good looking hefe before with this recipe.  It seems to be a 50/50 shot how it looks, but it always tastes the same.

I see the sparge temp is suggested to be no higher than 170f.... What would you recommend for the mash temp?

redbone said:

It seems to be a 50/50 shot how it looks, but it always tastes the same.

I see the sparge temp is suggested to be no higher than 170f.... What would you recommend for the mash temp?

Click to expand...

Perhaps before next time around, calibrate your thermometers in crushed ice water?  Maybe your temps are hotter than you think? 

I like 152F mash for hefe.

MaltLicker said:

redbone said:

It seems to be a 50/50 shot how it looks, but it always tastes the same.

I see the sparge temp is suggested to be no higher than 170f.... What would you recommend for the mash temp?

Click to expand...

Perhaps before next time around, calibrate your thermometers in crushed ice water?  Maybe your temps are hotter than you think?  

I like 152F mash for hefe.

Click to expand...

I used 3 thermometers for my mash temp this time.  One was way off, I calibrated that one against the other 2.  So, this wasn't the case.  I'm going to take a picture tonight of a pint when I xfer to secondary.  You guys might think it looks good... I might just be a picky a$$.

P.S.  Thanks for the responses!  I've had more luck here than on HBT for the same subject.