Hoppy Hefeweizen

Last weekend I brewed two batches, but in order to maintain a 1-batch 1-post policy I'm giving this brew its own post separate from the Kölsch. This beer is a hefeweizen which I brewed with about twice as many IBUs as my last hefe (#25, Heat Wave Hefeweizen).

The Recipe:

4.5 lb 2-row pale malt
4.5 lb wheat malt

6 AAU (48g @ 3.5% AA) Czech Saaz @ 60
6 AAU (48g @ 3.5% AA) Czech Saaz @ 20
6 AAU (48g @ 3.5% AA) Czech Saaz @ 5

Wyeast 3068 - Weihenstephan Weizen

Mashed at 153° for an hour using 12 quarts of water. Batch-sparged using 170-190° water and collected 6.5 gallons for the boil.

O.G.: 1.050
Est. IBU: 42.4

I mashed this one a little bit higher than normal to try to get a little more body out of it. I am also considering racking this thing onto some fresh hops in the secondary to see how that works out; it would give me a good excuse to use the fresh hops I have in my freezer.

Since the Kölsch is using the temperature control tub, I've decided to let Hoppy just ferment at room temperature in our kitchen. Since it is January, that is still pretty cool; plus, fermenting the Hefe at a slightly elevated temperature should give it some good aromatic complexity (this morning it was at high kräusen at about 67°).

This batch also used up the last of the Czech Saaz I opened back in October 2009. They were still bright green and fresh-smelling, so I'm thinking keeping them in the subzero deep freeze keeps them pretty darn fresh. Interestingly, the first use of those Saazers was for batch #9, which used fresh homegrown hops from the same plants I'm considering using for this batch (albeit the previous year's crop).