Smoked Hefe

[thatguy314]

To me, a smoked wheat/hefe sounds not so good, but I'm totally willing to be proven wrong. Are there any commercial versions available?

-Cameron

Several, noted above in my previous post.

[edisonst]

Just tasted mine after 6 days in the fermenter. I get no apreciable smoke character...very odd. I used 40% weyermann smoked malt. The beer tastes fantastic, the best weizen I have brewed to date. I keep thinking I get a whiff of smoke but I think that is merely my wishful immagination. Hopefully the carbonation will bring some aroma out. My malt i bought from my local must have been pretty old. It sure as hell smelled smokey when I milled it. Oh well, well see imn a few weeks.

[huskerbrew]

Mine lacks a real smoke punch too. It's there, barely, at the first taste. Not nearly as much as I would have liked. Oddly, the FG sample just before bottling was just about exactly what I was looking for. I used 30% that was admittedly old. Have to make this again soon with fresher malt I guess. As a side note, the WB-06 worked out great. Actually the best hef I've made yet (this is my 8th attempt). It took the wort from 1052 to 1008. Has anyone else used this yeast? Every other hef I've made has had a vigorous fermentation to say the least. This one made a 2" krausen and that's it. Still need to try the Munich strain as well. Split batch perhaps?

[thatguy314]

Well I just had rauchweizen and that was so smokey I couldn't even taste the weizen yeast character very much. I'd think subtle character would work better with this strain. I had trouble finishing my rauchweizen because it had so much smoke intensity, but didn't have the maltiness of their other beers to back it up. Their helles works because they don't use smoke malt, just residual smoke in their system. I think if they did a dunkelrauchweizen it might be a better beer.

[edisonst]

Well I lagered my smoked hef for a month and am just starting to drink it. When the beer was uncarbed I got NO SMOKE character. Oddly enough as the carbonation builds to proper level the smoke is becoming more apparent. The smoke flavor kind of melds with the other hef flavors and is only slightly noticable. The aroma on the other hand is getting more intense as the beer gets closer to the target carbonation. When i tasted from the lagering vessel I was sure that no smoke was going to come through....but it did. So far I would say 40% is perfect for a hef. Carbonation really brings it forward.

[Thomas Fransson]

An update on my smoked hefe.
I moved it out of the fridge and left it in room temp for a few days, to get some acetaldehyde notes out (and make way for an DIPA in the tempcontrolled fridge )

Racked to a keg and carbonated, but it had almost like a yeast bite to it so i unhooked the keg and forgot about it for a couple of weeks. Trying it again after a month on keg it had improved alot.

The smoke is subtile but present in the aroma but none or very little in the taste. So if thats what youre after i'd say 20% would do it. If you'd want a more certain level im guessing adjust up to 30% for a light smoke flavour, 40% for a bit more defined and 50+% if you like it upfront.