Honey Weizen

I have brewed this beer with a traditional German wheat yeast but tried a new twist this time with the yeast at the suggestion of my brewshop guru. The results turned out better than my expectations. My wife really liked this beer and I will be brewing it again just like this.

Brewer:	Galen Brelie		Email:	gmbaaa@ncis.com
Beer:	Honey Weizen		Style:	American Wheat
Type:	Extract		Size:	5 gallons
Color:	2 HCU (~3 SRM)		Bitterness:	10 IBU
OG:	1.053		FG:	1.008
Alcohol:	5.8% v/v (4.5% w/w)
Water:	Living in a rural area I have my own well. I preboil and chill all the water I add to the fermenter to sterilize it and remove excess carbonates. No other water treatment used.
Boil:	60 minutes	SG 1.132	2 gallons
	6.0 lb. Wheat extract 1.0 lb. Clover Honey
	1/4 tsp. of Irish Moss rehydrated for 24 hrs. and added at 15 minutes.
Hops:	1 oz. Tettnanger (5.6% AA, 60 min.)
Yeast:	Wyeast #1028 London Ale. Smack pack was incubated at 75F for 30 hrs. and pitched.
Log:	Pitched yeast on 5-3-01 and incubated the primary in a room with a temp. of 75F. Placed the fermenter in a pan of water at 64F and covered with a wet T-shirt. Fermentation was active at 18 hours. Racked to the secondary on 5-6-01 and left the carboy in the pan of 64F water with the T-shirt. Airlock activity decreased slowly over the next 14 days.
Carbonation:	Bottled on 5-20-01 using 1 cup of corn sugar.
Tasting:	Noticable chill haze at 3 weeks in the bottle, but very good taste. At 6 weeks the chill haze had decreased noticably and the taste had improved. The clover honey flavor is always in the background. There is some hop bitterness initially which goes away fairly quickly with little after taste. I was after a little less clover/phenolic taste than you get with traditional Weizen yeast and this yeast did the trick. This is an excellent summer brew with fairly mild taste. I will brew this beer again with no changes. Many thanks to the brewshop guru (Chris at Northern Brewer) for a great suggestion.

Recipe posted 08/26/01.