I was listening to a podcast on Dunkelweizen recently and got to thinking (which is always a dangerous thing). How would a hefeweizen yeast work in something like a porter or stout? Nothing beats a slice of chocolate-chip banana bread with a hot coffee for breakfast, and this seems like it would hit that ballpark. I haven’t been a big fan of the Belgian stouts I’ve tried, but I was thinking a hefe strain would be more straight-up banana/clove than a Belgian strain.
I was thinking something like this:
1.055ish
25ish IBU’s of Magnum @ 60 minutes
40% Wheat malt
30% Light Munich
10% Dark Munich
10% English Dark Crystal
5% Chocolate Wheat
5% Black Malt
I’m surprised there’s no replies on this, but sounds interesting to me. I have no experience in this, but it seems like it may work.
I recently made a hefe using the Northern Brewer Wyeast strain to build up the yeast for an upcoming batch. It turned out to be a good beer that came out super clear with a crisp taste. The wheat didn’t really come through, but still fun to experiment.
If you brew it or already have, post back the results.
I may split a batch in the winter to try this out, but I did have a few concerns about this particular style mashup as I thought about it more.
A) Carbonation - hefe’s like it high, porters don’t. You may be OK splitting this in the middle, but I’m not sure.
B) Water profile - this is the one that may be tough to deal with. Roasty beers typically want high pH, but hefe’s are much better at the lower end of the range. Maybe a dry Irish stout would be the best option here because of this.