Heffe Weizen...

Have I mentioned my discovery of beer style? I love Heffe Weizen. Not that shitty stuff they make in the US. I'm talking the genuine, German wheat ale--Hacker Pschorr, Franziskanner, Paulaner. In fermenter number two, there's a Heffe Weizen. Vigorously bubbling through the air lock are little pockets of cidery-smelling gas.

Here's the recipe, almost to the letter Charlie Papazian's* Lovebite Weizenbier:
5lbs. munton's dry wheat/barley malt
3/4 oz. Hallertauer hops 4.6% Alpha Acid
White Labs Pitchable Bavarian Weizen Yeast

Now, here's what I suspect. I'm not going to get a Heffe Weizen. The wort was pretty dark. It looked dunkel to me. That's okay. It's still beer. And I like Dunkel Weizen. I like it alot. I'm unsure whether I should use a secondary fermantation. I liked the results of doing that with my IPA, but that's altogether different, for I want a cloudy Heffe. If you have thoughts, let me know.

I forgot to take the specific gravity of the thing before pitching the yeast. My guess is that it was 1.050. There's little doubt in my mind that I got all the available sugars into the wort and this stuff is pretty standardized. Hence, infer that the wort was what the recipe said it should be.

*from his book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing 3rd Edition. I've read most of the book by now. It's a nice work. If you're thinking about brewing, pick up a copy and read it as you boil your first wort. I guess that not everything everyone says about Papazian is great, but those people are dumb shits who've never taught anyone anything well. Papazian inspires a sense of pride, excitment and liberty in the brewer. Good teachers inspire a love of the subject in their students and Papazian does it masterfully.