Use Coopers Wheat To Make Decent Hefeweizen?

[Noodle]

Hi!

Had my first wheat beer (a Franziskaner) and was blown away and have since discovered a love for hefeweizen. I want to brew my own, or at least get as close to one as I can, without having to buy a big pot to boil actual grains in (I'm a student lol). Basically I want to buy a kit and do the necessary pimping to get it right. Others have said these kits aren't very authentic tasting/a bit weak, so I want to tweak them properly to have a better chance of success.

What I've learned so far is that this might work:

-1.5kg coopers wheat malt extract/1.7kg tin coopers preachers hefe wheat.
-1kg (at least) wheat DME.
-some hallertau mittelfruh/Pearle hops as a hop tea.
-some white labs Bavarian hefeweizen yeast.
-brewed warmer than usual to get banana esters (I love bananas).
-brewed to 20L for more flavour.

Haven't been able to find a massive amount of info on how to modify coopers wheat kits so any directions on a good recipe to follow would be amazing!
I want to get brewing soon so will keep updated as to how it goes. :)

Thanks!

 

[Graz]

With that amount of extract it's going to be pretty strong, would estimate an OG of 1.068 and ABV around 6.5%.

If you left out the DME it would be nearer 1.050 and an ABV of 4.7%.

Festival do a Weiss beer kit that I'm tempted to have a got with at some stage: http://www.home-brew-online.com/beer-kits-c1/festival-world-beers-german-weiss-p2475

No extras should be needed with this one.

 

[terrym]

Haven't been able to find a massive amount of info on how to modify coopers wheat kits so any directions on a good recipe to follow would be amazing!
I want to get brewing soon so will keep updated as to how it goes. :)

Thanks!

Try this
http://store.coopers.com.au/recipes/index/view/id/31/

 

[Noodle]

Ah thanks!!

Hmm now to go with the festival or coopers?

Any opinions?

 

[terrym]

Ah thanks!!
Hmm now to go with the festival or coopers?
Any opinions?

By the time you have put together the stuff for the Coopers kit, you will have probably spent as much as buying the Festival kit. So you pays yer money and yer takes yer choice. There's a review of the Coopers kit here http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=23485

 

[Noodle]

In that case I'll crack on with the festival kit and make a thread when I get going and do reviews etc. :) thanks for the advice

 

[IainM]

I did a Belgian wit by tweaking a Cooper wheat kit and using wheat DME. The taste was good but it never had the cloudy appearance, which I gather is hard to get only using extract. For hefeweizen you don't need to brew short to get the flavour right, as the flavour comes mostly from the yeast, so I'd brew it to 23L. As far as I'm aware there isn't a decent dry hefeweizen yeast, so I'd definitely use Wyeast 3068 or WLP300, both of which are descended from the legendary Weihenstephaner strain and will give you exactly what you are looking for. I used WLP300 for an all-grain and it was spot on.