Recipe For An Erdinger Clone

[HomeBrewWest]

OK, finally got myself a 20 litre Speidel. Now I wanna make an Erdinger wheat beer clone.

I am thinking:
To make 21 litres

Grains:
- 2.3 kg Weyerman Pale Wheat malt (3 to 5 EBC)
- 2.2 kg Weyerman Bavarian Pilsner malt (3 to 4 EBC)

Mash programme
    50 °C › Start mashing
    52 °C › 0 min
    63 °C › 15 min
    73 °C › 35 min
    78 °C › 15 min
    Boiling › 80min

Hop addition
   20 g Tettnang 4.5% hop pellets › 70 min before end of boil
   10 g Pearle 8.0% hop pellets › 12 min before end of boil

Yeast and fermentation temperature: this is where I'm unsure. I defo want to use a White Labs yeast.

Erdinger is is one of the cleanest tasting hefeweizens, light on the whole banana clove. Its also relatively clear. So the traditional WLP300 may not be the best choice. I do want some banana clove, but I also want a clear clean tasting beer.

I'd imagine this is quite hard to achieve, as I have all the books worth mentioning, and have Googled it . . . . all to no avail!

[baphomite51]

copied from another site "Erdinger is very light on the banana clove. Its probably one of the cleanest tasting hefeweizens. I would not recommend using wlp300/wyeast 3068 for a good clone. I think Wyeast 3056 would be a better choice for an Erdinger clone. 3056 has a very subdued banana/clove phenol characteristic, which is exactly what erdinger has. As far as the grain bill goes. If you're doing all grain, 50/50 or 60/40 wheat malt and pils malt, and an ounce of hallertau is all you'll need. With extract you should be able to use wheat extract 100%."

also id say if your keep it at the lowest temp the yeast will ferment at you'll minize the banana/clove flavours, the hotter it ferments the more flavours you'll get, but i could be wrong on that

[Tom]

Could you not culture up from a couple of bottles, or do they bottle condition with a different yeast? Given that wheatbeers are best drank fresh there's a good chance that the yeast will be in good nick.

[Chris]

Could you not culture up from a couple of bottles, or do they bottle condition with a different yeast? Given that wheatbeers are best drank fresh there's a good chance that the yeast will be in good nick.

I remember reading somewhere that they use a different yeast for conditioning

[irish_goat]

Could you not culture up from a couple of bottles, or do they bottle condition with a different yeast? Given that wheatbeers are best drank fresh there's a good chance that the yeast will be in good nick.

I remember reading somewhere that they use a different yeast for conditioning

Lager yeast.

The filtered beer is tank conditioned, but the greater part of output has a secondary fermentation in the bottle. For this purpose, it is primed with wort, and pre-yeasted with a bottom culture.

http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000121.html

[Eoin]

Freeze between 12—15% of the original brew for priming. Don't add priming sugar obviously, just defrosted wort. Ferment at the low end for clean profile.

[HomeBrewWest]

Came across that also on line.

Has anybody used wlp300, say at low temp?

[Eoin]

I'm not a huge wheat beer fan myself....

[Eoin]

A typical German hop addition is 60:40:20 mins

[mr hoppy]

I know this is your area of expertise Eoin, but I thought they just threw it in at the start, especially for wheat beers.

[LordEoin]

I thought so too. A small amount for a little bit of bittering, then the rest relies on the grain and the yeast.

[Eoin]

I'll check the weizen recipes again and come back to you.

[Eoin]

Ok I just had a look at a recipe database and it appears that they are of two types of addition, some are adding at 90 and 10 and some are adding at 60 and 10 and then some are adding at 90 or 60 only, so you're correct, the more traditional schedules are just one at the start, I've mixed it up with Pils additions.

If anyone wants to translate some recipes:
http://www.maischemalzundmehr.de/index.php

[HomeBrewWest]

Hmmm,
This one could be a "suck it and see". Could take several iterations though. For all the books we have, and the Internet too, its really surprising that there is no info out there on this one. I have clone recipes for hundreds of beers, but only a handful of wheat ones!

[Tom]

Let us know how you get on then, as Erdinger is about the only wheat beer I can tolerate!