German Steam Beer Recipe

RECIPE FOR 5 GALLONS:

• 7 lbs Pilsner; German
• 3 lbs Munich Malt – 10L
• 1.00 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] – Boil 60.0 min
• 1.0 pkg Hefeweizen IV Ale (White Labs #WLP380)

Seven days ago, I brewed a German steam beer, a damp beer. And I’d heard that this can be ready super quick.

Using the hefeweizen ale yeast strain, this could be ready in maybe a week.

So that’s what I’ve been doing this week, is waiting for that beer to be ready, and checking the gravity every day.

And eventually, as of yesterday, day six, finally the gravity had stabilized at 1.009.

At that point, I cold crashed and moved to a keg. So after just seven days, how has that beer turned out? Well, let’s find out.

Well, are you ready to try a seven day old beer?

I don’t know that I’ve ever drank a beer that’s this young. So I was quite concerned that this was not going to be carbonated enough. Right.

That was not the case.

Not the case at all. Photogenically right now, they look gorgeous.

Beautiful.

Yeah.

Now, in terms of the appearance, this is not a wheat beer, even though it’s using hefeweizen yeast. But my goodness, it looks like one: it’s so cloudy.

Oh, yeah. And not hazy, just cloudy.

Cloudy.

Yeah.

And that is just a product of how this is made so quickly, that I didn’t use any finings. So I didn’t use Whirl Flock, which I probably should have done. And I didn’t use gelatin or anything like that.

And there really wasn’t time for any of the sort of after-brewing kind of finings, because this has only been cold for about half a day.

So let’s see if we get anything under the aroma.

It’s got… When I was pouring it, I could smell it, and it smells wonderful: it really does. I’m getting a little hint of a clove smell.

Yeah, to me, this is classic wheat bear hefeweizen clove, for sure.

Yep.

Sometimes you get banana with hefeweizen.

True, cheers.

Cheers.

It tastes a lot the way it smells.

With regards to the mouth feel, I think it’s quite a soft mouth feel, which I would associate with the presence of wheat in the bear. There’s no wheat in this bear at all.

There’s no bitter at all. I don’t know what the IBU would be on this, but I would think it’d be very, very low.

It’s very low. Very good.

Yeah. Your assessment of this, are you happy with it? Are you pleased with the way it turned out?

My concern with this, was that we would try it after seven days, and it would taste like it’s not ready: it would taste very green. And that’s not the case.

Not at all.

This to my palette, this tastes a bit like hefeweizen, and exactly like a matured one, as well.

Right, right.

And to me, it’s very puzzling how it’s turned out that way so quickly, when literally this beer was bubbling and fermenting 24 hours ago.

Right, and I just, on that second sip I just took, I got the banana that you mentioned.

You got the banana?

Oh yeah. I definitely got the banana you mentioned. It’s a very drinkable beer. I’m glad that you invited me to be the final leg in this experiment you did: the seven-day experiment you did. I’ve been watching the videos and enjoying them quite a bit.

I set you up with daily vlogging: oh my goodness.

Has it a lot? It’s a lot, it’s a lot. I had no idea. You see these YouTubers doing daily blogging and stuff like that? Yeah. Good luck to them. Well, Norm, thank you very much.

My pleasure as always.

Not only for coming along and doing the tasting, but for being willing to do so for a beer that is so young, so young. But I mean, it’s kind of worked out.

Yeah, congratulations. This turned out great.

Well, cheers.

Cheers to you.

Additional Steam Beer Resources: