Das Stimmt! Bavarian Weizen

Ah Bavarian Wheat. This style of beer is what got me into drinking beer. I studied in Salzburg Austria for a short bit during my last year of college. On my cab ride from the airport to my apartment, we went past a small bavarian brewery/beer garden and they had a huge cow on a spit roasting over coals. I decided I had to stop for lunch. So, I ordered some cow, potatoes and a beer. I knew nothing about wheat beer, or bavarian beer at all, and I certainly didn't know that it was the oldest bavarian wheat brewery in existence. What I got was a tall cloudy golden yellow glass of pure bananna and clove yeasty wheaty goodness. To make a long story short, I was blown away and ended up going back to the place on almost a daily basis... it helped that my apartment ended up being about a block away. The place was called, "Weissbierbrauerei Bernd Tobsch" But it's now known as "Die Weisse" or "Die Weisse Salzburger Weissbrauerei." If you ever venture into Salzburg give this place a shot. If you're there in the summer then don't forget to check out the beer garden around the corner. Good memories.

This should be a good summer beer. Low-ish gravity with a good bananna smell. We'll be having a few of these in Temecula to be sure. We'll be brewing it up on Saturday morning.

Grain:
5 lb. Pils
5 lb. Wheat

Single Decoction Mash:
152 degrees for 30 min.
Decoction of roughly 40% of the grain for 15 min and then returned to bring the grist to knockout temp.
Sparge at 170 degrees.

Boil:
6-ish gal beginning volume and we should boil off a gallon or so
90 min. boil

Hops:
60 min:
1/2-3/4 oz. or so of some kind of noble hop... keep it around 15 ibu. I think I have some Hallertauer laying around that I'll use.

Yeast:
A 2 starter of White Labs "Hefeweizen Ale" yeast (WLP300) pitched into a carboy with 5 gallons of wort.

Predicted Original Specific Gravity:
1.060

Notes:
I'll pitch the yeast into the carboy cold (~60 degrees) and bring the fermentation temp slowly up to 68.