Hefeweizen doesn't taste right

[bustyraker]

Hello all, this is my first post and second homebrew. I made a hefeweizen using a franziskaner clone recipe about a month ago. I left it in primary for 2 weeks and then put it in the keg. It smelled and taste horrible like sulfur. I left it set in the keg for a week and no improvement. I then left a piece of copper pipe in the keg for a few hours and got rid of the sulfur. Now that I can actually taste the beer it doesn't taste anything like a hefe. It just taste like water that someone has soaked a slice of bread in for a few minutes. Will this change in time or did I mess it up?

7lbs wheat malt
2lb 12oz pilsner
1oz herzbrucker
.02 oz SaaS
. 34lb maltodextrin

Had a 1.045 og and finished up around 1.011

 

[myndflyte]

I feel like a lot of the hefe character comes from the yeast. What yeast did you use and what was your fermentation temp?

 

[bustyraker]

Sorry forgot some key info. I used the wyeast 3068 that i used in a starter and then fermented in the beginning at 68 degrees ambient temp and raised it up to 72-74 the last 2 days

 

[Smellyglove]

3068 should yield you a good hefe if your process is right. For the sulfur you should use some yeast nutrients with zinc in them in a wheat beer. Servomyces is great for this. Second, two weeks fermenting is way to long for a hefe, you'll lose a lot of goodies. I bottle mine after 6-8 days Third, don't keg a hefe. Use speise and bottle them. Speise and about one week of refermentation in the bottle, then 2-4 weeks of conditioning at about 10C is key.

If it's thin (you mentioned water) you need to look at the OG (dial it up to 1.052 for instance), mashing and process after pitch. You need to step-mash for a good hefe.

 

[leonardoreges]

You forgot to mention the most important process in brewing a hefe, witch is fermentation.
You’re pretty fine on the yeast, but by leaving it at room temp you can’t assure the exact temp, as fermentation is a thermogenical process.
If you had sulfur you can be sure something didn’t go completely well on fermentation, as it’s a byproduct that’s created but has to be reabsorved in the process.
In hefes it’s ok a little underpitch, but you can be sure to give yeast a nice environment to grow up.
Other than that, I completely agree with smellyglove as far of bottling it young and let it mature in glass.

 

[V-Fib]

I can't speak for the sulfur smell but I have issues getting my "normal" conversion with wheat malts. My normal efficiency is 84% with out wheat. If I do anything with about 50% wheat I'm normally 76%. With your recipe at about 80% wheat you might not have converted much sugar from it if you have the same issue as me.

I'd recommend trying some non wheat brews and take gravity readings for a few batches to see what your conversion efficiencies are with your system then try a wheat beer and look at the differences in your numbers.

Smellyglove mentioned a step mash which my help you but I normally close the gap on my mill a touch and adjust my recipes to account for wheat malt.