Anyone ever used hefeweizen yeast for a wheatwine?

That's called a weizenbock.

 

Yes I have done this. It works well. I called mine an imperial hefeweizen. Semantics. Essentially a barleywine with 50% wheat. I think mine clocked in at around 1.100 and finished pretty low for like 10.5% ABV. The clove and banana flavors were gone in a few months, which is about the same as you'd expect for any aged hefe, leaving just a very malty wheatwine.

 

Are you stalking me? I was seriously investigating this same thing last week / weekend

From what I have read, @dmtaylor is on the money. I've seen it called a Double/Imperial Weizenbock, and the clove/banana apparently dissapates quite quickly.

Trying to work out a good recipe atm

 

Do you have a resource that discusses fading esters? I'd like to read up on it if you do. Cheers.

 

Weather appropriate? You live in TX and its almost March. When it's ready your Hefeweizen will be weather appropriate.

 

Esters are formed via a condensation reaction between an acid and alcohol. The reverse reaction (hydrolysis) can be base or acid catalyzed; in a fairly low pH media like fermented beer, acid hydrolysis back into the alcohol and acid is more likely than base catalyzed hydrolysis. All this being said, kinetically (e.g. reaction rate) and in terms of completion I have no idea if the hydrolysis reaction occurs appreciably on the time scale our beer ages on, and whether or not it is ester dependent. I'd be curious to see a citation as well, as my experience with old hefeweizen or weizenbock is that the ester profile (isoamyl acetate) has been pretty stable (4-vinyl guiacol e.g. clove flavor is not an ester).

EDIT: it looks like it is ester dependent (http://www.academicjournals.org/article/article1380728686_Hiralal et al.pdf)

 

I don't know if there's any JZ-endorsed sources that I could site. Just my own experience and discussions I have had with many others.