Salvaging a homebrewed Hefe

How do you know it is stupid weak?

 

What was the original gravity?

To my thinking, you are not invested deeply into this batch, and it does not merit any heroic efforts to save.
Your options for saving a beer that is too weak involve added more fermentables and yeast. If you were really determined to save it, you might make another batch of high gravity wheat beer (maybe use extract until you understand what happened in your mash), pitch a big pitch of yeast, ferment separately from the original batch, and blend to taste. Quite a hassle, considering that you ought to be able to start over and knock out a decent wheat beer in the same time frame.

 

if you want to invest time and money fixing something that probably won't work out, then boil one gallon with one or two pounds of pound extra light DME. that will boost abv.

instead, now you know what to do to get your all grain dialed in. it isn't hard, but no amount of reading will replace the actual process. let this one ride out, bottle it. learn from the experience. move on.

that's just my two cents.
Cheers.

 

A taste test of beer that's still in primary won't tell you much. You're going to have all kinds of odd flavors in there at this point.

A hydrometer reading will tell you something. When did you take the sample? What was the reading?

You probably already know this, but you want to check efficiency as early in the process as you can--ie, take a reading before you start the boil. If you're significantly below what you wanted, you can fix it, either by adding some fermentables (it's good to always have some extra DME around) or by boiling for a longer period (if you don't mind getting a smaller yield). If you wait till after the boil, there's not that much you can do.

You could try adding some honey. Some even argue that the best time to add honey is at the end of the primary. This would up the alcohol and contribute a little backbone to it. If it was my beer, I would probably use this opportunity to drop in a pound or two of unpasteurized honey, which is going to contain all kinds of wild yeast. It's a little risky, since you never what the wild yeast will do, but if you're feeling like this one's a drain pour otherwise, it'd be an interesting thing to try.

 

Alcohol, yes. Backbone, no, if by backbone you mean body.

 

Bottle it up and drink in the summer. Refresh yourself after some yardwork or something of the sort.

 

+1. this will do the trick.

 

The general advice for homer brewers is RDWHAHB where the W stands for 'worry.'
In this case...it stands for 'whine.'

Unlike doctors who bury their mistakes...homebrewers drink their mistakes.