diff --git a/.github/workflows/README.md b/.github/workflows/README.md
index 0f3a42583c36..d386f4dc40f9 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/README.md
+++ b/.github/workflows/README.md
@@ -162,14 +162,14 @@ To work around this, you can start using hosted runners and then switch over whe
 You can do this by changing `runs-on: [self-hosted, ubuntu-20.04, main]` (self-hosted, use in your PR) to `runs-on: ubuntu-20.04` (GitHub hosted, use for local testing).
 
 Note when using `ubuntu-20.04` as the host, you might need to choose the Java version since some gradle tasks only work with a certain Java version.
-One example is below to use Java 8 when testing your workflow:
+One example is below to use Java 11 when testing your workflow:
 ```
     steps:
       - uses: actions/checkout@v4
       - uses: actions/setup-java@v3
         with:
           distribution: 'temurin'
-          java-version: '8'
+          java-version: '11'
 ```
 
 ## Testing Workflow Updates
diff --git a/.github/workflows/build_release_candidate.yml b/.github/workflows/build_release_candidate.yml
index ec65ae99072a..be21aa96986f 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/build_release_candidate.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/build_release_candidate.yml
@@ -62,11 +62,11 @@ jobs:
         with:
           ref: "v${{ github.event.inputs.RELEASE }}-RC${{ github.event.inputs.RC }}"
           repository: apache/beam
-      - name: Install Java 8
+      - name: Install Java 11
         uses: actions/setup-java@v4
         with:
           distribution: 'temurin'
-          java-version: '8'
+          java-version: '11'
       - name: Import GPG key
         id: import_gpg
         uses: crazy-max/ghaction-import-gpg@111c56156bcc6918c056dbef52164cfa583dc549
@@ -114,11 +114,11 @@ jobs:
           then
             echo "Must provide an apache password to stage artifacts to https://dist.apache.org/repos/dist/dev/beam/"
           fi
-      - name: Install Java 8
+      - name: Install Java 11
         uses: actions/setup-java@v4
         with:
           distribution: 'temurin'
-          java-version: '8'
+          java-version: '11'
       - name: Import GPG key
         id: import_gpg
         uses: crazy-max/ghaction-import-gpg@111c56156bcc6918c056dbef52164cfa583dc549
@@ -264,14 +264,6 @@ jobs:
         uses: actions/setup-python@v5
         with:
           python-version: '3.9'
-      - run: echo $JAVA_HOME
-      - run: echo "JAVA11_HOME=${JAVA_HOME}" >> "$GITHUB_OUTPUT"
-        id: export-java11
-      - name: Install Java 8
-        uses: actions/setup-java@v4
-        with:
-          distribution: 'temurin'
-          java-version: '8'
       - name: Set up Docker Buildx
         uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v2
       - name: Remove default github maven configuration
@@ -318,11 +310,11 @@ jobs:
         uses: actions/setup-node@v4
         with:
           node-version: '16'
-      - name: Install Java 8
+      - name: Install Java 11
         uses: actions/setup-java@v4
         with:
           distribution: 'temurin'
-          java-version: '8'
+          java-version: '11'
       - name: Remove default github maven configuration
         # This step is a workaround to avoid a decryption issue of Beam's
         # net.linguica.gradle.maven.settings plugin and github's provided maven