BIAB Weissbier (more banana, light colour)

[Hez]

After having read quite a bit about Weissbier and having tasted a couple of hundreds of them (my favourite is the HB) I decided I want to brew one.

Links:

Light Article:
http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/05/08/wheat-beer-recipes-weizen-and-weisse-styles/

Detailed Article:
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

Podcast:
http://beersmith.com/blog/2015/11/30/german-wheat-beer-with-john-palmer-beersmith-podcast-116/

Aussie Home Brewer Post:
https://aussiehomebrewer.com/threads/bavarian-weissbier-tips.95586/

Recipe:
http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes2/recipe_82.htm

Recipe:
http://www.beersmith.com/Recipes2/recipe_87.htm


Using the instructions in braumagazin.de article and based in other recipes, this is my "proposal":

Batch: 10l

Grain:
2160g Total Grain
1425g Wheat Malt 66%
670g Munich 31%
65g Light Cara Malt 3%

Boil 90':
60' 7.5 Tettnanger or 7.17g Hallertauer or 2.8g Chinhook
30' 7.5 Tettnanger or 7.17g Hallertauer or 2.8g Chinhook

Mash:
55°C protein rest: 5-10 min
63°C maltose rest: 30-45 min
72°C saccharification rest: 30 min

Est. OG: 1.049 SG - FG: 1.012 SG - ABV: 4.85 % ??


Yeast:
W68 White Labs WLP300 or.. Safale WB-06 (dry)???
Pitch 18º

Fermentation Temperature 16-24°C
Secondary Fermentation 3 weeks @ 20°C (I'll look for the warm spot at home)


The intention is to make a Weissbier or Bavarian style wheat beer, on the light-colour and banana-flavour side.

I've calculated the hop equivalency (on alpha) for Tettnanger and Hallertauer hops. The Chinhook is listed because is the only bittering hop I currently have, but for this one I think I will end up buying the Hallertauer... what do you think?
Is that a good proportion of hops? Would you skip the second addition and use more on the first one?

About the yeast, from the recommended ones, those are the ones my supplier has. What do you think about the Safale WB-06 dry yeast? I've read in other forums comments of people saying it's very good and it leaves banana flavour aromas, which is exactly what I'm after!

About the areation or not and the open/closed fermentation... I don't know really if it will change the flavour or how to do it the way the article says... I'm planning on doing the same as always, shake a little the fermenter with the wort inside (closed, of course), add the yeast, close the lid and put the airlock. What do they mean with "do not areate" and "fermentation vessel open" ?? If there's no oxigen the yeast won't work very well... and if the fermenter is open, it will be infected! :S

This is my first ever wheat beer and I want to go to one extreme (banana), next time I want to make the other extreme (clover) and then, try to find the perfect balance for me.

The recipe is not closed! what do you think of it? What would you change?

I plan to brew this one on the 5-6 of August (in Sydney), I think the temperature will be about right (if I keep the bottles into the warm spot of my appartment).

 

[Matplat]

If you want Banana, WB-06 won't get you there, definitely get the wlp300

The reason that they say not to aerate, is to cause the yeast to function anaerobically and produce more banana flavoured esters.

Also the reference to 'open fermentation' just means that it is 'open' to atmospheric pressure, you still close the FV but it is not allowed to pressurise.

Definitely use hallertau, all at 60 mins.

Don't bother with munich of caramalt, those are for dunkelweizen. Just use a 50:50 split wheat to pale ale malt. You can also add 75g of dextrose to provide the yeast with the components it needs to produce banana esters.

 

[fletcher]

agree with Matplat. don't use wb-06 and definitely hallertau at 60 mins only. hops contribute fairly little to the equation, particularly if you're after extreme yeast flavours/esters. don't bother with crystal malts either. not needed. munich however, can be a nice addition (from experience) however I've only used about 30% with the rest being an equal split of pale and wheat.

 

[Hez]

If you want Banana, WB-06 won't get you there, definitely get the wlp300

The reason that they say not to aerate, is to cause the yeast to function anaerobically and produce more banana flavoured esters.

Also the reference to 'open fermentation' just means that it is 'open' to atmospheric pressure, you still close the FV but it is not allowed to pressurise.

Definitely use hallertau, all at 60 mins.

Don't bother with munich of caramalt, those are for dunkelweizen. Just use a 50:50 split wheat to pale ale malt. You can also add 75g of dextrose to provide the yeast with the components it needs to produce banana esters.

agree with Matplat. don't use wb-06 and definitely hallertau at 60 mins only. hops contribute fairly little to the equation, particularly if you're after extreme yeast flavours/esters. don't bother with crystal malts either. not needed. munich however, can be a nice addition (from experience) however I've only used about 30% with the rest being an equal split of pale and wheat.

Ok, so...
- 14.35g of Hallertauer at 60'
- Yeast: WLP300
- Do not areate (do not shake the fermenter)
- Open fermentation (meaning fermenter with the lid on + airlock) *

100% agreed, and decided! thank you both!

About the Grain... I was following the instructions from this article: http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/
Quote:
"
LIGHT COLORED WEIZEN BEER
Base Malts:

• Light wheat malt, Pilsner / Vienna, Munich (<30%)

Speciality Malts

• 3-10% light Cara malt
• <2% dark Cara malt
• <0,5% roasted malt

MORE BANANA
Grain Bill >66% wheat malt
"

That's what I calculated...
66% wheat malt
30% Munich
4% light Cara malt

I want a light amber colour, not dunkel, not cristal-clear. I want to be extreme with the banana-flavour but I want to achive a nice colour, body, etc.

Matplat suggestion:
50% Wheat malt
50% Pale malt

fletcher suggestion:
35% Wheat malt
35% Pale malt
30% Munich malt

Neither of yours match the braumagazin recommendation...
why nothing but wheat and pale, matplat?
why so little wheat, fletcher?

What I want is a thick bavarian banana light amber wheat beer!

About the gas inside the bottle. I've read, and I've notices myself, the weissbier has a lot of gas... I'm going to bottle it in 33cl bottles with a benchcapper and the sugarspoon... do you think it would be a good idea to add a little more sugar or even well closed with the benchcapper they will explode?

* Matplat: On my last brew, a dry irish stout, i forgot to areate... what would do the irish yeast anaerobically (if that's a word) ? I tasted the beer from the hydrometer already fermented when I was bottling and it tasted ok, much like coffee (I used the recipe of a Guiness clone)

 

[Droopy Brew]

As above. Wb-06 will never see the inside of one of my fermenters again.
50:50 Pils wheat
Hallertau at 45-60min for about 15IBU
Minimal aeration to promote ester production from the yeast and dont make a starter if you have a vial of fairly recent yeast. Underpitching is not recommended except if you are chasing big banana from a hefe yeast and then it works well. With only a 10L batch you wont underpitch much anyway, if at all.
Ferment higher to get more banana, lower to get more clove.
For me, a good wiesebier is a balance of clove and banana. Getting too much of either isn't a good thing. I understand you are trying to experiment but I would be inclined to try for a balance first and from there you can adjust esters up or down according to your preference. I find fermenting at 17C for 4 days and then bumping straight to 19C for another 4 days gets that balance.

 

[Droopy Brew]

Just saw your reply before mine posted. If you want to darken it a little, I would use Caramunich 2. 50% Wheat, 10% Caramunich 2, 40% pilsner.

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

+1 on WB06 and Danstar Munich wheat.

Weissbier and Saison need a wet yeast, even MJ don't produce an adequate of the former, and I rate their dried yeasts very highly.

 

[homebrewnewb]

From Mr White Labs...

Q 3. What are the ideal mash parameters, yeast strains, and fermentation temperatures to accentuate each of the following ester/phenol characters in a hefeweizen: clove, banana, and bubble gum?

A. Hef yeast strains that we have are selected to maximize these characteristics. Anything that encourages yeast growth will increase those 3 flavors. Pitching less and higher fermentation temperature that encourage growth are 2 examples. Aerating less will also encourage growth – another parameter that can increase esters.

I also believe that these esters are created in the first 48 hours, so aim for the correct temp sooner rather than later.

 

[warra48]

I wouldn't use Cara malts at all, based on my experience with recent wheat brews.The stepmash will give you plenty of sweet malt character. Hallertau is fine, but Tettnanger is nice as well to give some nice balancing spice, seeing as these beers only have about 15 or so IBU.

 

[MHB]

Personally, W3068 is my go to for hefeweizen.
The notion of under pitching is a bit of a misstatement, pitching at the lower end of the normal range for Ale yeast (0.4-1Mc/mL/oP) does encourage more banana and ester, so closer to 0.4-0.5 Million cells / mill / point of Plato. If you pitch any lower you will start to get other unwanted flavours associated with under pitching or stressed yeast, as well as all the other well known issues with under pitched beer.
A little dextrose (up to 5% of extract) is going to up the banana
Remember that the banana flavour is one of the least stable beer flavours, if you are going to have the beer kicking around for more than a couple of weeks, it will fade pretty dam fast and there goes your balance, so when you are deciding how much banana/clove phenolic you want - when you will be drinking the beer is really important.

The best Hefe I have ever made was 50/50% Weyermann Floor Malted Wheat and Bohemian Floor Malted Pilsner, a little darker and a lot fuller in the body, next time I brew this one I want to do a triple decoction - not a summer weight Hefe, but great for spring and autumn, well you could twist my arm...
Mark

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

Good tips, would have never thought to put dextose viz Reinheitsgebot being the big thing that the bottles of the commercial examples of these beers still bang on.

I have a few harvested vials of 3068, I'll get onto this soon.

 

[MHB]

If you wanted to stay strictly Reinheitsgebot well its a pita but you can create Glucose (Dextrose)
Mark

 

[Hez]

wow! too many for answering one by one... thank you all!

About the yeast, I'll use the WLP300 simply because my supplier doesn't have the 3068, I'll ask him anyway...

50% wheat is fixed, the other base barley grain will be pilsner, I'm convinced, but I'm still uncertain about adding some caramunich/light cara... :S you don't agree!

I like Droopy brew's blend idea: Caramunich 2. 50% Wheat, 10% Caramunich 2, 40% pilsner but then warra48 and MHB totally disagree.

About the dextrose, thanks Matplat, 75g for the 10l batch, but when do I add it?

MHB: W3068, Weyermann Floor Malted Wheat and Bohemian Floor Malted Pilsner seems too specific. I don't think my supplier will have that.
About your pdf it says:
"The ideal malt ratio for a typical German/Bavarian wheat beer would be 70 % of wheat malt, 27 % pilsner malt and 3 % dark caramel malt to obtain the typical amber colour."

And the decoction instructions don't match the braumagazin ones! Also, when you do a decoction, how much do you remove? if I'm brewing in a bag, do you take only the wort or you use another bag with part of the grain? how much? Nope, I think this is too much for me right now, brewing in my kitchen with limited equipment....


What about the extra-gas in the bottle? Putting a little more sugar? changing sugar for dextrose? or thinner-grain sugar for the same volume?

One thing I'm starting to realize about brewing beer is... lot's of numbers, lot's of norms and conventions, chemistry, "science", written and unwritten laws ... but in the end it's a mess! everyone say different things! :S

 

[Lord Raja Goomba I]

If you wanted to stay strictly Reinheitsgebot well its a pita but you can create Glucose (Dextrose)
Mark

Not so much I want to (hence the other thread), more that the Reinheitsgebot sort of blinded me to the possibility of using dextrose.

I suppose the next question is, would glucose (or table sugar) work, or will that bring undesirable characteristics.

And is dextrose going to encourage banana because it has a shorter sugar chain and is easily edible by yeast (hence will encourage ester growth by rapid reproduction)?

 

[MHB]

Warra and I aren't disagreeing on anything, in fact neither of us is recommending any Carra Malt, that would be included to make an Amber or Dunkel Wheat.
There are two distinct elements to brewing, the science of and the art of brewing, to me the science underpins the art, a bit like architecture, you can draw anything, but the rules of engineering tells you whether or not it will stand up.
Clearly you don't have a lot of experience with hefeweizen, I would strongly recommend you start with something simple like a 50/50 wheat pilsner (spend the extra and go German, it will taste better).
If your supplier cant give you what you need - try someone else. If you have a good local HBS support them, but if you need things they don't stock, get what you need I use Brewman, but depending on where you are there are a few good choices.

If I wanted to do a Dunkel Weiss, I would go to CarraWheat in preference to CaraMunich
Add the dextrose to the kettle near the end of the boil, about 5% of the total weight of extract, for a 25L batch (end of boil) that comes to around 150g.
The mash regime is a very specialised one, it isn't necessary if you are adding dextrose, it is designed to create Glucose (dextrose) which doesn't normally happen in a mash as the Maltase is killed off before the maltose is made.
There are way too many different types of wheat beer and ways of making them for us to cover here, if you want to know way too much try this Brewing Bavarian Weissbier  –  all you ever wanted to know

Starting out keep it simple and enjoy the beer.
Mark

 

[MHB]

Not so much I want to (hence the other thread), more that the Reinheitsgebot sort of blinded me to the possibility of using dextrose.

I suppose the next question is, would glucose (or table sugar) work, or will that bring undesirable characteristics.

And is dextrose going to encourage banana because it has a shorter sugar chain and is easily edible by yeast (hence will encourage ester growth by rapid reproduction)?

Don't add Sucrose if you are looking for Banana, Glucose is the precursor in the production of Isoamyl acetate by the yeast, Sucrose wont do the job.
Mark

 

[Matplat]

Add the dextrose into the boil, that quantity won't make too much difference so it doesn't really matter exactly when.

Look up a priming sugar calculator to calculate exactly how much you need to add to each bottle, you're looking for around 2.5 vols CO2. But you need to get this bit exactly right, you should be working in grams per bottle, not teaspoons per bottle.

I wouldn't bother with a decoction at this stage either, you can make a perfectly decent weizen with a single infusion mash at 67deg.

 

[Hez]

Warra and I aren't disagreeing on anything, in fact neither of us is recommending any Carra Malt, that would be included to make an Amber or Dunkel Wheat.
There are two distinct elements to brewing, the science of and the art of brewing, to me the science underpins the art, a bit like architecture, you can draw anything, but the rules of engineering tells you whether or not it will stand up.
Clearly you don't have a lot of experience with hefeweizen, I would strongly recommend you start with something simple like a 50/50 wheat pilsner (spend the extra and go German, it will taste better).
If your supplier cant give you what you need - try someone else. If you have a good local HBS support them, but if you need things they don't stock, get what you need I use Brewman, but depending on where you are there are a few good choices.

If I wanted to do a Dunkel Weiss, I would go to CarraWheat in preference to CaraMunich
Add the dextrose to the kettle near the end of the boil, about 5% of the total weight of extract, for a 25L batch (end of boil) that comes to around 150g.
The mash regime is a very specialised one, it isn't necessary if you are adding dextrose, it is designed to create Glucose (dextrose) which doesn't normally happen in a mash as the Maltase is killed off before the maltose is made.
There are way too many different types of wheat beer and ways of making them for us to cover here, if you want to know way too much try this Brewing Bavarian Weissbier  –  all you ever wanted to know

Starting out keep it simple and enjoy the beer.
Mark

Yes you're right. This will be my first wheat beer and my 4th beer ever. jejeje
Don't you dare say anything bad against my supplier! My supplier is a really nice guy, he has a lot of variety, great prices and he gives me really good advice. In fact, last time I wasn't sure he had all the things I needed for the Guiness-like stout and it turned out he did! I'll ask him for this particular floor malted posh things
Thank you for the link, I'll take a look anyway for the very special things

So for my 10l batch, it would be 50g of dextrose.
I've already read that article, in fact it's the same article I quoted before. Maybe the problem is, I'm multitasking... working while keeping an eye on you here... you're a bad influence! Today I'm leaving the office at 9pm if I keep "working" like this jeje

Convinced: 50% Wheat, 50% Pilsner, nothing else. Thank you.

Add the dextrose into the boil, that quantity won't make too much difference so it doesn't really matter exactly when.

Look up a priming sugar calculator to calculate exactly how much you need to add to each bottle, you're looking for around 2.5 vols CO2. But you need to get this bit exactly right, you should be working in grams per bottle, not teaspoons per bottle.

I wouldn't bother with a decoction at this stage either, you can make a perfectly decent weizen with a single infusion mash at 67deg.

On my 3 previous beers, I've used the same amount of white-regular-sugar-from-coles with the sugar-spoon. It's not a teaspoon, it's this little plastic thing for measuring the amount of sugar by volume depending on the size of the bottle.
I've seen this priming sugar calculator: https://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
And for Bavarian Hefe Weizen it says 3.6Vol. Also, the calculator is for gallons, so... does it mean they put all the sugar into the fermenter and then bottle directly from it? or should I calculate the exact amount for each bottle and add it on every bottle?
If I add all the sugar into the fermenter, it will decant/precipitate on the turb... :S and if i shake the ferementer to disolve the sugar I will have to wait until the turb settles again, so the yeast will start eating this new sugar wasting the CO2.

Using this other calculator https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/ I got:
Amount Being Packaged: 0.33l
Volumes of CO2: 3.6Vol.
Temperature of Beer: 20ºC

CO2 in Beer: 0.86 volumes
Table Sugar: 3.6 g
Corn Sugar: 4.0 g
DME: 5.3 g
According to the calculator notes: "Corn sugar and dextrose are the same thing"

So if I use the dextrose as primar, I should put 4g of dextrose per bottle, is that right?

 

[Droopy Brew]

If bulk priming (ie adding the sugar to the fermenter prior to bottling) you will need to transfer the beer off the yeast cake into another fermenter or bottling bucket, add the dext and stir to mix (slowly to avoid oxidation) then bottle straight away.

Wiezen is an easy beer to make but hard to master. Keep it simple. 50:50 wheat pils like you have planned. single addition of Hallerau or Tettnang at around 60 minutes for 15 IBU. Your mash profile is good- stick with it and forget the decoction. It is a lot of fluffing around for a small change (matter of opinion).
Ferment at 19C with WLP300 (happy to be corrected but I understand it is the same strain as 3068??) straight from the vial with little aeration.
Ferment will be vigorous and done in 4-5days. You can bottle at day 7 or 8 and dont cold crash- you want that yeast in suspension.

KISS

 

[Hez]

If bulk priming (ie adding the sugar to the fermenter prior to bottling) you will need to transfer the beer off the yeast cake into another fermenter or bottling bucket, add the dext and stir to mix (slowly to avoid oxidation) then bottle straight away.

Wiezen is an easy beer to make but hard to master. Keep it simple. 50:50 wheat pils like you have planned. single addition of Hallerau or Tettnang at around 60 minutes for 15 IBU. Your mash profile is good- stick with it and forget the decoction. It is a lot of fluffing around for a small change (matter of opinion).
Ferment at 19C with WLP300 (happy to be corrected but I understand it is the same strain as 3068??) straight from the vial with little aeration.
Ferment will be vigorous and done in 4-5days. You can bottle at day 7 or 8 and dont cold crash- you want that yeast in suspension.

KISS

That's exactly what i'll do! I'll put everything together and make the calculations for the water and all...
Thank you very much all of you!