Brewing A Weissbier

[donmateo]

I'm a big fan of this style and I'm finding it quite difficult to brew well. One thing I'm curious about is the bottle conditioning aspect. Apart from the trickeries of actually brewing the beer - I've found that the few beers that I actually leave a while (perhaps 6 months or more ) sometimes tend to pour with bobbles of yeast all blackened and clumped together floating in the beer.
Has anyone else had this problem, and I wonder if it's got anything to do with the wheat beer yeast ? I've never had a commercial example do this to me, and I believe that some commercial wheat beer breweries use lager yeast to bottle condition - but I wonder if there is any way around this problem ?

 

[vykuza]

I'll be going with a different one out of the gate. I picked up a few hundred grams of Sorachi Ace from Nikobrew.com recently. Opening the packs gives a HUGE hit of grassy lemon aroma; so I'm making a "LemonWeizen". 60% wheat, 40% pils malt. I normally just bitter to 15IBU with either Magnum or Hallertau (or anything else noble I have lying around). For this one I'm going 7.5IBU at 60 minutes, then 7.5IBU at 15 minutes with this lemony hop. I'm considering a dry hop as well; but will taste it out of the fermenter before I commit to that and I'm a bit hesitant with the grassy aroma of the Sorachi.

I had this one on the todo list to reply to and report back, but of course, completely forgot about it.

The LemonWeizen was a bit of a flop, and having just cracked in to a Saison using the same kind of idea, I'm pointing toward the Sorachi Ace as the culprit, rather than the idea.

I've found Sorachi Ace as a bittering hop is amazing. As an aroma hop is lemony and nice. As a flavour hop, it ads a very specific, and not entirely pleasant flavour. It's a bit plasticy, a bit tangy (in the same way an off grape is a bit tangy) and quite unsubtle. Not my favourite. The LemonWeizen with the Sorachi Ace as a flavour addition absolutely reminded me of one of those little yoghurt style tubs of SPC "tinned" fruit.

So I'll be making another LemonWeizen, but this time going back to a 15IBU bittering addition, probably Hallertauer, then maybe the Sorachi as a dry hop, but only for a couple of days. I'm determined to try again, as the potential is there, and it could be great.

 

[sama]

I'm a big fan of this style and I'm finding it quite difficult to brew well. One thing I'm curious about is the bottle conditioning aspect. Apart from the trickeries of actually brewing the beer - I've found that the few beers that I actually leave a while (perhaps 6 months or more ) sometimes tend to pour with bobbles of yeast all blackened and clumped together floating in the beer.
Has anyone else had this problem, and I wonder if it's got anything to do with the wheat beer yeast ? I've never had a commercial example do this to me, and I believe that some commercial wheat beer breweries use lager yeast to bottle condition - but I wonder if there is any way around this problem ?

never had one in a bottle for that long.Is it mold? Ive seen a similar thing come out of a beer where the bottle hadnt been properly washed prior to filling.

 

[sama]

i brew simple 50/50 wheat/pils beers, fermented with wlp300 @ 20c and they are crackers. single infusion 65c.. Awesome summer beer. ala docs wheat beer in the recipe db.Takes a few layers of cling wrap to keep the krausen in tho. :icon_cheers: