German weizen recipe

[Alex.Tas]

Hi y'all

Im looking at trying out a weizen, as I haven't tried one before. I'm only onto my 5th brew...
I've bought myself a tin of the thomas coopers wheat beer extract, and a kilo each of wheat dried malt and light dried malt.
I've plugged it into Ian's spreadsheet, and the IBU is a little high, but i'm not too concerned about that, as the dominant flavour form a german weizen comes form the yeast (or so i have discerned form various posts).

I'm not too sure on which yeast to use. I've got an immersion heater, and the lowest it goes is 22 deg, so thats pretty much my fermentation temp. either that or the 13 deg ambient temp in my house (gotta love tasmania).

I'm tossing up between 3068 and WB06. I'm a little hesitant to use the 3068 as I've never used a liquid yeast before. is there much more to it than a dried yeast? I've heard it better replicates things such as shofferhoffer (or however you spell it).
I've only got a 25L fermentation barrel too. From what i can gather, 3068 throws off a huge mass of bubbles and will go flying through my airlock if the wort level is too high.

Can anyone give me some advice?
Cheers,

Alex

 

[Byran]

I just put one in the fermenter, 55% Wheat 45% Pale malt. Used some Mosaic to hop it which isnt to style...... oops
I made a starter with a liquid vial of WLP351, its a good habit to get into as it ensures your yeast is healthy when pitching.
Plenty of info on yeast starters in the yeast forum of AHB
I would suggest usually having about a third of your fermenter free for yeast foam(krauzen) to have a free run.
If you don't you might have a boil over and that gets messy.
Or use a blow off hose.
Info on that here too in the yeast forum.
Weizen is fantastic and it is all about the yeast.
If you ferment at different temps you will find that the same yeast will produce different flavours. From cloves, to banana to bubbelgum.
If your worried try a small batch first, like 5 litres.
Just try one yeast and see how it goes. Then try another one. Its all part of the fun.
If it starts to throw some sulfur while fermenting dont worry too much. Just keep it in the fermenter and it should clean itself up, chemical processes goin on and what not.

 

[joshF]

Hey Alex, i actually just finished making a lemon weizen for the Mrs using the thomas coopers tin as a base so i can give you what my experience has been with it.

Mate i'd say WB06 is probably equally as aggressive/active as 3068, so at 25L it will almost definitely crawl out the airlock and try to attack you while you sleep, so you won't see much of a difference there. Make a blow-off tube your friend.

Using the 3068 won't automatically get you a beer tasting the same as schofferhofer so i'd definitely use the WB06 first and save the 3068 for when you're ready to use it. Try looking up some recipes with good reviews then do some research on using/making a starter for the liquid yeast so you make sure it gets a solid start. I'd wanna use a good yeast with a good recipe or grain bill.

You'll probably get mixed reviews about the temperature aswell, higher producing more phenol and clove flavours, while lower producing less of the typical characteristics of a weizen or heffe yeast. Personally i'd probably just wrap the fermenter in foil (around it, not over it) then wrap a towel or two around the fermenter and put in a warm area. When fermentation kicks off, you'll be suprised how much heat it will generate and and hence the temperature of the vessel will rise.

Anyway, good luck with it all, make the search function your friend, and hope it turns out well for you!

 

[manticle]

3068 fermented at around 17 degrees. A blanket around your fermenter for the first few days in the 13 degree spot will see your wort temp rise to fairly close as fermentation generates heat. Then when it is less active, use the immersion heater to finish it off.

3068 does throw massive krausen - leave at least 1/3 headspace. If your wort is under1050 or so and the pack is fresh enough, you should be right to chuck the yeast stratight in (although I'd follow the instructions for smacking and let it swell first - good indication as to the viability of the yeast)

Liquids get complicated when you look at splitting and making starters which you should for stronger beers (or use more than one pack).

 

[Alex.Tas]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Certainly learnt a few things. I didn't realise that wb06 threw a large 'head' in the fermenter.
I also didn;t realise that the yeast 'reaction' was exothermic too. makes sense though.
So if you use a blow off tube, you dont need as much head space? I guess i wanna maximise my beer yield per brew because I'm only brewing one barrel at a time.

 

[joshF]

The blow off tube will save you alot of cleaning up but a 25L fermenter probably isn't what many would call ideal for 23L batch (I'm guessing your talking about 23L batches otherwise you're making one hell of a strong Wheat beer!!!)

You could always get a 30L fermenter and just keep the 25L for secondary. Use the 30L for primary then the 25L would be ideal as a secondary (where minimal headspace is actually preferred).

Again, you'll probably hear mixed reviews about secondary fermentation but if you want to maximise beer output it would be ideal for you. Just my opinion though

 

[carniebrew]

I've just finished two extract weizen brews with 3068, the first at 23.5 degrees, and the second at 17C. Without a shadow of a doubt the 17C is the one to go for, as Manticle says. Tastes basically identical to the commercial dunkelweizens I enjoy so much. The 23.5C brew I did threw some nice banana aroma, but the flavour was tart and way out of style for me. Same goes for both my wb-06 brews, one done at 19.5 and the other at 24C. Both quite enjoyable, but a tart/spicy flavour that made them very little like what I was expecting.

Both my 3068 brews were 13 litres in a 30 litre fermenter, and both were extremely tame in terms of krausen, so I'm guessing the half-size batch must have helped.

 

[Alex.Tas]

I was thinking of maybe a 20L batch, but I won't use all of the dme. I'll find a value that sits about right for the style.
So all I need to do for a blow off is to run a hose from the top of my airlock into a bucket of sterilised water? Obviously it would need to be airtight too

 

[Helles]

Blow off tube is usally replacement for airlock
A hose runs from fv lid to jar filled with sanitizer