Hefe without wheat?

[Joshed1]

Hi guys,

Looking for anyone thats used a hefe yeast in a non wheat beer before. I'm feeling like making a hefe style beer, I've got WLP 300 and a cube of pilsner based wort ready from the other brew day. Looking for a banana/clove style beer. Just wanted to know how much of the clove/banana flavours come from the actual use of wheat vs the yeast and underpitching/temperature control.

 

[MHB]

Have tasted a version of Dampfbier made by Weizguy, its an old peasant beer made in Germany using Hefe yeast and an all barley malt (or barley/adjunct) grain bill. Sounds like it might be sort of the direction you are heading in if you want to do some reading.

I would like to caution about the notion that you should under pitch wheat beers/yeasts. True pitching at the lower end of the range recommended for commercial brewing is advised if you want more of the typical Hefe flavours. Like any yeast most of the flavours are made early on while the yeast is reproducing. This presupposes a bunch of other variables like the wort being well enough aerated for the yeast to do a reasonable amount of reproducing.
Most home brews are rather under pitched by commercial standards, a fair fraction are under aerated too, so just exercise a little caution cutting the pitch back too far, say under 0.4Million cells/mL/oP.

A little dextrose will help the beer develop banana flavours, it is an essential precursor in the production of Isoamyl Acetate, wont help with the other classic Hefe flavours/aromas but will help build banana.
Mark

 

[Joshed1]

Cheers Mark for the information and the tips, I'm reading up on the style now. The Dampfbier you have tried, did it have much bannana/clove? I'll be splitting the batch a few times to play with temp and pitch rates and do a side by side with dextrose too. I kinda feel like I should be doing it with a wheat based wort, but really dont want to wait another 12 days for Aus post to deliver again, will see how it goes

 

[MHB]

All the classic wheat notes were there but quite subdued.
A mate of mine brewed it and we are talking close to 10 years ago so its hardly fresh in the mind. PM Weizguy he is the expert on all things Wheat brewing related, spoke to him a couple of days ago so he is alive, even if not all that frequent a visitor here any more.
Mark

 

[eastgummy]

The % of wheat is one of the factors on the banana/clove character you get from hefeweizen yeast.
Usually stressing yeast will get more banana but it´s not recommended to stress it too much (underpitching, not areating...).
Plain dextrose, typically corn sugar, will get you more banana but it will thin out the body even more.
I would mash a little higher for body if you don't want wheat, and maybe add some carapils/dextrin malt.

First of all, read this article:
https://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/