verysupple
Supremely mediocre brewer
- Joined
- 23/9/12
- Messages
- 1,057
- Reaction score
- 268
Hi all,
Bavarian wheat beer is one of my favourite styles. Back in my kit and extract days I brewed quite a few of them and they were OK but I really needed ferment temp control - some of the summer brews turned into banana bombs.
Now I'm doing AG and have a temp controlled fermenting fridge, I thought my hefeweissbiers would be even better. Wrong! I did 2 back-to-back brews of the same recipe and they are bland and boring. The mouthfeel is too thin. The flavour is bland with very little esters or phenolics and no beautiful bready/wheaty character. The aroma lacks any hint of clove or banana or wheat but has a hint of sulphur (although the sulphur reduces after a couple of weeks in the bottle). I need help! It's very drinkable, just not a proper hefeweissbier. I've read the style of the week thread here as well as everything else I could find on weizen.
The recipe was:
60% German wheat malt
40% German pils malt
BIAB single step mash at 67C for 60 min
Dunk sparge
Boiled for 60 min with a single 60 min Hallertau hop addition to 14 IBU
Wyeast 3068 fermented at 17C (I figured if that temp is good enough for Les The Weizguy and Jamil, then that's good enough for me )
I got crappy efficiency on both brews - about 61% on each (I usually get about 75 - 80%). I read lots of posts saying it's the wheat crush but as I get it crushed from the HBS I'm OK with crappy efficiency, as long as it's consistently and predictably crappy .
I pitched yeast starters as per Mr. Malty and during the 2nd and 3rd days of fermmentation I got huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, but hit target FGs after about 3 days. About 2 points below target FG I started raising the temp to 19C. After 2 weeks in the FV I primed and bottled to ~2.8 vols.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I love this style and it's such a shame to drink a bland version of it.
EDIT: Also, the first one is cloudy as it should be and the second is clear as....like a krystal, even though it's not filtered :s
Bavarian wheat beer is one of my favourite styles. Back in my kit and extract days I brewed quite a few of them and they were OK but I really needed ferment temp control - some of the summer brews turned into banana bombs.
Now I'm doing AG and have a temp controlled fermenting fridge, I thought my hefeweissbiers would be even better. Wrong! I did 2 back-to-back brews of the same recipe and they are bland and boring. The mouthfeel is too thin. The flavour is bland with very little esters or phenolics and no beautiful bready/wheaty character. The aroma lacks any hint of clove or banana or wheat but has a hint of sulphur (although the sulphur reduces after a couple of weeks in the bottle). I need help! It's very drinkable, just not a proper hefeweissbier. I've read the style of the week thread here as well as everything else I could find on weizen.
The recipe was:
60% German wheat malt
40% German pils malt
BIAB single step mash at 67C for 60 min
Dunk sparge
Boiled for 60 min with a single 60 min Hallertau hop addition to 14 IBU
Wyeast 3068 fermented at 17C (I figured if that temp is good enough for Les The Weizguy and Jamil, then that's good enough for me )
I got crappy efficiency on both brews - about 61% on each (I usually get about 75 - 80%). I read lots of posts saying it's the wheat crush but as I get it crushed from the HBS I'm OK with crappy efficiency, as long as it's consistently and predictably crappy .
I pitched yeast starters as per Mr. Malty and during the 2nd and 3rd days of fermmentation I got huge amounts of hydrogen sulfide, but hit target FGs after about 3 days. About 2 points below target FG I started raising the temp to 19C. After 2 weeks in the FV I primed and bottled to ~2.8 vols.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I love this style and it's such a shame to drink a bland version of it.
EDIT: Also, the first one is cloudy as it should be and the second is clear as....like a krystal, even though it's not filtered :s