Style Of The Week 13/9/06 - Weizen

[SJW]

I used all Dark Wheat in mine and fermented at 18. No banana but a nice drop all the same.Next time I am going to thrown a Banana in the boil. That will fix it!

Steve

 

[fixa]

Cheers, thanks for the feedback stuster

 

[tangent]

Fixa, I'd drop the flaked wheat. Other than that it looks good. 60% malted wheat is spot on IMO.

 

[RobB]

Hey guys..
Gonna have my first brewday since november this week, and want to try a weizen.
Here's what i've come up with...

Fixa,

That's eerily similar to my first crack at a weizen about a month ago: 60% wheat, 40% BB Galaxy, Tettnang to 13 IBU and WB-06.

I was constantly reading how weizens are best young. I cracked a bottle after two weeks and hated it - too dry, too tart, too clovey. By the time it was four weeks old it was an entirely different beer with everything back into balance. I might try a little munich next time, but otherwise this will become a summer staple.

Cheers,

Rob

 

[SJW]

Fixa,

That's eerily similar to my first crack at a weizen about a month ago: 60% wheat, 40% BB Galaxy, Tettnang to 13 IBU and WB-06.

I was constantly reading how weizens are best young. I cracked a bottle after two weeks and hated it - too dry, too tart, too clovey. By the time it was four weeks old it was an entirely different beer with everything back into balance. I might try a little munich next time, but otherwise this will become a summer staple.

Cheers,

Rob

I did the same but kegged and found it better after a few weeks. Next brew I will thrown in 100 or 200g of Melanoidin.
And do a protein rest prior to raising to 67 for 90 mins.

Steve

 

[blackbock]

According to German researchers at Weihenstephaner, Back, Diener and Sacher the secret to achieving a great Weissbier character is partly in the raw materials, and partly in the brewing process (that much at least is obvious).

What I hadn't heard before is that the formation of banana character is supposed to be helped by a protein rest of shorter than 10 mins. Longer protein rests apparently lead to increased clove aroma. They also made some findings which are probably only relevant to commercial scale brewing, regarding the shape of fermenting vessels (tall thin fermenters are supposed to reduce the amount of esters produced)

I will be trying some of their ideas out in my next Weizen... B)

Edit: dead link removed

 

[pdilley]

Snow.. I don't believe the German use any raw wheat in a weizen. It would be unpure. But I surpose as homebrewers who cares what they do :unsure:


I love a good weizen, the best IMHO being Schnieder Edel Weisse. Absolutely beautiful. Trouble being with a benchmark that high I have never been able to brew one I am totally happy with.

Here is another good article that explains the 30 deg rule too.

I will brew my ideal weizen one day, just fear the dissapoinment I may endure getting there. The starters always taste promising and then nothing from the ferment. I beleive my pitching rates have been too high in the past though. Must step outside the comfort zone once again.

Brent

Just a updated link, the original one exists no more so use the Internet Archive service to find the file:

http://web.archive.org/web/20060927082056/...se+of+wheat.pdf

 

[donmateo]

Greetings - I'm looking for some tips on making a nice hefeweizen.

I've noticed that a lot of people are using the german malt in making weizen style. Does anyone have any experience about the difference between the german malts, as to the australian malts for this style ?
I have tried several attempts at the hefeweizen style, and I'm using only the australian malts. I have still not been able to come up with a result which get's even close to some of my favorite commercial examples (schneider/weinsteph/franziscaner). I have tried all sorts of variations in malt ratio's, and fermantation temperatures, but I can't produce that vibrant fresh yeast driven character that is present in any the above examples. I have tried 3068, and 3638, from a packet in starter, or re-cultured from top-cropped previous batch, but I get similarly mediocre results with both. There is definately bananery esters being produced during fermentation, as the fermenation freezer smells great, but does not seem to take hold properly in the beer. Mash regime, I have tried from complicated low-temp mash-ins with steps rests and single decoctions(a la warner: german wheat beer), to a simple infusion at 67 or 63 degC, 40 minute boil to 2 hour boil, but no joy.
I'm not adding salts or anything to the water, it's straight filtered from the tap, and although I don't have good temperature controll, i've fermented batches at everywhere from around 17 degC, to around 24 degC, and no significant best pattern is emerging.
My malt bill iss essentially wheat and pilsner malts, and although I started at 50% of each, now I generally use about 60-70% wheat and the rest pilsner. Also, all of them have been no-chill.
Funnily enough, the only wheat beer I've been able to make that did have that yeast character, nice clean fresh vibrant banana, but a litttle light on the clove, was done with probably the simplest process: 50% LME, 50% Wheat ME, boil in 9L, little hops, top up to 16L, wack in the 3068 straight from the packet, no starter. It came up with great character typical of hefeweizen, but was a little thin and watery on the body - something that I was hoping to be able to rectify with all grain process.
Another thing I noticed while doing my starters, is that I generally save wort from the kettle to do starters with, and with the last batch, I used all I had, but ran out. So I did another starter-addition with DME. What I noticed was that I was getting significanly nicer weizen-yesty banana etc aroma produced from fermenting the DME, to my saved weizen wort.
Current batch is small size (11L) with a relatively large starter of 3638 (3 lot's of 2L) pitched, to see if increased pitching rate will help, but all signs so far are that it will be consistant with previous brews.
Also - another gripe is terrible head retention, but let's leave that for another rant..

Ok Doctor, i'm done, which is the magic pill ?

Any ideas appreciated.

 

[dgilks]

Greetings - I'm looking for some tips on making a nice hefeweizen.

I've noticed that a lot of people are using the german malt in making weizen style. Does anyone have any experience about the difference between the german malts, as to the australian malts for this style ?
I have tried several attempts at the hefeweizen style, and I'm using only the australian malts. I have still not been able to come up with a result which get's even close to some of my favorite commercial examples (schneider/weinsteph/franziscaner). I have tried all sorts of variations in malt ratio's, and fermantation temperatures, but I can't produce that vibrant fresh yeast driven character that is present in any the above examples. I have tried 3068, and 3638, from a packet in starter, or re-cultured from top-cropped previous batch, but I get similarly mediocre results with both. There is definately bananery esters being produced during fermentation, as the fermenation freezer smells great, but does not seem to take hold properly in the beer. Mash regime, I have tried from complicated low-temp mash-ins with steps rests and single decoctions(a la warner: german wheat beer), to a simple infusion at 67 or 63 degC, 40 minute boil to 2 hour boil, but no joy.
I'm not adding salts or anything to the water, it's straight filtered from the tap, and although I don't have good temperature controll, i've fermented batches at everywhere from around 17 degC, to around 24 degC, and no significant best pattern is emerging.
My malt bill iss essentially wheat and pilsner malts, and although I started at 50% of each, now I generally use about 60-70% wheat and the rest pilsner. Also, all of them have been no-chill.
Funnily enough, the only wheat beer I've been able to make that did have that yeast character, nice clean fresh vibrant banana, but a litttle light on the clove, was done with probably the simplest process: 50% LME, 50% Wheat ME, boil in 9L, little hops, top up to 16L, wack in the 3068 straight from the packet, no starter. It came up with great character typical of hefeweizen, but was a little thin and watery on the body - something that I was hoping to be able to rectify with all grain process.
Another thing I noticed while doing my starters, is that I generally save wort from the kettle to do starters with, and with the last batch, I used all I had, but ran out. So I did another starter-addition with DME. What I noticed was that I was getting significanly nicer weizen-yesty banana etc aroma produced from fermenting the DME, to my saved weizen wort.
Current batch is small size (11L) with a relatively large starter of 3638 (3 lot's of 2L) pitched, to see if increased pitching rate will help, but all signs so far are that it will be consistant with previous brews.
Also - another gripe is terrible head retention, but let's leave that for another rant..

Ok Doctor, i'm done, which is the magic pill ?

Any ideas appreciated.

My understanding is that two things are important with Weizen yeasts. The first is temperature. At higher temperatures you get more of the banana characters while lower temperatures give you more of the clove phenols. Some brewers I know start low and then ramp their temperature up to get the best of both worlds. The other is that to get esters you want to stress your yeast a bit. Large starters are not a good idea. Off the top of my head I don't know the correct pitching rate but you do want to under-pitch to a certain degree. As for your grist, it should definitely be at least 50% wheat to be a proper weizen.

 

[donmateo]

...
Large starters are not a good idea. Off the top of my head I don't know the correct pitching rate but you do want to under-pitch to a certain degree.

Yes - I have heard this before as well, but I noticed recently a photo of, I think it was zwickle's starters for his Hefeweizen, and they were quite monstrous compared to anything I had used before, so I thought I would try pitching a bigger amount. I don't think it is working for me though.

 

[kfahy]

Hi all,

a quick question about fermentation temp. I've seen a lot of people suggesting a ferment of 20 degrees and the odd one at 18 and some who ramp up their temp throughout the ferment.

Jamil says in Brewing Classic Styles that he struggled for ages with the ferment temp before being told that 17 is the key. Has anybody tried this? How does it compare to 20 degree ferments. 17 or 20 is a pretty big diff.

Normally i would go with the majority and go with 20 but Jamil said 17 so...

 

[warra48]

The best Hefeweizen I ever brewed (and it arguably was my best beer ever brewed) was made with a fairly large starter of WY3068 fermented at 17.5C all the way. Certainly it was not underpitched.
It was perfectly balanced between spice or clove and subtle banana.

 

[donmateo]

The best Hefeweizen I ever brewed (and it arguably was my best beer ever brewed) was made with a fairly large starter of WY3068 fermented at 17.5C all the way. Certainly it was not underpitched.
It was perfectly balanced between spice or clove and subtle banana.

Did you use australian, or european malts ?
I'm finally going to try doing a hefeweizen with european malt - it's the only thing I can think of that I haven't done yet, that might make a difference. I have to say though, if it is the missing link, i'll be very dissapointed if I'm not able to use local malts to make this fantastic style.

 

[rude]

I did a wiezen 50% Aust pilsener malt 50% weyermann wheat fermented at 18c unknowingly underpitched by a mile.

It was 1054 so needed a 4 litre starter according to mr malty. I pitched a wyeast into 1.5 litre starter & used half.

Wasnt a bad drop thought it had too much clove with a hint of bannana.

The next one Ive put the remaining yeast on a stir plate with a litre starter on top & will ferment at 20c.

The other half of the starter was in the fridge for 10 weeks, tasted it & not really happy I think it has an infection but will taste again after the stir plate ferments out.

If I am in any doubt will be bying a new yeast.

Oh for a good wiezen.

 

[rude]

Heres a pic

 

[manticle]

The best Hefeweizen I ever brewed (and it arguably was my best beer ever brewed) was made with a fairly large starter of WY3068 fermented at 17.5C all the way. Certainly it was not underpitched.
It was perfectly balanced between spice or clove and subtle banana.

I agree. No need to stress the yeast. Slightly cooler fermentation in my limited experience gives a wonderful balance

 

[therook]

I kegged my first Wheaty for the year last week and it is my best one so far. I used Newguys method which was passed onto him from memory by Dave Logsdon from wyeast. Pitched a 1.5 litre starter into 20 litres of NON Aerated Wort ( No splashing at all ) and fermented at 18c. First time i have got the Banana/Clove balance the way i like it.

Thanks newguy

Rook

 

[warra48]

Did you use australian, or european malts ?
I'm finally going to try doing a hefeweizen with european malt - it's the only thing I can think of that I haven't done yet, that might make a difference. I have to say though, if it is the missing link, i'll be very dissapointed if I'm not able to use local malts to make this fantastic style.

I used all Weyermann malts, 49% Wheat, 49% Premium Pils, 2% Carahell. 90 minute boil.
Water was straight local tap water, with 3 gr chalk in the mash, and 3 gr in the sparge.
Didn't aerate the batch itself, but added a couple of litres wort to the starter slurry, and aerated just that before pitching.

 

[Damian44]

Hey peoples, im curious if its worth adding Polyclar and gelatine to my Weizen? The Wyeast 3333 - German Wheat Flocculation is high.

My FG was supposed to be 1.011 but it was at 1.010 after 5 days so i crashed chilled it. Should i have left it for a couple more days?

Batch - 45L

4.60 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (1.8 SRM) Grain 55.42 %
3.70 kg Pilsner (Joe White) (3.0 SRM) Grain 44.58 %
12.00 gm Centennial [6.00 %] (60 min) Hops 4.7 IBU
47.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [3.50 %] (60 min) Hops 10.7 IBU
20.00 gm Tettnang [2.82 %] (2 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
10.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [3.50 %] (2 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
4 Pkgs German Wheat (Wyeast Labs #3333) Yeast-Wheat



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.94 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 3.90 %
Bitterness: 16.3 IBU

 

[kfahy]

Hey peoples, im curious if its worth adding Polyclar and gelatine to my Weizen? The Wyeast 3333 - German Wheat Flocculation is high.

My FG was supposed to be 1.011 but it was at 1.010 after 5 days so i crashed chilled it. Should i have left it for a couple more days?

Batch - 45L

4.60 kg Wheat Malt, Malt Craft (Joe White) (1.8 SRM) Grain 55.42 %
3.70 kg Pilsner (Joe White) (3.0 SRM) Grain 44.58 %
12.00 gm Centennial [6.00 %] (60 min) Hops 4.7 IBU
47.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [3.50 %] (60 min) Hops 10.7 IBU
20.00 gm Tettnang [2.82 %] (2 min) Hops 0.6 IBU
10.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [3.50 %] (2 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
4 Pkgs German Wheat (Wyeast Labs #3333) Yeast-Wheat



Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Measured Original Gravity: 1.041 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 3.94 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 3.90 %
Bitterness: 16.3 IBU

I am curious about this as well. This weekend i am going to put a weizen using WLP300. I am wondering if people use whirfloc, cold condition, finnings etc? With a beer which is so yeast driven do people try to extract a lot of the yeast out or is it better to have more residual yeast?


Cheers, and cheers for the advice re the lower fermentation temps. I'll follow the 30 rule, pitch at 13 and ferment at 17.