Underpitching A Weizen Wy3068

[ausdb]

I'm brewing a heffeweizen today the JBW from the Weyermann site and in a stroke of genius/idiocy have decided to double my batch size from 20L to 40L as all I need to do is use a bigger esky for my mash for the same amount of effort. I have a wyeast 3068 activator pack smacked and ready to go for the normal sized brew but no time to do a starter.

From reading here it seems that weizens really go with a bang when they start and I am thinking of doing it two ways
1) Pitch the pack into the whole batch and hope for the best
2) Pitch the pack into 20l of wort and then feed in the other 20L then next day but this worries me as far as infection

The wort will be well oxygenated as I have an oxy cylinder at home and will oxygenate through an airstone at the end of my CFC

Any tips?

Ausdb

 

[Vlad the Pale Aler]

If the second half of the wort has been boiled, cooled and stored in a sealed vessel in fridge, and everything is of a decent level of sanitation then the second option sounds good.
I have kept the second runnings from big beers in this way for up to a couple of weeks with no ill effects.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

I reckon you can pitch the activator pack into your 40L, but then aerate the fermenting wort twice a day for the next three days.

I have achieved the proper attenuation of a wort I have just pitched a 50ml WYeast pack into in this fashion. This is great for when a chance to brew unexpectedly arises and no starter is ready.

Jovial Monk

 

[ausdb]

Ta Vlad & JM
Its going to have to be option 1 as I cant fit a cube and the 50L keg fermenter in the fridge!

Ausdb

 

[ausdb]

Quick update here
My darling partner asked me to do some carpentry stuff for her so the brew session got seriously waylaid. So I now have time to get a starter cranked up!

Anyway in revenge I decided to commandeer one of our eskys and now have a new mash/lauter tun in 44L igloo esky (well insulated) with a U tube of hose braid (don't you love it when your partner used to manage a camping store) the next step is to commandeer the 54L one!.

I also put the finishing touches to my steam heating system for step mashes in the esky, it consists of a pressure cooker with a custom bulkhead fitting and control valve, some pressure hose and a steam wand to stir the mash with along the lines of this
http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/b...e2.4/jones.html
Real steam beer! I will take some pics during my next brew session if anyone is interested.

The only problem was I had to drink shit commercial beer left in the fridge from christmas as I am out of home brew

Cheers and beers
Ausdb :chug: :chug: :chug:

 

[warrenlw63]

Ausdb,

Just one caution when using a weizen yeast. From experience I've found that if you don't have about 20-30% of headspace in your fermenter the stuff just crawls out for a couple of days.

Throws the mother of all krausens. :unsure:

Warren -

 

[ausdb]

After a mega overnight brew session I managed to get 38L split into two 30L fermenters for headspace. I stopped oxygenating after half filling each fermenter as it was getting like Mr whippy city!



This pic is the chiller oxygenation setup, at the end of the chiller is a copper Tee with a stainless airstone fed into the centre of the Tee through some beer line and the nozzle of the oxy welding torch. In the middle of the tee the blue hose carries the oxygenated wort to the fermenter. Its all put together with rubber stoppers so its easy to clean and it gets sterilised in a pressure cooker for 15 minutes before use (another benefit of using steam for mash heating!!!). I have found I will need a pump as it took an hour to drain the kettle by gravity into the fermenters.


I didn't quite have my fermenting fridge set up so left the fermenters in the bathroom for two days at 26C I know this is above the recommended range for the yeast but now have it sitting in one fermeter and a 20L cube at 20-22C as I've got the fridge up and running with a digital temp controller. What sort of effect is this going to have on my finished brew? I plan on bringing the temp down to 18C in a day or two. Its still going pretty wild in the fermenters at the moment

Cheers

Ausdb