Weizen Experts Please Look At This

[skippy]

I want to do a scientific based study to do with an aspect of brewing beer (Weizen - is my favorite), that particular aspect must be measurable and have scientific based reference material available on the subject...any ideas?

I was thinking in the fields concerning yeast starter cultures, or

Increasing the amount of malted wheat used in the 'traditional' recipe - in relation to increasing final product quality

Any help appreciated.

Skippy

 

[newguy]

One thing immediately springs to mind. If you use wyeast 3068, two main things influence the classic banana clove flavour: oxygenation and amount of yeast pitched. No or almost no oxygenation increases the banana ester while it seems (in my experience anyway) that repitching the yeast from a previous batch seems to inhibit the banana ester.

The oxygenation issue is well known by wyeast and I'm pretty sure they'd be willing to share some information with you. There is also some information online - google will uncover it. The repitching issue is quite common knowledge to homebrewers but I'm not aware of any scientific studies.

I'd leave the recipe the same for all brews but vary dissolved oxygen level and pitching rates. Sounds like a really interesting exercise. Good luck! :beer:

 

[skippy]

if you give me your recipe for Weizen (you dont have to), i would happily supply you the results of my research!

pm me if interested

 

[newguy]

Recipe:

67% malted wheat
33% pale 2 row

Note that depending on your system (ie if it is prone to stuck runoffs), you can alter the recipe down to as low as 50/50 wheat/2 row.

Mash @ 66-67C for 60 min or until conversion is complete.

Only use a single bittering addition for 60 or 90 minutes (whatever your standard boil length is) and shoot for 10-11 IBU.

OG: shoot for 1.050.

Most people tend to employ the '30' rule for fermentation. Pitching temp + fermentation temp = 30C. From what I've seen, pitching at 12 and fermenting at 18 seems to be popular. I've pitched and fermented at the same temperature for most of my weizens and I'm really happy with how they turn out. Pitching and fermenting at one temperature will also eliminate a potentially difficult to achieve step.

 

[skippy]

I was looking at this as an option..

 

[skippy]

where are all the experts when you need them. WTF

 

[Jye]

I think a study on Weizen yeast would be fantastic and a lot of brewers would love you for it.

I would get my hands on as many strains of yeast as possible (liquid and dried) and ferment mini batches with different pitching rates and fermentation temps. Then quantitate the by products produces.

To keep it consistent use wheat extract and hop it with a 60 min addition to 15 IBUs.

Cheers
Jye

 

[Screwtop]

I think a study on Weizen yeast would be fantastic and a lot of brewers would love you for it.

I would get my hands on as many strains of yeast as possible (liquid and dried) and ferment mini batches with different pitching rates and fermentation temps. Then quantitate the by products produces.

To keep it consistent use wheat extract and hop it with a 60 min addition to 15 IBUs.

Cheers
Jye

+1

And most importantly ratio of wheat malt to barley malt in the grist bill.

 

[Adamt]

where are all the experts when you need them. WTF

Probably sleeping?

It will probably help if you were to explain a little about your background - your level of education or qualifications, what equipment you have access to and how much funding you have.

 

[t2000kw]

I want to do a scientific based study to do with an aspect of brewing beer (Weizen - is my favorite), that particular aspect must be measurable and have scientific based reference material available on the subject...any ideas?

I was thinking in the fields concerning yeast starter cultures, or

Increasing the amount of malted wheat used in the 'traditional' recipe - in relation to increasing final product quality

Any help appreciated.

Skippy

Please don't take this the wrong way, but what you said here is pretty vague. This is probably why you aren't getting many useful answers from the experts. They may not know what it really is that you want to do.

What specifically is it that you are interested in designing an experiment for with regard to yeast starters? Did you mean to compare fermentation time with one vs without one?

Regarding the amount of wheat malt and how it affects final product quality, what specifically do you mean by final quality?

If you wanted to compare a yeast starter vs direct pitching of yeast, you could split a batch, use the same yeast, use separate but identical sealed fermenters, and time how long it takes each one to get to the point where the airlock bubbles are exactly 60 seconds apart (or make your own metric for this).

For contributions of anything to final quality, you need a baseline or standard and also need to keep all variables controlled except one, which will be varied, unless you have a lot of time and resources on your hand, where you can use a statistics program like Minitab to help you make a few dozen runs with different variables changing and compare the results. And how you compare or measure the results has to be repeatable and have a certain amount of precision if you want to have useful and trustworthy results. You could use subjective testing methods with a panel of people who are familiar with the style. You could send samples to a beer competition and see which one of your variants gets judged to be the best example of the style. But maybe you don't care if it's to style, and if that's the case, you wouldn't want to rely on beer competition judges to do your "measuring" for you.

You might want to read this link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_experiments

At the end of the article there are other links that might help you out with your project.

If you are trying to do this for a college experiment, you'll need to come up with some specific things that you want to test, or maybe just one thing. If you're doing this for yourself, maybe you don't need to be scientific about it.

So you need to decide what it is you want to test or experiment with and how you intend to measure it. When you get the first part nailed down, you might get some help here with the second part.


Donald

 

[sah]

If I were to spend time experimenting in this area I'd be exploring the rule of 30. Focusing on one yeast at a time.

In my experience this has a large impact on the weizen.

Regards,
Scott

 

[Weizguy]

just spotted this as I have been unable to access the internet at work today (only 3 PCs in an internet cafe-style area), and all in use by Googlers and Facebookers. (winkers)

Can you perform gas chromatography to measure the level of phenolics or ester? I'd like to see some quantified results on those versus pitching temp or yeast count.

I'd certainly standardise the recipe as, say, 3 kg of Wheat DME and your choice of either Tettnang, Hallertau, Saaz, or Mittelfrueh to about 14 IBU. Do a full boil for 60 min. Choose to add a Whirfloc or not.
Standardised boil - same flame or electric element setting or boil controller. Same boil time.
Same water - may need to use RO or demineralised water.
You would have to have temp control on the ferment to ensure that it had no effect on the outcome, and it surely would if not controlled.

Difficult to have a single variable in a biological system.
Let us know how you go.
Shame that I was not a brewer until years after I left University.

Highly recommend "German Wheat Beer" by Eric Warner from the Classic beer style series. Many of his referenced items are in German, if that makes a difference.

Les the alleged Weizguy

 

[WitWonder]

Highly recommend "German Wheat Beer" by Eric Warner from the Classic beer style series. Many of his referenced items are in German, if that makes a difference.

OT;

Les I think that book is not bad however I feel alot of the stuff is out of date, most notably some of his instructions (at work here so going on memory) when it comes to mashing and decoction mashing. There wasn't any liquid yeasts available then either it would seem, given he talks about getting suitable yeasts from the brewery directly. My issue is that this book was published in 1992 and my book at least doesn't seem to have been revised since then. Alot has changed, malt in particular, in the almost two decades since it was published. I am not trying to rubbish the book as there is good stuff in it but if you do buy it bear that in mind. As a wheat fan I was a bit disappointed in the book.

 

[skippy]

just spotted this as I have been unable to access the internet at work today (only 3 PCs in an internet cafe-style area), and all in use by Googlers and Facebookers. (winkers)

Can you perform gas chromatography to measure the level of phenolics or ester? I'd like to see some quantified results on those versus pitching temp or yeast count.

I'd certainly standardise the recipe as, say, 3 kg of Wheat DME and your choice of either Tettnang, Hallertau, Saaz, or Mittelfrueh to about 14 IBU. Do a full boil for 60 min. Choose to add a Whirfloc or not.
Standardised boil - same flame or electric element setting or boil controller. Same boil time.
Same water - may need to use RO or demineralised water.
You would have to have temp control on the ferment to ensure that it had no effect on the outcome, and it surely would if not controlled.

Difficult to have a single variable in a biological system.
Let us know how you go.
Shame that I was not a brewer until years after I left University.

Highly recommend "German Wheat Beer" by Eric Warner from the Classic beer style series. Many of his referenced items are in German, if that makes a difference.

Les the alleged Weizguy

I might look at the area of pitching rate on yeast fermentation performance and effect on beer flavor... i can get access to equipment so i can measure viable cell count, final alcohol content, FAN and glycerol content. I'm waiting to see if i can use GC to measure Diacetyl, Esters, Higher alcohols, & Acetaldehyde

 

[muckanic]

Lots of folks seem to skip the ferulic acid rest. Why not test the impact of that?

Or go radical and forget the Rheinheitsgobbledygook by testing whether unmalted wheat works, whether processed flakes work, whether white flour works, etc.

Or look at what conditions are required for the brew to retain its character after a period of storage.

 

[mike_signorini]

I have been reading a lot on german style wheat beers recently. I am interested in seeing what you end up studying.

Though not scientific in nature, this thread explores many variables in wheat beer production and is VERY informative, including many of the above mentioned factors.

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch with 5lbs wheat malt, 2lbs 2row, 2lbs vienna, and 8oz crystal 15L. Mashed at 111 for 20 (ferulic acid rest), 152 for 40 and 168 for 10. I pitched one tube of WL380 (hefe IV) at 55 degrees and fermented at 62 degrees. This should yield a Schneider Weiss esque brew.

I just realized I am posting this in the metric world and did not convert... forgive me!

 

[t2000kw]

I just realized I am posting this in the metric world and did not convert... forgive me!

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Firefox script or add-on that would convert and add in parentheses from MKS to the American units or vice-versa? It would be very useful in forums since they have become international in nature.

 

[t2000kw]

Wouldn't it be nice to have a Firefox script or add-on that would convert and add in parentheses from MKS to the American units or vice-versa? It would be very useful in forums since they have become international in nature.

I just found something along those lines:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2286
Explanation here:
http://converter.mozdev.org/
Latest release:
http://converter.mozdev.org/installation.html

It also works in a few different ways, and here are some examples:
http://converter.mozdev.org/examples.html


I pasted the text below in the composition window and right clicked the icon, then clicked "convert page" and it added what you see in the parentheses. It's almost what I was hoping for. And you can use it on any page and get American units if it's in the MKS units and vice-versa, since it's context sensitive. Not bad. Anyone find a better one out there?


Donald

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I just brewed a 5 gallon (5 gal = 18.9 L) batch with 5lbs (5 lbs = 2.27 kg) wheat malt, 2lbs (2 lbs = 907 g) 2row, 2lbs (2 lbs = 907 g) vienna, and 8oz (8 oz = 226 g) crystal 15L (15 L = 3.96 gal). Mashed at 111 for 20 (ferulic acid rest), 152 for 40 and 168 for 10. I pitched one tube of WL380 (hefe IV) at 55 degrees (55 F = 12.8 C) and fermented at 62 degrees (62 F = 16.7 C). This should yield a Schneider Weiss esque brew.

 

[mike_signorini]

I just found something along those lines:


I pasted the text below in the composition window and right clicked the icon, then clicked "convert page" and it added what you see in the parentheses. It's almost what I was hoping for. And you can use it on any page and get American units if it's in the MKS units and vice-versa, since it's context sensitive. Not bad. Anyone find a better one out there?

Awesome! That is really helpful, as I spend a fair amount of time on boards in the metric world and have yet to train my head to translate... since I cook it is mostly weight... volume is pretty easy, but WOW! it even assumes the degrees and converts.