Wheat Beer - 2 Questions

[eteo]

Hi, I brewed the following last weekend:

1 Coopers wheat beer kit
4 lbs wheat malt
0.5oz Hallertauer 15 mins
0.5oz Hallertauer 2 mins
cooled to 22 degrees
pitched Wyeast 3068.
OG 1060

Temperature is now 17 to 18 degrees and it is fermenting away nicely.

After fermentation is complete, I intend to keg the beer. I have 2 questions:

1. What psi should I use?
2. How long should I wait before drinking? ie does the beer benefit from a longer storage and does it improve with age or is it best drunk 'fresh'. Thanks

 

[The Big Burper]

Hi, I brewed the following last weekend:

1 Coopers wheat beer kit
4 lbs wheat malt
0.5oz Hallertauer 15 mins
0.5oz Hallertauer 2 mins
cooled to 22 degrees
pitched Wyeast 3068.
OG 1060

Temperature is now 17 to 18 degrees and it is fermenting away nicely.

After fermentation is complete, I intend to keg the beer. I have 2 questions:

1. What psi should I use?
2. How long should I wait before drinking? ie does the beer benefit from a longer storage and does it improve with age or is it best drunk 'fresh'. Thanks

eteo,

1. 14 psi gassing and serving. At 14 psi it will take about 6 days at 6dC

3. Don't know about wheat beer. I made the mistake recently, using Coopers Lager yeast, of kegging after my normal 14 days in the fermenter, and the "egg" aroma that that lager yeast puts out was still there on my first taste a week later. So using proper lager yeast requires you to lager it for a while longer than using ale yeast. In fact, the Coopers European Lager I now have in the keg is very bloody ordinary, especially with that egg on the nose. :angry: Coopers do recommend a couple of months in the bottle, so maybe at least a month in the keg would make it better.

Never mind,
Have a few nice bottles of dark ale to wait it out.
Dave.

 

[Tyred]

Wheat beers, when done with a wheat beer yeast, should be drunk fresh. I believe that this is so that the aroma and flavour of the yeast comes through best when it is young.

 

[steven]

the wheat's im making are tasty after a week in the bottle, but after about 2-3 weeks they have a proper wheat beer style head, and the flavour improves a touch.

still id say wheat's are consumed green compared to other styles.

 

[GMK]

Using a LAGER YEAST.

Alot of lager yeast require a diacetyl rest - rais th etemp to 20C for 2days.
Then rack to secondary and chill to 2c and dry hop if necwssary.

Hope this helps.

 

[eteo]

Thank you all. I will keg it as soon as it is finished fermenting, place it in the kegerator and set the psi to 14 and drink in about 2 to 3 weeks. That sound right?

 

[stowaway]

Thank you all. I will keg it as soon as it is finished fermenting, place it in the kegerator and set the psi to 14 and drink in about 2 to 3 weeks. That sound right?

longer u leave it chilled the better it will get

so dont rush to drink it. (my opinion i guess)

 

[bconnery]

Wheat beers are best drunk fresh. You've used one of the classic hefeweizen yeasts in WY3068 so keg it and start drinking it in a week.
Plenty of people I know wouldn't even wait a week when it comes to wheats...

 

[Pennywise]

I've found too that wheat's are best drunk ASAP, after about a month they tend to loose alot of their profile. Can't wait to bottle a Hoegaarden clone tomorrow, will be hooking into it in 7-10 days :icon_drool2:

 

[reviled]

I've found too that wheat's are best drunk ASAP, after about a month they tend to loose alot of their profile. Can't wait to bottle a Hoegaarden clone tomorrow, will be hooking into it in 7-10 days :icon_drool2:

I agree, I did a hoegaarden clone as my 2nd ever k&k beers, I started drinking it after 10 days and it was fantastic, nice and cloudy with an awesome taste. I remember I left a couple of bottles to mature for about 12 weeks and when I cracked one of those it still tasted fantastic, but it was dead clear <_< Not good for a wheat beer and it had lost heaps of its flavour profile and had gone mega fizzy... So was nowhere near as enjoyable as the new stuff!

 

[Steve]

Wheat beers are best drunk fresh. You've used one of the classic hefeweizen yeasts in WY3068 so keg it and start drinking it in a week.
Plenty of people I know wouldn't even wait a week when it comes to wheats...

+1 Force Carb it and get stuck in straight away.

 

[PostModern]

I've found too that wheat's are best drunk ASAP, after about a month they tend to loose alot of their profile. Can't wait to bottle a Hoegaarden clone tomorrow, will be hooking into it in 7-10 days :icon_drool2:

I agree, I did a hoegaarden clone as my 2nd ever k&k beers, I started drinking it after 10 days and it was fantastic, nice and cloudy with an awesome taste. I remember I left a couple of bottles to mature for about 12 weeks and when I cracked one of those it still tasted fantastic, but it was dead clear <_< Not good for a wheat beer and it had lost heaps of its flavour profile and had gone mega fizzy... So was nowhere near as enjoyable as the new stuff!

Hoegaarden don't make a weizen as far as I know.

eteo, I have had weizens like yours and kegged them 6 days after pitching yeast, left to chill overnight with plenty of pressure on the CO2, then served the next day. Great beer to have fresh.

 

[reviled]

Hoegaarden don't make a weizen as far as I know.

eteo, I have had weizens like yours and kegged them 6 days after pitching yeast, left to chill overnight with plenty of pressure on the CO2, then served the next day. Great beer to have fresh.

Whats the difference between a Weissbier and a HefeWeizen?

 

[Pennywise]

I reckon this site is an awesome reference point for whatever you need to know about styles http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/styles.html B)

 

[reviled]

Definition:
Another name for Weissbier. "Hefe" means yeast, and "Weizen" means wheat, so Hefeweizen is "yeast wheat." Germans prefer to call the brew Weissbier, while North Americans prefer the term Hefeweizen. The beer is yeast turbid, because it is unfiltered. For more on this style, see Weissbier. Related beer styles:
Kristallweizen, Dunkelweizen, Weizenbock, Weizendoppelbock, Weizeneisbock, Russ

So theyre exactly the same then??? So why is Hoegaarden not a weizen? If all a weizen is is a wheat beer?

 

[Weizguy]

Whats the difference between a Weissbier and a HefeWeizen?

They are both German wheat beer, but Weissbier is an older name for it , IIRC.

I kegged a Schneider clone and left it on the gas overnight. Took it to a mate's house the next day, and 7 of us made short work of it - gone by lunch time. The first 2 500ml glassfuls were very cloudy though, due to yeast. The first was compared to an espresso and the second was the colour of a latte.

The beer was superb! :beer:
Les the wise 'un

 

[PostModern]

Whats the difference between a Weissbier and a HefeWeizen?

Nothing. Hoegaarden make a Witbier, not a weizen. Raw, unmalted wheat, orange peel, coriander. These ingredients are verboten for beers brewed in Germany. Wit and weizen/weiss are very different styles, that they both happen to contain some form of wheat is immaterial.