Wheat Beers - How Do You Reduce Clove Flavours And Increase Banana Fla

[warra48]

I brewed my first weizen (w/ 3068) when I was still pretty "green" (brewing rookie) and it was fantastic with a nice banana/clove balance. Every effort after that resulted in only cloves, no banana. I was at my wit's end.

Then I happened to meet Dave Logsdon, the founder/president of Wyeast. He was giving a presentation at a homebrew competition and his talk touched on the 3068 strain. He told us that if you do NOT oxygenate your wort with that strain, that it will produce the banana ester. Too much oxygen (and it doesn't take much) and it won't produce the banana ester at all. Well that certainly made sense with what I had experienced. When I was a rookie, I didn't oxygenate worth a damn, nor did I step up my starters particularly well. As I brewed more, I pitched more yeast and oxygenated my wort better - which coincidentally resulted in no banana and all clove.

The next weizen I brewed I did not oxygenate/splash my wort at all prior to pitching. [I still pitched a medium sized starter because the double whammy of underpitching and no oxygen scared me.] .....And I finally got the banana back.

Note that if I repitch directly onto the yeast cake of that first batch, the second doesn't have much banana at all.

Hope this helps. :beer:

ps. Keep your fermentation temperature below 19-20C for best results.

That goes a long way to explaining why the best Hefeweizen I ever brewed was one where I didn't aerate the batch at all. I had built up a good sized starter, and chilled it and the batch to 17.5C. I poured off all the starter wort, and fed a couple of litres of the batch on top of the starter. It was at high kraeusen with about hour, and I then pitched the starter. I fermented at 17.5C all the way.
It had a lovely balance between clove and subtle banana, with terrific wheaty mouthfeel and flavour.

 

[Nick JD]

Slightly OT, but how do the breweries manage to make their weizens taste great six months after they are bottled. My weizens are best as soon as carbonated and then they lose all those interesting flavours over the next few weeks.

After a month or two they are still nice - but not like a six month old Shoferhoffer or a Paulaner.

 

[roller997]

Slightly OT, but how do the breweries manage to make their weizens taste great six months after they are bottled. My weizens are best as soon as carbonated and then they lose all those interesting flavours over the next few weeks.

After a month or two they are still nice - but not like a six month old Shoferhoffer or a Paulaner.

I have a few bottles left which are from October 2009 and they taste much better when I include the sediment than when I serve them almost clear.
For some reason the beers have a lesser emphasis on clove and they seem to have retained their faint banana flavour when the sediment is added.
To me, that particular brew tastes better now than it did in December, 4-5 weeks after bottle conditioning.

I generally don't consume fast enough to get through a batch in a couple of months, so I even have a 14 month old wheat beer but that is beyond its prime by quite a bit. It is drinkable but it is not anywhere near as enjoyable as it was in its younger days. My wheat beers are usually closer to 5.5%ABV so perhaps that helps them to be a bit more resilient as well?
With the two examples you quoted, it certainly would not be due to preservatives unless they have a different brew process for making "Reinheitsgebot" exempt beers for export.

Mind you, the commercial examples are not always all that great when they get closer to their best by date.


Cheers

Roller

 

[mje1980]

Gotta love the search function!!. Last few i've brewed have had lots of clove, but not too much banana/bubblegum. Going to try and aerate as little as possible, skip the starter and ferment around 20c. I did the F rest, so i should be right for some clove. Hopefully it'll have all 3!

 

[droid]

excuse me

 

[pajs]

Whereas I'm really not keen on the banana at all. Happy with clove in wheaty-rye things, very happy to get pear & plum if using a Belgian yeast on these, but try and avoid the dreaded banana.

 

[shmang]

If you haven't already have a listen to Basic Brewing radio pod casts about Hefewiezen, In particular the October 29, 2015 (Hefeweizen Fermentation Temperature Experiment) & August 20, 2015 (Hefeweizen Pitching Rate Experiment) episodes.
Some good info.

 

[Matplat]

Just remembered I had this...

All about bananas...

View attachment Wheat_beer_article_for_NB.pdf

 

[Matplat]

And this