Wyeast Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast

[white.grant]

I have been fermenting my first Hefeweizen using the Wyeast Weihenstephan Weizen #3068. Its my first liquid yeast so I've been watching with great interest.

Its only a small batch (17l), and I have been impressed by the krausen formed by this yeast which, after a slowish start filled the headspace in the 23l fermenter for a few days before settling down to a thick creamy almost golden looking foam.

It continues to ferment away pretty happily at 17 degrees - it certainly has a lot of energy.

Apart from following the instructions on the smack pack I didn't do anything special, so is this type of activity typical for this yeast? Or am I just lucky?

cheers

grant

 

[schooey]

It's normal... hope you like banana

 

[Zwickel]

Grant, after your beer has finished fermentation, you may store the sediment of the fermenter in abottle in the fridge. If youd like your Weizen, you can use the yeast again in your next batch.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[Tony]

thats normal. You should see what it does at 20 deg.

You will probably get a fairly clean weizen at 17 deg bt heat the next one up to 20 deg for the banana Schooey was takling about.

And rig up a blow off tube........... it can get messy.

cheers

 

[///]

I had a double batch 1 spring fermenting in a 60l barrel.

Coincidently I had Dave from Wyeast staying at my place the evening. As we trotted downstairs near to where the beer was fermenting, like a triffid the yeast lasooed us and dragged us too our DOOM!

More seriously, its a huge top-cropper. I expected the merrangue to come up, but not like it did. The yeast crawled out of the FV and down the steps.

I went to apologise to Dave for the smell of the iso-amyl acetate but it was unecessary. All he did was smile and say 'thats my girl!'...

Scotty

 

[white.grant]

Thanks Guys,

these liquid yeasts sure beat the boring dried ones. Better than television!

Was planning to attempt to harvest the yeast as I'm sitting on a coupla big sacks of boho pilsener malt and wheat, so weizens are going to be my thing for a little while.

Bigger fermenter, blowoff tube & triffid repellant are now on the shopping list.

grant

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Hope these wiezens will be making a show at IB8

Cheers

 

[braufrau]

And rig up a blow off tube........... it can get messy.

*Tell* me about it!

 

[white.grant]

Hope these wiezens will be making a show at IB8

Cheers

I was hoping that it would be ready, but with 9 days left I'm not so sure - I am planning on bringing some of my Dry Irish Stout and the not quite nut brown ale though

 

[Weizguy]

my HAG case swap beer was a big (s.g. 1.089) Weizenbock. I used W3638, which is very similar to W3068

pitched onto a yeastcake and promptly split the 25l batch into 2X 30l fermentors.
Good work and prior planning led to the efficiency of not losing a lot of wort.
Each 12.5 litre batch climbed up to the 24 l mark in the vessel.

Maybe that's why Wyeast recommend allowing for 33% minimum headspace for this yeast.

Les

 

[Tony]

i have a cube full of dunkelweizen........... 28 liters of it, and i wont be pitching it with the 3068 in a 30 liter fermenter i can tell ya.

Its going in a 60 liter drum!

And the 40 liters of 50% rye Roggenbier i have planned to go on the cake............ well it will need a blow off tube!

cheers

 

[Henno]

Have just had my first massive failure with this yeast. I made a 46L batch and pitched it in two separate fermenters. To get as much banana as possible I ran it really high. I had not gotten any banana out of this yeast before and do single infusion mashes. Somebody has now told me they get good esthers out of multiple stage mashes but I am a bit new for that. Anyhoo I decided in my wisdom to run this one at 23 and off they went! I saved most of the escaping krausen with a towel so it wasn't too messy but the end result is shocking. I now have two kegs full of the most vial tasting crap I have ever put my lips to. Something must have creeped in when the airlocks were blown dry or they may have sucked back, dunno. It has a terrible smell that I can only describe as bad white wine, taste is similar but your taste buds are in too much shock after the smell to really know how it tastes I think.

46L about to hit the lawn.

It was the yeast that I started a post about not being able to smack probably and smelling like rotten egg gas when I was working it up. That left and the starter tasted and smelled fine when I pitched though.

 

[white.grant]

I'm bottling the hefe tonight, have been enjoying the hydrometer tastings over the last coupla' days, nice clove coming through . As this was my first liquid yeast I'm pretty happy and will attempt to save some of it for 'ron.

cheers

Grant

 

[Osangar]

I have done a hefe weisse with wyeast German wheat.

It fermented at 19c and went crazy, blowing foam all over the top of the fermentor. Great looking foam in the top when it settled a bit.

Has a distinct banana or bubblegum smell and taste I actually thought it was a dud not meant to have this flavour, although I like it.

Its still young, only a month or so old. Will be interesting to see how it ages.