Hefeweizen

[maltman]

Hi all,

I am thinking of brewing a Hefe in the next couple of weeks using a 60/40 split between malted wheat and malted barley.

With the barley I was going to use Pilsner malt but i see people have previously used Maris Otter, any particular reason for this other than it was at hand?

Main point to this post is the yeast.

Initially i was going to use WLP380, introducing a ferulic acid rest at 44c (20 mins), fermenting at 18-20C to get those clove phenolics and slight banana esters.

I have read a few things about WD-06 that may change my mind, has anybody used this yeast now? If so what do you think of it? I've read that it produces a lot of phenols at around 21C, probably negating the need to do a ferulic acid rest? Is it a true Hefe yeast or a normal wheat beer yeast?

Any information on this yeast would be great. Thanks in advance.

[TheBigEasy]

You need the help of the Hefe king seveneer or look here
http://jimsbeerkit.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=383

[Barley Water]

I think you are doing the right thing using the pils malt if you want to make a weizen bier. Interestingly, the exact proportion of wheat malt to pils malt does not make that much difference since it is all about the yeast/fermentation. I personally like WLP300, you can get either bananna or cloves or some of both depending on your fermentation temperature. I also try to stress the yeast a little by not using a starter and I also don't oxigenate the wort (which hopefully encourages the yeast to throw off more of those nice esters and phenols). The other method used to stress the yeast is to pitch cold and let the wort warm up to your target fermentation temperature (that is how the Germans do it according to Warner).

I have had very good luck doing decoction mashing on this style of beer. It is a pain in the butt but I think is adds a certain something to the body which is hard to duplicate with an infusion mash only. I would also consider adding a little Munich malt to the formulation, especially if you are not going to do a decoction. Finally, make sure your fermenter has alot of head space, this yeast almost explodes once it gets going. I usually keg my weizen and I naturally carbonate using wheat DME. You then end up with a good load of yeast in the keg which also adds to the taste (and gives you a good dose of B vitamins as well).

[delboy]

I think people on here used MO becuase thats what they had kicking around, pilsner would probably be closer to the style but i wouldn't get hung up about it if you don't have it in your stocks.

[maltman]

Thanks everybody for your input so far.

Have read about stressing the yeast a little to up the ester / phenolic profiles. Barley Water what was the final gravity reading of your beer then, does it still finish without any extra help? Also read about the 30c rule to.

Looks like not to many people have had a go at this style using the WD-06 dry yeast then? Saw an advert in BYO magazine (March-April 2008) the other day and it was being used as a Wit bier yeast so they were suggesting that it would lend itself more to a Belgium Wit than a German Hefe?

If dry is OK though then it possibly means no 44c rest, no starter and a few extra £s in my pocket

[delboy]

Thanks everybody for your input so far.

Have read about stressing the yeast a little to up the ester / phenolic profiles. Barley Water what was the final gravity reading of your beer then, does it still finish without any extra help? Also read about the 30c rule to.

Looks like not to many people have had a go at this style using the WD-06 dry yeast then? Saw an advert in BYO magazine (March-April 2008) the other day and it was being used as a Wit bier yeast so they were suggesting that it would lend itself more to a Belgium Wit than a German Hefe?

If dry is OK though then it possibly means no 44c rest, no starter and a few extra £s in my pocket

You'll probably still want to have that 44c rest if you want lots of phenolic character regardless of whether its liquid or dry yeast.
Personally i don't like the phenolics too much so the next hefe i do i'll be going out of my way to not get them ie no rest, ferment warm, stress the yeast, anything for those banana esters

[Barley Water]

Gee, I would love to answer your question but frankly I don't know. I almost never bother taking a terminal reading, I just taste the stuff. I have never had problems with weizen yeast finishing out, if you use the stuff just once, you will see what I am talking about. That strain of yeast is probably the most active I can ever remember using for any style of beer, it can gush out of a 7 gallon carboy while fermenting a 5 gallon batch. I would have to say though that the beer was attenuated fine for the style. By the way, if you want a true to style weizen, do not use a Wit beer yeast, it's a different animal altogether.

If for some reason you want to try and dry out the beer using WL300, you might try adding some lager yeast at bottling or kegging time. That's what the Germans do according to Warner. Another neat little trick I just picked up recently is to add another of the weizen yeast strains at bottling time to try and make a more complex product. We just got done with our big competition here and the guy that came in ahead of me (I got a 3rd place) got his beer to display both the bananna and clove as well as some bubble gum and plumb by doing this. His beer was very, very good so I will be doing some playing around with this technique in the future. By the way, he only lost to the eventual best of show in a competition with approximatly 1,200 entries just to give you some idea how good his beer was.

[maltman]

It must have been a very good beer then Barley water. Might just stick with the one yeast though, this time.

I do prefer the cloves rather than the banana but not too much to numb the tongue. I think I read somewhere, but cannot remember where, that doing a 44c rest when using the dry yeast makes the phenolics far to over powering, I might have dreamt that one though.

[Barley Water]

I don't have experience doing the "clove" rest since I prefer more bananna myself. I would try to ferment about 65F if you want cloves with some bananna and skip the "clove" rest so as to avoid getting too much. The other thing I found doing any sort of protein rest is that it tended to hurt the head retention. I also like to carbonate pretty high and I think that a great big head on the top of the beer is madatory for the style.

[maltman]

Ok i will take one for the team and try the WD-06 as it seems that few if any have tried this yeast out so far. I might skip the 44c rest this time, leave that step for the liquid yeast i think.

[Vossy1]

Whereabouts in south manc are you mm?
Can you make the meet up at the Railway Inn Stockport on the 12th of April pm?

[maltman]

Hi Vossy,

Just live a couple miles from Altrincham. I am off down to London next weekend for a mates Birthday, going to be a big session on the sauce, thanks for the invite though.

Back to the hefe i see that Danstar have their own Munich Wheat Beer yeast now. Decisions, decisions

[maltman]

If anybody else is interested in using these dried yeasts then i have just noticed a forum where people have already used them.

AussieHomeBrewer-forum

[bconnery]

The wb06 is a yeast that produces wheats more "german" in character than bavarian.(Yes I know, Bavaria is in Germany, but that's a discussion for another forum I think ) You will not get an erdinger or schofferhoffer etc from this.
It does produce a strong clove character.
Many have avoided the acid rest because the yeast produces enough clove on its own, and some that did do one found the results too clovey.

A few people have even gone so far as to add banana to the boil in order to get the character that is closer to the more normal wlp300 etc results, and it has worked well.

An alternative, for those going down the dried path, would be to see if you can get hold of the new Danstar Munich wheat which a few guys I know have tried very recently. Early indicators are that it produces wheats very much in the bavarian style.

With wheat beers most people, because these are the most well known examples out of germany, are looking for the classic bavarian flavours, in which case a good yeast, such as wlp300 or the new munich, 50% wheat, not by law but because the wheat does play a part in the production of the flavours, underpitching to stress the yeast, and either the 30C rule (which I admittedly haven't tried) or else fermenting at around 20C seems to work well.

When it comes to the choice of other malts to go with the wheat I always suggest people think of a wheat they like.
All pils will give you a light wheat like schofferhoffer, more munich and a little crystal gets you more like franziskaner or darker ones.

[mysterio]

Heres the recipe and procedure I use. I used to do a 50/50 split of Pils malt & Wheat malt with the WLP300 but it produced quite a bland beer a bit like Erdinger. This produces a slightly darker one a bit more like Paulaner, Weihenstephan or Franziskaner. I chill down the wort as long as I can wait, then but the wort in the fridge to bring it down to 12C, pitch a 1.5L stir plated starter of WLP300 then oxygenate for about 20 seconds. I then bring the temp up to 18C within around 12-24 hours.

Helles Weißbier
Bavarian Weizen (Weissbier)

Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 11.00 gal
Boil Size: 12.59 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.55 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 55.53 %
2.78 kg Munich Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC) Grain 27.81 %
1.39 kg Pilsner (2 Row) UK (2.0 EBC) Grain 13.88 %
0.28 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 2.78 %
90.00 gm Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [3.80 %] (60 min) Hops 17.7 IBU
1.00 tbsp Ph 5.2 Stabiliser (Mash 90.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP300) Yeast-Wheat

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.013 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.10 %
Bitterness: 17.7 IBU
Est Color: 15.4 EBC

My Mash Step Time Name Description Step Temp
90 min Step Add 25.99 L of water at 72.4 C 66.0 C

Mash Notes:
Carbonation and Storage

Carbonation Type: Corn Sugar Volumes of CO2: 2.4
Pressure/Weight: 235.9 gm Carbonation Used: -
Keg/Bottling Temperature: 15.6 C Age for: 28.0 days
Storage Temperature: 11.1 C