Dunkel Hefe-Weiss

[weiht]

Brewing my first Dunkel Hefe-Weiss, in fact its the first wheat beer i'm brewing!!! LOL, reason being I had one at paulaner and enjoyed it, so I'm gonna have a go at it. It's really weird that I'm brewing this given that I just took delivery of LOTS of american/NZ hops!!!

23L 75%Eff OG1056 16IBU 16.5SRM
2.00 kg Munich I (Weyermann) (7.1 SRM) Grain 36.86 %
2.00 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 36.86 %
1.00 kg Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 18.43 %
0.23 kg Caramunich II (Weyermann) (63.0 SRM) Grain 4.16 %
0.12 kg Caraaroma (Weyermann) (178.0 SRM) Grain 2.21 %
0.08 kg Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 1.47 %
35.00 gm Tettnang [4.50 %] (60 min) Hops 16.6 IBU
Mash 65c for 60 mins, 67c for 30mins
Pitch 17c and ferment at 19c

I'd like dark munich or chocolate wheat malt but I cant get them around here!! I do not have the time to make a starter from slant as I'll be flying off soon, so what wld be a gd dry yeast? WB06? Will underpitch slightly for some ester formation while keeping the temperature cool.

comments?

[seymour]

Hi Weiht, there aren't a ton of dry yeasts for true-to-style Wheat beer, but there are a few good ones. They don't typically generate as much distinctive banana esters and clove phenols as a healthy liquid culture, but as you say, you can get close with a long lagtime, underpitching and fermenting at the warm end of its range.

The most German-Weiss-ish would be Danstar Munich, NBS/Neale's Weiss, Safbrew WB-06 and Mauribrew Weiss. Other options, which may lean more toward a Belgian Wit style include: Brewferm Wheat/Blanche, Safale K-97, even Safbrew T-58 (banana and clove, yes, but also lots of spicy black pepper, which I love but may scare-off the feint of heart.)

Good luck, and have a safe trip!

[Barley Water]

Just buy a tube of WLP300 and dump it onto the cooled wort. I never make a starter for heffe's and I never aerate. What I am trying to do is make the yeast work as hard as possible and replicate alot (because that is when all the clove and bananna flavors get generated). I know this is radical advice and this is the only style of beer I would dream doing this to but I have done this so often I have lost count and never had a problem. Once I did a heffe and used the yeast do do a Dunkekweizen and the second beer was way short of the traditional cloce/bananna flavors so emperical evidence would seem to support my theory. Interestingly, there is a discussion on this very topic in the new Wheat Beer book and at least one sucessful brewer is doing exactly the same thing so at least I am not the only "crazy" out there.

By the way, German wheat beers are great styles to brew if you want to learn about yeast handling because you can easily taste relatively minor changes to brewing procedure (the yeast behaves very similarly to many Belgian strains). I think it's fairly easy to make a passable example but there are alot of tricks involved if you want to brew a really great example. It's all great fun, good luck, let us know how it turns out.

[seymour]

+1, forget what I said, this is much better advice.

[Cazamodo]

Love to hear how this turns out. Have just moved my kegs and finally got them hooked back up and poured myself a hefeweizen and remembered how delicious it was. Is there much difference from a simple hefe recipe to a dunkel apart from the darker malts?

[weiht]

Thx for the advice guys. Guess I will have to postpone it till I get back in feb...

Barley water, thats a interesting practice for a 5 gallon batch with conventional OG if the vial is healthy and viable. A new vial shld have 70-100 billion viable yeasts, which shld translate to a pitching rate of 0.3-0.4 million/ml/deg plato for a 5gallon 1.052 beer. I can expect the beer to be very estery!! I may go with .04-0.5 million/ml/deg plato instead for my weak heart lol.

Cazamodo - The esters isnt as strong as a regular Hefe-weizen, and its a little more malt forward with some nice yeast character. I get a little nice roast and some caramel and chestnut.

[Barley Water]

Yeah I know you think I'm crazy but of all the yeast stains I have ever used, WLP300 is by far the most robust (it will blow the fermentation lock off the fermentor every time). It's like Lance Armstrong on steroids (err...well I quess he was).

If I was going to explain the difference between a Heffe and a Dunkelweizen it's rather like the difference between a Helles and a Munich Dunkel. Both are malty but the Dunkel will remind you of a crust of pumpernickel; a lot of melonoidin flavors going on. It's also a bit heaver and maybe slightly sweeter (due to the use of some crystal type malts). It will also have a fairly toasty note (but never roasty, do not even think about using roasty specialty malts). Finally, you really want the most Bananna/clove flavor you can get out of the yeast, that's what makes it really special. I may need to try and knock out a batch in the near future as I'm still trying to perfect a formulation for this style.

[Cazamodo]

That description sound delicious!
I've used WLP380 and 300, the 380 was overly clovey for me, and the 300 is slightly more balanced. Am I right in thinking to get the most out of it I need to pitch less. I have some wlp300 from a split vail but im thinking i only need to make a smaller starter to intentionally stress the yeast for this brew.

[Barley Water]

Yeast, like every other organism will multiply to the extent there is food for it to eat. Heffe yeast is extremely hardy stuff and it will quickly multiply (often violently) given adequate food. Yeast throws off by-products when it multiplys which generally you want to avoid however in this case brewers are looking to maximize the by-products because that is where the bananna/clove flavors come from (some trappist brewers employ this technique also but I digress). Other ways to get some of the same effects are to ferment hotter as well as under oxigenate. Fermentor geometry effects by-product production as does employing so called "open fermentation". Screwing around with all these variables is how you control the flavors produced (as well as of course selection of yeast strain).

[weiht]

What temperatures do u ferment at with the wlp300?

[seymour]

What temperatures do u ferment at with the wlp300?

Ferment warm, especially at the beginning. Most of the yeast flavors are produced in the first few days of primary fermentation. Temperatures between upper 60s - low 70s °F (19-23°C) produce balanced clove and banana notes. Using a temperature between 72-75 °F (22-24 °C) produces much more banana without too many fusel alcohols. During these colder months, I'd recommend a brew belt or submersible aquarium pump with a thermostat.

[Barley Water]

What temperatures do u ferment at with the wlp300?

Ah, that my friend is the "million dollar question". As Mr. Seymour correctly point out, the hotter you ferment the more yeast by- products you will produce. I would tell you to keep the temperature between about 62F and no higher than 70F. In my experience, once you go over 70F you run the risk of generating fussels which will ruin the taste of the beer. Lower temperatures will give you clove, higher temperatures will give you bananna so to some extent it depends on what flavor you are trying to bring out in the beer. If you compete, you will tend to have better luck with a balanced mix of flavors which generally means fermenting at the lower end of the temperature range. Really you just need to screw around with it and see what you like best.

[seymour]

...I would tell you to keep the temperature between about 62F and no higher than 70F. In my experience, once you go over 70F you run the risk of generating fussels which will ruin the taste of the beer...

That makes sense. I'm in love with over-the-top banana esters, which requires the higher temps, but this personal obsession means I'm in a constant balancing act with less desirable esters and fusels. As you say, it's something we all have to figure out for ourselves, and almost never truly nail it... And of course, that means BJCP judges never like my wheat beers as much as I do.

Barley Water, do you have a personal favorite fermentation temp for hefes?

[Barley Water]

I guess I shoot for a little under 65F. I also like the bananna flavors, the great Jamil says you should ferment the stuff at 62F which will give you more clove and he is the undisputed king of homebrewing. I also recently read that bubblegum flavors which start popping up at the higher temperatures are actually a flaw but to tell you the truth I rather like those as well, what do I know?

[seymour]

Thanks for the great info, Barley Water.

Speaking of bubble gum esters, to me, that's one of the defining characteristics which distinguishes a Belgian Wheat Beer from a German Wheat Beer, but I love it too. Have you ever used Wyeast 3739 Flanders Golden Ale Yeast? It's from Brouwerij Van Steenberge in Ertvelde, East Flanders, Belgium, which brews Piraat and Gulden Draak, etc.

My mother's family is from South Holland, near Flanders, so I used this strain for an imagined beer of my Dutch forefathers (it contained 18% wheat, by the way.) I pitched high at 77°F but chilled it to a fairly steady primary fermentation ≈ 68-70°F, secondary ≈ 64-66°F, and it was full of HUGE bubble-gum esters. I'm so bummed that yeast is in the private collection, and Brouwerij Van Steenberge no longer uses the primary strain for bottle conditioning!

Weiht, I'm sorry we've hijacked your thread, but apparently not sorry enough to stop.