Pale Wheat Secondary/Cold Crash??

I brewed a 2.5 Gallon extract batch of I guess I'm gonna call it a Pale Wheat.

1.5 lb Wheat DME
1.4 lb Pale LME
.5 lb Light

.25 oz Chinook 60 mins
.75 Cascade 60 mins
.25 Cascade 15 min
.25 Citra 5 min

Wyeast 1056 American ale (66 Deg Fermentation)

OG was 1.066 7 days ago.

Took a Gravity reading today and was at 1.012 (was very surprised at how short a time it took to get there, when in the past it took a lot longer on other beers)

Anyway when I took the reading the clarity looked like a typical wheat style beer (a little cloudy, but not completely). I was originally planning on a secondary and cold crashing to get some more clarity but wasn't sure if that was typical for a wheat or not or if I should even bother now.

Looking for thoughts, should I cold crash, or just bottle it up.

Thanks

First, give it another week in the primary. Hitting a certain FG doesn't mean that it's done.

If you want to drop some excess yeast out, crash it 5-7 days before bottling.

jerrya100 said:

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Anyway when I took the reading the clarity looked like a typical wheat style beer (a little cloudy, but not completely). I was originally planning on a secondary and cold crashing to get some more clarity but wasn't sure if that was typical for a wheat or not or if I should even bother now.

Looking for thoughts, should I cold crash, or just bottle it up.

Thanks

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If you want it clear, than cold crash, if not, don't bother. The are clear wheat beers (kristal weissen german beer institute style guide).

From another website (UK guide to Ger. beer) said:

"Refreshing beers, great for a sunny day. Pale straw coloured, clear, fruity and spicy, these beers are the filtered alternative to unfiltered hefeweizen and tend to be made by the same brewers and served in the same tall, elegant glasses.

Like hefeweizen, they are wheat beers and top fermented, generally around 5 percent abv. Some brewers describe their beer as Weizenbier (wheat beer), others as Weissbier (white beer). Both words mean the same.

It might seem a shame to filter some of the taste out of the beer, but they are a distinctive style of their own and make a great thirst quencher. Like hefeweizen, there should be a strong suggestion of bananas, bubble gum and cloves in the flavour, but with less of the yeasty, spicy complexity."

Click to expand...

I just kegged a wheat beer (~40% wheat) that I brewed as a lager. It was fairly clear already and should become quite clear after lagering. One of my goals in brewing this beer is to cement in my head exactly the tastes of what wheat does for a beer. A good number of the wheat beers I've had overwhelmingly taste of the yeast, and it is hard to pull out what the wheat itself is adding. This beer should tell me. I did the same thing with rye last year

This is an American style wheat recipe, not German, so you are looking for more clarity if you want to be within style parameters. leave in primary, cold crash for 5 days, and bottle. 3 volumes or so of CO2 is about right.


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