My weizenbock didnt attenuate all the way!

I brewed a weizenbock with an OG of 1.072(was supposed to be 1.082)
I pitched a 3 liter starter which should have been enough for 1.082 so techinically I over pitched a tad. However, I heard a recommendation to under aerate to get more ester production from this yeast. So What I did was just dump the batch into the fermenter without shaking it. I normally shake it real well after the yeast is pitched. After the fermentation started it began to blow the airlock off so i changed to a blow off tube. After fermentation was completed I noticed an alarming amount of yeast that blew off into the small container of starsan.



My question is could my 70% attenuation from 1.072 to 1.023 be the cause of the amount of yeast i lost and/or the under areation? This yeast was supposed to attenuate to 80% as per the WLP380 statistics yet I only got 70% and that was using a mash of 150f!


Any suggestions or thoughts on this? Should I worry about overcarbonating during the bottle conditioning stage??

This was all grain, I take it?

The malt from your dark grains do not attenuate as much.

Did you take that into your calculations?

Oxygen was probably one of the big factors- after boiling, your wort has almost no oxygen in it. By shaking the carboy to oxygenate, you are under oxygenating, so you should have at least done that. The only way to properly oxygenate your wort (to 8ppm oxygen) is with pure O2 and a stone.

Your recipe may also be a factor: what's in your beer? Your FG is at the high end for style, but not ridiculous. I'm sure it's tasty anyway. How long has it been fermenting, and did you transfer off the yeast already? I'd say let it sit, warm it up, and rouse up the yeast to see if you can get another few points off of it.

It tastes excellent. I'm Just concerned that I lost control at some point. The recipe is:

7.5lbs Wheat
1.5lb Munich 10L
4 lb pilsner
5.5oz Melodnoiden
.5 Special B
5.5oz Pale chocolate

Mash 150F

it's been in the primary for more than a week now so I havent racked it secondary and I dont plan on it

Cpt_Kirks said:

This was all grain, I take it?

The malt from your dark grains do not attenuate as much.

Did you take that into your calculations?

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7.5lbs Wheat
1.5lb Munich 10L
4 lb pilsner
5.5oz Melodnoiden
.5 Special B
5.5oz Pale chocolate

What were your fermentation temps? That's also a potential factor to consider.

The White Labs website indicates attenuation for WLP380 as between 73 and 80%. The two questions appearing in the FAQ for the strain relate to attenuation issues, and the answers seem to cover the points already mentioned - wort, oxygen, temp, loss of yeast to blow-off - but nothing particularly definitive in terms of answers.

BigBlueDog said:

What were your fermentation temps? That's also a potential factor to consider.

The White Labs website indicates attenuation for WLP380 as between 73 and 80%. The two questions appearing in the FAQ for the strain relate to attenuation issues, and the answers seem to cover the points already mentioned - wort, oxygen, temp, loss of yeast to blow-off - but nothing particularly definitive in terms of answers.

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Initial pitch temp was 64f. It fermented at 65f for the first few days then i slowly increased to 70f over the course of the remaining fermentation.

I don't see anything suggesting how long this was in the primary fermenter (1 week, 2 weeks??). I just bottled a weizenbock myself (primary for 13 days, then bottled), though I pitched directly onto the yeast cake of a previously brewed dunkelweizen. OG was 1.080, FG 1.016, so I had proper attenuation with mine. Sounds like not oxygenating hurt your attenuation to me. 1.072 is in the middle of the style (1.064-1.080+), so that shouldn't be a concern, but your FG of 1.023 is just outside the listed (1.016-1.022). Becausee of this, I might back off the priming solution just a tad (I used 4.8 oz of table sugar as primer for 2.8 volumes of C02). If this is a straight 5 gal batch, backing off .2-.4 oz should get you the volumes you need with whatever primer you use. Hope this helps.

p.s. I fermented at ~70 for the entire fermentation, if that also helps (Wyeast 3068 was my yeast of choice).

Funny, you didn't like the previous thread you started?

http://https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/my-weizenbock-didnt-attenuate-all-way-357634/

duboman said:

Funny, you didn't like the previous thread you started?

http://https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/my-weizenbock-didnt-attenuate-all-way-357634/

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Looks like I am getting much better responses here

frankieboy007 said:

I don't see anything suggesting how long this was in the primary fermenter (1 week, 2 weeks??). I just bottled a weizenbock myself (primary for 13 days, then bottled), though I pitched directly onto the yeast cake of a previously brewed dunkelweizen. OG was 1.080, FG 1.016, so I had proper attenuation with mine. Sounds like not oxygenating hurt your attenuation to me. 1.072 is in the middle of the style (1.064-1.080+), so that shouldn't be a concern, but your FG of 1.023 is just outside the listed (1.016-1.022). Becausee of this, I might back off the priming solution just a tad (I used 4.8 oz of table sugar as primer for 2.8 volumes of C02). If this is a straight 5 gal batch, backing off .2-.4 oz should get you the volumes you need with whatever primer you use. Hope this helps.

p.s. I fermented at ~70 for the entire fermentation, if that also helps (Wyeast 3068 was my yeast of choice).

Click to expand...

It's been in the primary for 10 days but activity stops at day 6. The krausen dropped and i have been trying to rouse the yeast every so often. Thanks for the advice

So, White Labs states that this strain requires more oxygen, so you likely under-aerated; plus, maybe fermented on the cool side. Those factors should be easy enough to control for next time.

But maybe you've heard some of this before...

BigBlueDog said:

So, White Labs states that this strain requires more oxygen, so you likely under-aerated; plus, maybe fermented on the cool side. Those factors should be easy enough to control for next time.

But maybe you've heard some of this before...

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Im at the website now. Where does Whitelabs say this for this particular strain? Do you have a link?

BigBlueDog said:

So, White Labs states that this strain requires more oxygen, so you likely under-aerated; plus, maybe fermented on the cool side. Those factors should be easy enough to control for next time.

But maybe you've heard some of this before...

Click to expand...

Nevermind, I found it in the FAQs.

Thanks!!!

klamz said:

Looks like I am getting much better responses here

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Ya, you're right must've been my not mentioning the fact you did not aerate the wort

duboman said:

Ya, you're right must've been my not mentioning the fact you did not aerate the wort

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It's not that I didnt like your answer it was the fact that I got so little responses. I dont base the answer on 1 person's opinion so I look for repeated similiar solutions before considering it could be the cause of the problem. Besides.....more people visit the General forum anyway

thanks for your help.

klamz said:

It's not that I didnt like your answer it was the fact that I got so little responses. I dont base the answer on 1 person's opinion so I look for repeated similiar solutions before considering it could be the cause of the problem. Besides.....more people visit the General forum anyway

thanks for your help.

Click to expand...

No worries and in the end I'm glad you got your answer. It's just forum etiquette to not create duplicate posts throughout a forum.