Hefeweizen VERY banana-y - Can I reduce esters?

Hello,

First-time poster and long-time reader!

I just brewed my first ever hefeweizen last week and fermentation has completed. I tasted it 3 days after pitching the yeast and then again yesterday. The first taste was extremely banana-y and yesterday was also still very banana-y (though not as much as the first taste). I am a big fan of hefeweiss and I know it is supposed to have a banana taste, but at the moment it is a bit overpowering.

From what I have read, it is an abundance of esters, which is caused by either underpitching (I pitched a full vial of White Labs WLP 300 in 4 gallons) or by under aeration during pitching (which may have been the case as my CFC was not running the wort though as quickly as I would have liked).

My question is: how can I reduce this banana flavour? Would it help to leave it in the primary for another week? Should I transfer to a secondary for a few weeks?

Any ideas/thoughts would be appreciated!!

Ferment cooler next time.

The Banana flavor should mellow a little bit with time, but not a lot.

Anyways for future reference when fermenting hefe's --->

Ferment cooler to increase clove flavor.
Ferment warmer to increase the Banana flavor.

Temperature has a much larger effect on the phenol and ester production then underpitching or under aerating would.

If it were my beer I would just brew another batch, ferment at lower temps, and add (slightly) more bittering hops THEN blend the two.

What temperature have you been fermenting at?

A rule of thumb for weizens is that the sum of the temperature that the yeast was pitched at and the fermentation temperature should be 30C (Ray Daniels, Designing Great Beers). I've also heard from Jamil that you want to ferment at 62F. That means pitch at 56F. I haven't tried it myself, but I've only heard good things.

I am fermenting at around 22C. I live in a small Korean apartment and the temperature hovers from 20C at night to 24C during the day. What would be the best way to lower the fermentation temperature?

You could place the fermenter in a larger container add some water and frozen water bottles to keep the temp down.



Where are you in Korea?

I was in Daegu in January for a couple of weeks.

I like hefe but not a fan of strong banana flavor so I've used WLP380 yeast for all my hefeweizen batches. Mine ferments at 68*F for two weeks, then 65*F for one week. Very happy with the results. The 380 is diffferent that it keeps the clove flavor but with minimal banana, or at least that's the description from White Labs.

HTH

Uh oh, the dreaded double post...

I had someone recommend the following to me, but I have never tried it or heard of anyone actually doing it... If your beer has too many esters, the recommendation was to keg it, pump up the CO2, for a few days, then let it bleed off, and repeat this four or five times and it'll stripe a good share of the esters out.

To me it sounded like a good way to ruin a brew, but that was the recommendation when I had a brew come out tasting like bananas.

My first Hefe I pitched at around 80, and stored cold where it finally got down to around 60 at the end of fermentation. I have in my notes "Wonderful banana smell coming from airlock" at 3 days into fermentation. For about 4 weeks after bottling, I could smell and taste the bananas from it, it was too much. I popped one open, say around 3 months after bottling, and the banana is almost completely gone... it tastes great.

I think the banana smell / taste will fade with aging... mine did.

Banana esters are temp related. Ferment under 20C.

I brewed a 10 gallon batch of my Hef Sunday. Pitched washed Wy3068 in 5 gallons and a fresh pack of Wy3638 in the other five.

As of this morning, both are fermenting away at 65*F, so I lowered the temp to 62*F.

I've found 62*F to be very good with 3068, a lot of clove, enough but not too much banana. Now to see how 3638 does at that temp.

02fx4dude said:

I like hefe but not a fan of strong banana flavor so I've used WLP380 yeast for all my hefeweizen batches. Mine ferments at 68*F for two weeks, then 65*F for one week. Very happy with the results. The 380 is diffferent that it keeps the clove flavor but with minimal banana, or at least that's the description from White Labs.

HTH

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I second the WLP380. My second batch ever was a Hefe, fermented cool, with WLP380 and it just took First Place for German Wheat and Rye in the big local contest. IMO it's a much more pleasant flavor profile, without being bland like an American Wheat