No Banana Flavor, Dunkelweizen

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

stevepgh

Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2010
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
First of all, this forum is amazing and I have learned so much reading the posts here day after day. Thanks so much.

So... I recently brewed the partial mash version of the AHS Dunkelweizen kit. The beer has little to no phenol/ester flavors that I hoped would be pronounced after fermenting with WLP300 for that typical banana weizen taste :ban:.

The beer is quite young (~1 month since brew day) but weizens are supposed to best tasted fresh, right?. I fermented in a swamp cooler at roughly 68F and I pitched a nice sized starter: maybe 1L.

With now 10 or so batches under my belt, I'm getting a bit frustrated when the beer does not come out the way I hoped. How come there's no banana weizen flavor in this beer?

Should I have actually NOT used a starter, which would mean underpitching and an increase in fruity esters? Or is my ferm temp to blame? Thanks.
 
Ferment in the low 70's, I did mine at 74º and it was a banana bomb, I used no starter either, but I dount that played a factor.
 
Thanks. Also, I feel as if I did not aerate the wort very well before pitching the yeast. Could this have any affect on the production of banana esters during fermentation?
 
From Brewing Better Beer:
Esters can also be increased by reducing oxygen in the wort, raising the gravity or the wort, reducing fatty acids present, and increasing zinc levels. Higher fermentation temperatures, decreased pressures and decreased stirring can increase esters. In general, stressing the yeast during fermentation can increase esters.
 
Personally I have found the higher the ferm temp, the stronger the :ban:. I have always had an issue with producing too much :ban: however. (I have fermented between 68-80F)

Most brewers are interested in balancing the spice with :ban:. I know Jamil offers a precise temp he feels creates the perfect balance, however I don't remember what that is so if someone has it please post it up.

One lesser known method of balancing these two flavors is using an acid rest. Apparently this creates the precursers to spicy phenols while lower ferm temp (I think around 64f) controls banana. Can anyone back me up on this?

Of course you didn't brew all grain so you probably can't use that info. Good luck!
 
Back
Top