Paulaner Hefeweizen Yeast

This is my first post here but I read the forums way more than I probably should. So my question...

I harvested some yeast from Paulaner Hefeweizen bottles and made a small starter to propagate them. It took a few days to kick off but to my surprise it worked.

So now what do I do with them? I haven't been able to tell for sure but I believe these yeast are not the fermentation yeast and probably a lager yeast added at bottling time. Should I try and make a batch with them anyway or should I dump them in a dunkel that I have going now when I keg it?

Taste the starter. Does it taste like hefeweizen -- banana/clove -- or neutral?

I would say it tastes neutral to me. I'm still pretty much a rookie brewer though. What does this mean?

might just be a neutral ale yeast they use for bottling?

eastoak said:

might just be a neutral ale yeast they use for bottling?

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I believe this is true.. from what ive been told its not the same yeast they use to ferment

eastoak said:

might just be a neutral ale yeast they use for bottling?

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I believe this is true.. from what Ive been told its not the same yeast they use to ferment

That's pretty much the same conclusion I came to from my internet searches. Guess I'll just dump it out.

BoundForBeer said:

I believe this is true.. from what ive been told its not the same yeast they use to ferment

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Yeah, I've read a number of German weizen's use a different yeast for bottle conditioning but never "why". I've read several times that Franziskaner does this. After making a bunch of my own hefe's I'm guessing, and this is purely a guess, the main reason is the appearance of floating hefe yeast in the glass after the final swirl and pour. Sometimes it can appear stringy or in small clumps and would probably ick a lot of people out. Either that or they figure the taste is not to be changed at all after fermenting and they use the neutral yeast to bottle condition. Personally, I don't know if they force carb or bottle carb, that may have an influence one way or another.


Rev.

They do it for shelf stability. Homebrewers don't have to worry much about that.

ReverseApacheMaster said:

Taste the starter. Does it taste like hefeweizen -- banana/clove -- or neutral?

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I'm drinking a Paulaner right now, and am not getting any
banana or clove notes. Good tasting beer, though.

I may design a Hefe recipe, using this yeast. ( bought
two bottles, just for propagating the yeast, and it is
working.)

skou said:

( bought two bottles, just for propagating the yeast, and it is working.)

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The folks at hobbybrauer.de seem convinced that Paulaner can't be propagated from the dregs in the bottle (the German verb for this is strippen). But if you manage to brew a proper hefeweizen with it, we'd all love to hear how you did it!

General thought is that Schneider (?IIRC) are the only ones who use the primary strain. Which kinda makes sense, the typical weizen yeast is a horrible thing from the POV of bottling in a commercial environment where you just want something that carbonates and then drops like a stone.

Northern_Brewer said:

General thought is that Schneider (?IIRC) are the only ones who use the primary strain. Which kinda makes sense, the typical weizen yeast is a horrible thing from the POV of bottling in a commercial environment where you just want something that carbonates and then drops like a stone.

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Actually, a low-flocculating lager yeast is used both for stability as well as appearance. In a Hefeweizen you want a nice homogeneous hazy appearance and not very clear beer with big chunks of flocculent yeast floating around in the glass as this would gross out most people. The latter is what you would get with a typical Bavarian Hefeweizen yeast after it's been sitting a while in the bottle.

I can confirm that Schneider neither filters nor pasteurizes its beers (heard it from Herr Schneider himself so I'm quite confident it's true) making them ideal candidates for yeast stripping.

Oh and you also want consistency in the amount of yeast in each bottle so filtration followed by inline mixing of fresh yeast is the only way to go.

Good to know about the lager yeast bit. I know some of the other hefe producers flash pasteurize their beer to >300 PU to set a permanent haze.

Vale71 said:

Actually, they use a low-flocculating lager yeast both for stability as well as appearance. In a Hefeweizen you want a nice homogeneous hazy appearance and not very clear beer with big chunks of flocculent yeast floating around in the glass as this would gross out most people. The latter is what you would get with a typical Bavarian Hefeweizen yeast after it's been sitting a while in the bottle.
I can confirm that Schneider neither filters nor pasteurizes its beers (heard it from Herr Schneider himself so I'm quite confident it's true) making them ideal candidates for yeast stripping.

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I'm a little confused now. Are the people who brew hefeweizens from the stripped yeast from Schneider bottles actually using lager yeast? Or a blend? Or...?

They're using the yeast Schneider uses both for primary fermentation and for bottle conditioning as it's the only yeast Schneider uses for any part of the brewing process.

Vale71 said:

They're using the yeast Schneider uses both for primary fermentation and for bottle conditioning as it's the only yeast Schneider uses for any part of the brewing process.

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...which is a low-flocculating lager yeast? I'm thinking there might be a pronoun-referent mix-up here.

You're right, I just edited my original post to fix the misunderstanding.

https://hobbybrauer.de/forum/wiki/doku.php/hefestripping

Here is a list of beers you can "strip" their original yeast from. Whatever came alive in your Paulaner beer is not the yeast they use for primary, nor is it the bottle conditioning yeast, cause they don't use any. The filter the beer clean and put dead yeast in there for the looks. Paulaner might be the worst german Weizen btw.

I have successfully stripped yeast from Schneider, Maisels and Gutmann several times. All easy, only Gutmann had like a 50/50 successrate.

I did a side-by-side tasting of Paulaner (bottle) and Oettinger (can) this summer. I don't agree that Paulaner might be the worst. ;-)

This spring, I also tasted Weihenstephan and König Ludwig, both on tap at a beer festival. I was surprised at how different they tasted.

Keep in mind that because of your location the freshness of imported beers might vary wildly.
I can assure you that Paulaner tastes awful even in Munich, only a few kilometers away from the brewery.

I didn't count in Oetti, you're right!

Weihenstephan and König Ludwig are both good. But there are so many small weizen-breweries in the south with awesome hefe, most better than the big ones.

Just a thought: Maybe Paulaner do it different with their export beers and keep the yeast alive? You never know...

Vale71 said:

Keep in mind that because of your location the freshness of imported beers might vary wildly.

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That's something that I am painfully aware of.

Johst12 said:

Weihenstephan and König Ludwig are both good. But there are so many small weizen-breweries in the south with awesome hefe, most better than the big ones.

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I was quite disappointed with the König Ludwig, actually. It tasted too much like my own hefeweizens! There was a tartness to it that I just couldn't really get into.

ebbelwoi said:

I did a side-by-side tasting of Paulaner (bottle) and Oettinger (can) this summer. I don't agree that Paulaner might be the worst. ;-)

This spring, I also tasted Weihenstephan and König Ludwig, both on tap at a beer festival. I was surprised at how different they tasted.

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Hahahahaha, Oetti is one of the cheapest beers available, for a reason. There are others as well, but Oetti is kind of "famous" for it's rubbishness within the German youth. I had some good time with it, brings back memories

I read about a group of guys doing a taste test of 15-20 different altbiers, and the Oettinger alt was ranked #4 or 5... something like that.

It's also the cheapest German beer in Japan. I've tried their hefeweizen, their export, their pils, and their schwarzbier. Of the 4, I liked the schwarzbier the best.

ebbelwoi said:

I read about a group of guys doing a taste test of 15-20 different altbiers, and the Oettinger alt was ranked #4 or 5... something like that.

It's also the cheapest German beer in Japan. I've tried their hefeweizen, their export, their pils, and their schwarzbier. Of the 4, I liked the schwarzbier the best.

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I actually only know their pils and their weizen, cause those were the only ones back in the days.... Oh, and their famous export as well, it still sends shivers down my spine when I think about it

Paulaner Weißbier is alright imo, one of the better ones among the worst but there are so many actually enjoyable ones (Schneider, Unertl, Gutmann, Maisel, Augustiner, and the list goes on) that I really don't see a point in propagating their yeast specifically. Besides, as discussed, it is probably not possible.

ebbelwoi said:

I read about a group of guys doing a taste test of 15-20 different altbiers, and the Oettinger alt .

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I also once did a blind tasting of 7 pale lagers, mostly Helles and Oettinger Export. Oettinger came in second, to the surprise of all tasters. (Riedenburger Helles was first, in case anyone's curious). Oettinger has a terrible reputation in Germany, I'd say mostly due to its low price and the derived fact that it is a favourite of alcoholics.

But even after this blind test, I couldn't get myself to buy it. When a friend asks for a beer, you can't give them Oettinger. you just can't.

monkeymath said:

But even after this blind test, I couldn't get myself to buy it. When a friend asks for a beer, you can't give them Oettinger. you just can't.

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It really depends on your type of friends

Edit: I'd prefer oetti over Von Raven.... Ok.... Now we arrived officially at the very bottom of German beer.