hefeweizen yeast

Ok I've only had access to two hefeweizens in my town, one was flying dog which tasted good and the other was Franziskaner which tasted like rotten green bananas but it seems pretty popular, now I know hefes are supposed to have a bananna taste but did I just have an old beer? Green bottle so was it probly a combination of being old and skunked mixed with the intended banana taste? I'm asking because I want to make a dunkel weizen but I don't wanna use a german hefe yeast if I get the rotten banana taste

Try a Franzikaner or Ayinger or Spaten Hefeweizen in a BROWN bottle if you want an accurate representation of the style. Cloves and banana should be balanced, and should not be rotten.

IMHO, Flying Dog's hefe is a terrible example of the style. It's much more of an American Wheat.

If you're making a dunkel, use Wyeast 3068 at around 65-68*. You won't be disappointed.

+1 to Braufguss - Franziskaner is one of my favorite hefes (made by Spaten BTW) and if it tasted like rotten green bananas to you then you either got a spoiled bottle or you really shouldn't bother drinking hefeweizen.

I was discussing ferm temps of hefes and someone brought up that Jamil was recommending fermenting even lower than normally recommended by white labs and Wyeast with a ferm temp of around 62 degrees. My last one I kept at 67 degrees and it was good but the esters were a slightly more dominate than I wanted but not at all rotten banana flavors more bubblegum from the clove and banana flavor combining. I have not had a chance to do another hefe since that one so I have not tried the ultra low temps. I do know that my hefe yeast (WLP380) was incredibly veracious and definitely could have tolerated operating a few degrees cooler as it was done in less than 30hrs and attenuate a few degrees lower than expected.

I used WLP380 as it was meant to have less banana and more clove flavors I don't know if it does but that is the flavor I was going for with my hefe.


Clem

From your descriptions I'm almost possitive I had a bad bottle, I live in a Chrysler transmission building city, which accounts for 30% of all jobs, the rest are farmers and restaurant/bar workers, so the prefered drink is Miller lite or Bud light around here, so this bottle imported from germany most likely sat for a while, especially since I can still buy bells expedition stout that's been shelved since last year, now if I were to take a bottle of that hefeweizen and culture the yeast would they produce the off taste?

You'd be much better off, IMHO, to buy a vial of WLP300 and build a starter. #1, you stated that the bottle is probably old. #2, something funky is going on with it.

Go to Kai's website for some great info on crafting a traditional Bavarian weisse.

I agree - don't take a chance on harvesting yeast from what may be a ruined commercial beer. Also, some breweries (I don't know if Spaten is one) use a different yeast for bottle conditioning than they do for fermentation so the live yeast in the bottle may not even be a hefe yeast. I am drinking one of my latest hefes as I type this and it has mostly bubblegum and a slight banana flavor. I used Wyeast 3068 fermented 4 weeks at 67*F. Here's the recipe (6 gallons) for what it's worth.
6.5 LB wheat
6 LB Pilsener
mashed 1.5 hours at 152*F
1 OZ 4.9% Spalt at 60 min
1 OZ 4.9% Spalt at 30 min.
Grains were Weyerman.
O.G. 1.056 - F.G. 1.011

I'm planning on doing kaisers triple decoction schedule for a dunkelweizen I'm calling Hefe-Weiße Dunkel using 7 lbs pale wheat 4lbs munich II and 1lb carawheat all weyerman and .75 oz tettnager pellets I'm thinking about whether I want to use a hefeweizen yeast or just a german ale yeast, does the banana vanilla/bubblegum and clove dominate the beer or is it a slight background note, I want that slight fruity wheat taste but the bready/malt taste too but I don't want a vanilla clove banana dominate beer

KuntzBrewing said:

I'm planning on doing kaisers triple decoction schedule for a dunkelweizen I'm calling Hefe-Weiße Dunkel using 7 lbs pale wheat 4lbs munich II and 1lb carawheat all weyerman and .75 oz tettnager pellets I'm thinking about whether I want to use a hefeweizen yeast or just a german ale yeast, does the banana vanilla/bubblegum and clove dominate the beer or is it a slight background note, I want that slight fruity wheat taste but the bready/malt taste too but I don't want a vanilla clove banana dominate beer

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You can best control the amount of clove/banana esters from WLP300 by controlling the fermenation temperature. WLP300 can be rather vigorous, so keeping the temps down can really subdue the bubblegum esters. Also, I've read that doing a protein rest (120's) will accentuate the clove precursors in the final product. So, if you don't want alot of clove, you might want to skip that step.

I personally wouldn't use a generic ale yeast if I'm looking for a german weisse. I would use WLP300 or one of the other weisse-specific yeasts.