Does bottle conditioning tame the banana?

Greetings. I'm brewing a Heffe (DME). I brewed a half batch but used a whole vial of white labs heffe yeast and the banana notes are off the charts. I'm okay with that, just wondering if bottle conditioning tames some of those notes.

Also, I've read that this beer can sometimes ferment quickly, as fast as four days. It looks like that might be the case here, should I bottle or ride it out for a few more days?

Thanks for the help

One of the flavors many hefeweizen yeast give is banana flavors, or "esters". Also, cloves. If the beer was fermented at a high temperature, it can be especially pronounced and it won't fade much with aging. It really depends on the yeast strain, and the temperature of the fermenting beer.

You can bottle any time the hydrometer readings remain stable after 3 days and are in the expected range. So, for example, if the SG is 1.012 today and again 1.012 in three days, it's ok to bottle. You'll get much less sediment and a better flavor in the beer if you wait a week or two before bottling, though.

My Hef did this as well. However, I had my temp at about 75 degrees for the first two days and was most likely due to the higher temps.

I have bottled them for about 2 and a half weeks now and the banana is still strong (Although I surprisingly like it).

Great! Thanks for the help. I actually love the banana notes, just noticed it was stronger than I expected. I'm in AZ so even in Feb. the temp in my apartment varies between 75 and 80 degrees with the AC off.

I will definitely give it some more time before I bottle too. Thanks again

I have noticed banana disapearing entirely after 6 months in a stout.

BennyN said:

Great! Thanks for the help. I actually love the banana notes, just noticed it was stronger than I expected. I'm in AZ so even in Feb. the temp in my apartment varies between 75 and 80 degrees with the AC off.

I will definitely give it some more time before I bottle too. Thanks again

Click to expand...

Well, if your apartment was 80 degrees, it might have been nearly 90 degrees inside the fermenter. That's almost 20 degrees too high. I'd suggest putting the fermenter in a "swamp cooler" to get it down next time. In a hefe, if you can stand the banana flavor it might not be too bad. But in other ales, it will probably cause some really bad flavors.

A swamp cooler is easy. You just put the fermenter into a bin with some water (and frozen water bottles if necessary) and put a t-shirt over the fermenter and let the water "wick up" the t-shirt and it cools the fermenter significantly. A fan blowing over it even improves it.

YooperBrew said:

Well, if your apartment was 80 degrees, it might have been nearly 90 degrees inside the fermenter. That's almost 20 degrees too high. I'd suggest putting the fermenter in a "swamp cooler" to get it down next time. In a hefe, if you can stand the banana flavor it might not be too bad. But in other ales, it will probably cause some really bad flavors.

A swamp cooler is easy. You just put the fermenter into a bin with some water (and frozen water bottles if necessary) and put a t-shirt over the fermenter and let the water "wick up" the t-shirt and it cools the fermenter significantly. A fan blowing over it even improves it.

Click to expand...

Oh man, I just assumed my room temp was the same as inside my bucket. I'm going to get the fan blowing ASAP! I'll pick up a bin for my next batch.

BennyN said:

Oh man, I just assumed my room temp was the same as inside my bucket. I'm going to get the fan blowing ASAP! I'll pick up a bin for my next batch.

Click to expand...

All of the activity going on inside the fermenter warms it up. I've noticed anywhere between 3 - 10 degrees F.

A great room temp for an ale is somewhere in the low 60's. For a Hefe, maybe a bit warmer depending on how much banana you're after.

Jamil recommends actually fermenting a hefe around 64, ceteris paribus. Also I wouldn't let it age real long, hefes are traditionally drunk young.

BennyN said:

Oh man, I just assumed my room temp was the same as inside my bucket. I'm going to get the fan blowing ASAP! I'll pick up a bin for my next batch.

Click to expand...

They sell "fermometers", which are stick on thermometers. They look like aquarium thermometers (which will also work, by the way, but they're smaller). You can stick one on your fermenter to see the actual temperature inside your fermenter. Believe it or not, fermentation itself produces quite a bit of heat. In a cool area, it might increase only a couple of degrees. But in a warm area, fermentation will go gangbusters and increase the temperature even more. I've had it 10 degrees warmer than ambient in the summer in an active fermentation but only 2-4 degrees warmer than ambient in a cooler environment in the winter.

I also like my Hefe with a bit of banana note. I am aware Jamil recommends in the mid 60's, but it is a matter of preference. You will get my banana at the higher temps. At the low end it leans clove. That being said 80 room temp was much too high. As I found out when I did my first beer, a Hefeweizen by the way, wheat beer can ferment violently and temps can run away if you let them rise. Ideally I cool my wort to around the low 60's, put it in the swamp cooler, and overnight generally it is ready for towel and ice to stabilize at 74. But that being said your happy. So enjoy those

As far as when to bottle, Hefeweizens are meant to enjoy young, so bottle when the gravity stays the same for three days. Most other beers, however, benefit for a primary of around three weeks for the yeast to settle out and clean up after themselves. This isn't an issue with a Hefe though. It is supposed to be very yeasty and have those "unclean flavors". As a matter of fact you are supposed to swirl around the yeast in the last 1/2 inch of the bottle and dump in your glass, unlike other beers where you want this left behind. hefe gained a reputation as an old person's beer for this reason as it is sworn by for "Spring Cleaning" and "keeping you regular" if you get my drift. "Designing Great Beers" recommends a higher than normal carbonation. If you want to fool with that I can post a chart of how much sugar/corn sugar to use.


In the future though as you do other styles you'll want to keep the temps down. A good place to start is to Google Wyest, White Labs, or whatever yeast you want to use and look up the technical aspects of the yeast you want. It will always give you a optimum fermentation temperature. When you first start out try to hit this. As you progress you can try stressing the yeast around these points for different effects to see what you come up with. Just keep good notes IN A NOTE BOOK, as computer files get lost when you least want them to. I have now lost all my records for everything I have ever done. It was in Beersmith. Those programs are great and by all means save your recipes, measurements and comments in them, but duplicate them in a spiral note book. If you liked this hefeweizen, write down how hot it was and every thing you did and every measurement you took so you can do it again. If you didn't like it still write it down so you don't make the same mistakes twice. You might think you can remember now, but after only about five batches it runs together.