Cidery Taste in Hefeweizen?

It's day 12 in the primary for my Hank's Hefeweizen from mdw. I just took a hydrometer because I was curious to see where it was at. SG was around 1.050 (recipe says 1.049 - 1.053). Hydrometer reading today was around 1.015 (recipe says 1.010 - 1.012). After the reading, I tasted it and it tasted cidery.

I know that the beer still needs conditioning time, but I just wanted to see if there is anything I should be doing now about it (other than drinking something else...).

A hefeweizen shouldn't need extra conditioning time - if it is well-brewed, you can drink it straight out of the fermentor after a week or two.

What yeast did you use, how much did you pitch, and at what temperature did you ferment?

What temp are you fermenting at and with what yeast?

ArcaneXor said:

A hefeweizen shouldn't need extra conditioning time - if it is well-brewed, you can drink it straight out of the fermentor after a week or two.

What yeast did you use, how much did you pitch, and at what temperature did you ferment?

Click to expand...

Beaten by mere seconds!!!

I used a vial of wl300 pitched from a starter. It fermented in my basement where the ambient temps were 68 and below.

Could be that it's still fermenting and tasting quite green at the moment. See how it's tasting when you reach FG.

Are you sure that is a "cidery" taste and not a clove taste? WLP300 gives off a Clove ester at the lower end of the fermentation range and a bannana ester at the upper.

Today's reading was 1.010. It seems that the "cideryness" has at least mellowed a bit. Now it's much closer to clove. It's more in the aroma than in the taste. But it's definitely not like any clove taste/aroma I've experienced in a hefeweizen. It's like a tarter / harsher version of SN's Kellerweis.

I guess I'll bottle, give it a few weeks and see what happens. It's drinkable, just off.

I recommend doing a ferulic acid rest for your hefeweizens (about 113 deg F if I recall correctly), and fermenting them starting at 63 degrees and ramping up into the high 60s. That tends to produce the best flavor profile, at least for the WLP 300 Hefeweizen yeast. I will brew with their Hefe IV strain (I think that's WLP 380) within the next couple of months, and suspect that it behaves similarly. I'll report back if this thread gets any responses around that time.

My first Hef had that green apple taste, i let it sit in the bottles another week and now after chilling for 2 day, it taste really great.
Just let it go a little bit longer