How Soon Can I Bottle 'Er?

I brewed (my first) Dunkelweizen on 9/21. As is typical with my wheat brews, I'm just leaving it in primary until bottling. Having never done a dunkelweizen before, how soon before I can bottle? It finished fermenting in 3 or 4 days, and has been steady at 1.013 since then. It's a fairly light DW...1.046 OG. I know, technically, I could bottle right now because fermentation is done, but what's the recommended waiting period for this style?

well, is it supposed to be crystal clear, or is cloudiness an acceptable/desireable trait to keep it true to style?

if it can be cloudy, I say 10-14 days in primary, then bottle (like a hefe)
if it should be clear, when primary is done (3 days consistent hydrometer readings), rack to secondary for 2-4 weeks.

DW is supposed to be cloudy. I'm figuring this like a hefe, so maybe I'll bottle later this week. Thanks.

Evan! said:

DW is supposed to be cloudy. I'm figuring this like a hefe, so maybe I'll bottle later this week. Thanks.

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Evan -

I'm brewing my Dark August Dunkelweizen again this weekend to be consumed at Thanksgiving Dinner. (My cousin's a huge fan of wheat beers). I was actually about to post on the same issue, so I thank you for it.

Basically, the first time I brewed it I put it in secondary for two weeks, but because of my lack of time to brew over the past month (a tragedy, I know) if I do that again this time, it only gives it three weeks in the bottle, which, IMHO, is cutting it a bit close, so after reading a few other posts about hefes going straight to bottle, I'm planning on using this approach for my DW.

Schedule is:

Primary - 14 days (as long as done fermenting)
Then bottle. That will give it almost 5 weeks in the bottle before Thanksgiving.

Just my .02. Hope it helped.

Cheers,

I'd give it 2-3 weeks in primary then bottle. SOP for a wheat.

For what its worth I bottled my hef after 6 days in the primary. It was done and I needed the space. Turned out good.

but I've brewed a couple of hefewiezens with Wyeast weheinstephan and the yeast settles to the bottom of the bottle like my other HB's.

I've tried other commercial hefewiezens like weheinstephan have the yeast suspended even after being in the fridge. Anybody else notice this? Just curious.

Regards,
Al

I don't get your question, Al. Are you asking whether certain hefe strains flocculate faster than others? If so, the answer is yes. But I've never done any scientific analysis, so I can't tell you which ones are faster or slower.

I don't know what the exact strain is that I used. I got it from a local micro's conical. But it's strange...the vast majority of the krausen dropped in a few days...but there's been the same damn thin layer of stuff sitting up there for the past week. If I rock the carboy gently, some of it will fall out, but most of it hangs tight. Weirdness. The SG has been the same for that whole week, and it's pretty low, so I don't think that anything is really still going on...that layer just refuses to floc on its own.

Hell, you can drink this one straight out of the primary....

Nah, I love hefes and DW and I usually take them out of primary around 10 or 14 days, whenever I have time, straight to bottles. I treat them the same. I usually start drinking them about 5 days after being bottled. But that's me, lots of folks do it other ways. I'm about to start kegging my hefe's though and suspect I'm gonna have to re-think my gameplan.

Every hefeweizen I've ever had has yeast settled at the bottom, unless I manage to rouse it up beforehand. The cloudiness comes from proteins still suspended. The proper way to serve a hefe out of the bottle is to pour all put a few ounces into the glass, swirl up the yeast into those last few ounces, and then pour the rest of the beer into the glass. Those who really know the drill shake the bejebers out of the bottle to get every last bit out and into the glass.


TL

Evan! said:

I don't get your question, Al. Are you asking whether certain hefe strains flocculate faster than others? If so, the answer is yes. But I've never done any scientific analysis, so I can't tell you which ones are faster or slower.

I don't know what the exact strain is that I used. I got it from a local micro's conical. But it's strange...the vast majority of the krausen dropped in a few days...but there's been the same damn thin layer of stuff sitting up there for the past week. If I rock the carboy gently, some of it will fall out, but most of it hangs tight. Weirdness. The SG has been the same for that whole week, and it's pretty low, so I don't think that anything is really still going on...that layer just refuses to floc on its own.

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The commercial hefes I've tried are cloudy with suspended yeast and don't have a great deal of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. You get a cloudy yeasty hefe without even agitating the bottle. With my HB hefes I can decant them nearly as clear as non hefes and have to swirl up the yeast from the bottom.

I was just wondering if this was just yeast strain specific or if it was something else in the brewing process.

Regards,
Al

GIusedtoBe said:

The commercial hefes I've tried are cloudy with suspended yeast and don't have a great deal of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. You get a cloudy yeasty hefe without even agitating the bottle. With my HB hefes I can decant them nearly as clear as non hefes and have to swirl up the yeast from the bottom.

I was just wondering if this was just yeast strain specific or if it was something else in the brewing process.

Regards,
Al

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I think the wheat puts a lot of the "haze" you are referring to. Every commercial hefe I had in Germany had the yeast at the bottom. Paulaner, Franziskaner, Weihenstaphen.