Hefe with WLP300: No Bananas?

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malweth

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I just checked my Hefeweizen, fermenting with WLP300. Because of advice from the reviews on White Labs' site I fermented it pretty cold at 60-62 (basement room temp). I had one day where the banana smell hit you in the face as you entered the room, but on this morning's tasting there was only a barely perceptible banana taste.

My questions are: are the reviewers crazy and don't know what a German Hefe should taste like? Am I crazy in thinking there should be much more banana (my comparison is to Gordon Biersch's on-tap Hefeweizen)?

I don't want to warm it up now... but I'm planning on working on the Hefeweizen as my "study beer" and will be brewing it often.

Recipe/Stats:

Partial Mash (1/2 lb malted wheat, 3.3 lbs Coopers Wheat, 3 lbs Munton's Wheat DME)
OG: 1.046 (1 May)
CG: 1.020 (7 May)
FG: 1.010 (estimated)
 
Hef's are regional in germany, it depends on what region you are in. you need to be closer to 70 with wlp300 you'll get the banana. I prefer wlp380, it has more citrus and I enjoy orange and coriander. Not exactly traditional, but it's the way I like it.
 
yea its in the temps with the hefes i have done. In my hefes lowers 60s have had more clove, upper 60s have had more banana. Im still new (1 year this month) but hefe is my go to brew and i did medal with it recently.
 
I just brewed my second beer with 300. It was a dunkel and it came out a lot more clove than banana. I fermented on the cooler side of the 60s.

Weisse beers are tough to get right, especially when you don't have a controllable fermentation chamber. As the two people said above, low temps give you clove, higher temps give you the naners. To get a good blend you need to start fermentation low to get clove and raise over time to get bananas. The trick will be figuring out what temperatures for what durations will give you the blend you like. Of course you also have to consider pitching rate because you have to look at when fermentation starts to consider temperatures and when to rise instead of just when you pitch.

Definitely one of my favorite beer styles but also one of the hardest to nail down to your personal preference.
 
Thanks! It's definitely something I'll want to play around with. I also like the citrus Hefes (Harpoon UFO White is my favorite store bought beer), so 380 might be a good one to try.

I saved 6 vials of the 300 (frozen bank)... so as long as that process worked, I'll be varying the Hefeweizen all summer!
 
when mine was fermenting it was 68 in the room but the beer was 73. once fermentation stopped it went back to 66 and i had a lot of banana throughout the whole house. i loved it!
 
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