Hefe

So I brewed a Hefe Weizen from an ingredient kit. Two weeks in primary, ten days in secondary. I bottled it about a week and a half ago and sampled my first today. It has a bit of the banana flavor that I hear everyone worrying about, but its still young so I'm not too worried. However, it looks flat out clear. No haze whatsoever. As I understand it, its supposed to look kind of cloudy, right? So what did I do wrong? To date this is my third brew and I'm looking to learn from everywhere I can. Thanks

The banana flavor is not a worry

There is also nothing wrong with a clear wheat beer. You could probably clarify it with irish moss or whirlfloc. I'm not sure if you used anything like that or not, but it's doable

Wasn't there any sediment in the bottle?

You were supposed to pour that into the glass to get the beer cloudy again...

At the end of the pour leave about 1" of beer in the bottle and swirl the bottle to mix up the yeast on the bottom and pour it into the glass.

homebrewer_99 said:

Wasn't there any sediment in the bottle?

You were supposed to pour that into the glass to get the beer cloudy again...

At the end of the pour leave about 1" of beer in the bottle and swirl the bottle to mix up the yeast on the bottom and pour it into the glass.

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Ok. I could see how that would make it cloudy again. But I've been to a local bar that had some kind of Hefe on tap, and it was cloudy. I'm assuming it was filtered, no yeast, so I was a little concerned with the clarity of this one. Otherwise, it tastes pretty good for still being pretty young. Can't wait for the next few weeks for it to mature more.

Ich mag meine Hefeweizen jung und mit Hefe!

I read somewhere that if you want the hefe to remain cloudy , you can drop in a teaspoon of flour at flame out. It imparts no flavor, just cloudiness.

I will go +1 on swirling the sediment to get some yeast in the pour. You could also try skipping the secondary and siphon some extra yeast at bottling time. As for the bannana flavor this is a typical hefe characteristic but there are american style yeasts you can use that have less of it. I use a WLP 320 I think and it has very little banana. I also fermented at 62 degrees which really keeps it down.

To get the true hefe experience, you have to intentionally rack some of the yeast into the bottling bucket. When you pour, save back the last 1/2 ounce, swirl it a bit and finish the pour.

jmendez29 said:

Ok. I could see how that would make it cloudy again. But I've been to a local bar that had some kind of Hefe on tap, and it was cloudy. I'm assuming it was filtered, no yeast, so I was a little concerned with the clarity of this one. Otherwise, it tastes pretty good for still being pretty young. Can't wait for the next few weeks for it to mature more.

Click to expand...

It was probably an American Wheat, definitely not an unfiltered "Hefe Weizen" (no matter what they called it)...