Am I being punished for treating WY3068 nicely?

[yeastylad]

The last 2 hefeweizens I have brewed have turned out pretty crappy. I may be talking prematurely as the most recent on is still in the fermenter, but I'm pretty sure based on hydro samples it's going to turn out the same as the last batch, which I struggled through 3/4 of the keg and then dumped the last 1/4.

The problem I'm having is I'm getting no banana or clove characteristics at all, just plain bland wheat beer with sulfur notes.

My grist for both has been 50-60% wheat, 40-50% pils (this recent batch has 8% munich malt though). Both have used 3068. Both mashed at 152. This most recent batch had a ferrulic acid rest at 110F for 20 mins.The previous batch fermented at 62F. This one at 66F both showed active fermentation, but nowhere near "vigorous".

Both these batches has an appropriately sized starter used for a "correct" pitching rate and decent oxygenation of the wort prior to pitching.

Now, heres the kicker - The first hefe I brewed was an all extract brew, with all wheat DME, and the same yeast. These were in my earlier brewing days before I started making starters. Smack pack, no starter. I fermented at 67F. It fermented really vigorously and blew off a lot of yeast. This beer turned out delicious. Just the right balance of banana and clove, neither overwhelming. It was brewed for a friends Oktoberfest party and most folks preferred it over the Schneider Weisse we had there.

So, am I treating my yeast too nicely? Should I be underpitching and fermenting warmer? So annoying when it seems like Im suffering for my diligence..

 

[Oldskewl]

I've only brewed one Hefe so far and I experienced the same. How long are you fermenting? The NB kit I used recommended 14 days. I followed Ed Worts recipe(which is the same) and kegged at 11 days. Terrible sulfur smell to this day nearly 2 months after kegging. Some people reccommend giving the 3068 more time to clean up. I plan on giving it another shot and letting it ferment 2-3 weeks. Need to make sure the sulfur smell is gone when fermenting.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I use 3068 for all my wheat beers, and a few sour mash beers I've done. I've never been able to keg in less than two weeks. It's always taken an extended conditioning to get to where I want it.

I brewed a blueberry Hef a while back and it wasn't until a month later until I started getting the clove coming through.

 

[yeastylad]

Good to know. So, at 1 week and final gravity i ramped to 72F, i figured it might drive off some sulfur. Should i keep it there for a while, or cold condition now? Last batch I feel i kegged too early and it never got rid of the sulfur completely. How do you "condition" it to get where you want it?

 

[yeastylad]

I'm at one week. Going to leave it in the fermenter at least another week minimum.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I hear ya, bro! I've been brewing for over 4 years and have yet to produce a decent Hefe. My issues mirror yours, no clove or esters, just clean wheat beers that are sometimes sulfur bombs. But, I do believe I'm getting close! I have one in the keg right now that I brewed a few weeks back that actually has some clove taste and banana aroma. I think one more brew will get me there. Here's what I've learned...

1) Add a bit of complexity to the grain bill. 50% wheat, 25% Vienna, 5% CaraMunich I, 2-3% acid malt, and Pils for the balance.

2) Use soft water and add some minerals back in. See this link to Brukaiser's Weissbier Hell page.

3) Do a step mash - 45 min @ 113° (hold acid malt out for this step), 35 min @ 145° (once up to step temp, add acid malt), 45 min @ 160°, 10 @ 170° (the mashout step is optional, but I think the hotter wort helps with efficiency and the lauter). If you can do the steps as decoctions, even better, but it's not required.

4) Underpitch... by a lot. Typical homebrew ale pitch rate is .75M cells/°P/ml wort. For a Hefe, pitch a third of that. Be sure to make a starter so that you have a healthy crop of yeast doing the work and only pitch what you need (.25 pitch rate).

5) Do not aerate. Whatever aeration occurs during the transfer from BK to fermenter is good enough. Under no circumstances should you add pure O2.

6) Pitch @ 55°F and allow temp to climb to 60-62° (64° max!) on its own, then hold it there for at least 3 days. Once you get past day 3 or so, go ahead and raise temp to 68° to finish. My last Hefe was at FG in 3 days and that was with a .25 pitch rate.

7) Use a bucket fermenter and do not use a lid or airlock. Just loosely cover the bucket with foil. This is essentially an open fermentation and will allow the sulfur to escape. Even a little bit of back pressure from the airlock will hold sulfur in.

8) Skim the brown Krausen off the top of the beer @ 24 hours post pitching. Wait another 48 hours and repeat if any brown Krausen is present (this is a great time to top crop pure yeast from the fermenter). You don't want this falling back into your beer.

9) Once the beer hits FG, give it a couple more days, then remove the foil, place and seal the lid on the fermenter, add an airlock with a Starsan soaked paper towel shoved in it and cold crash to 50°. Do not put sanitizer in the airlock as it will get sucked into the fermenter as the temp drops and a vacuum is created. Hold this temp for a week, then package.

10) To emphasize esters (banana), split batch into two fermenters. A shallow fermentation will help keep the CO2 that is produced by the yeast from scrubbing the esters as it makes its way up through the beer and out the top of the fermenter. Also, start with a higher OG, around 1.060-1.065. It's not to style, I know, but higher wort density will encourage more esters.

Good luck!

 

[LLBeanJ]

Good to know. So, at 1 week and final gravity i ramped to 72F, i figured it might drive off some sulfur. Should i keep it there for a while, or cold condition now? Last batch I feel i kegged too early and it never got rid of the sulfur completely. How do you "condition" it to get where you want it?

I brewed a batch last summer that I kegged at around 10 days and then conditioned over 2 months at 65°F and never could get the sulfur out. I ended up putting it back into the fermenter over 6 lbs of blueberries and repitched a clean ale yeast. It took care of the sulfur and made for a nice blueberry wheat.

I brewed another batch this past spring and had the same problem. This time I left it in primary for about 2.5 weeks before kegging, thinking longer in primary would take care of the sulfur. Nope. It's been in the keg in my basement ever since. I sample it every now and then and the sulfur is still very much there. Very unpleasant. I have plans to make a strawberry wheat out of it one of these days.

My last batch I brewed a few weeks ago, I loosely covered the fermenter with foil and fermented it @ 68° for 3 days, then ramped to 73° for 4 days, then cold crashed to 50° for a week before kegging. When I kegged it, I detected some slight sulfur and it was completely gone a week later. Open fermentation is the key. My only mistake with this batch was the ferm temp of 68 was too high. The beer is a little thin. Clove is present, but a bit muted. I can smell banana, but not really taste it. This one was 1.051 OG. Next time, I'll pitch @ 55°, ferment around 60-62°, and increase the OG to 1.055-1.058.

 

[yeastylad]

Wow, thanks for all that info! That's great, I'll certainly use this for my next batch. I initially stupidly thought this style would be quick and easy for summer drinking, turns out definitely not the case!!

I'm doing to check back on my brew notes from my one successful batch. It had no sulfur either in the beer or during fermentation, i definitely remember that.

 

[yeastylad]

Wow, thanks for all that info! That's great, I'll certainly use this for my next batch. I initially stupidly thought this style would be quick and easy for summer drinking, turns out definitely not the case!!

I'm doing to check back on my brew notes from my one successful batch. It had no sulfur either in the beer or during fermentation, i definitely remember that.

So I checked my notes for my successful extract batch (and this was a really good beer IMO) - I DID do a starter, All wheat DME to 1.056 SG, fermented at 67F, finished at 1.013 FG, kegged after 10days and was drinking on day 14. No water adjustments from my faucet (its pretty soft).

I guess I don't have hundreds of years of brewing experience with it like the Germans do...

 

[LLBeanJ]

So I checked my notes for my successful extract batch (and this was a really good beer IMO) - I DID do a starter, All wheat DME to 1.056 SG, fermented at 67F, finished at 1.013 FG, kegged after 10days and was drinking on day 14. No water adjustments from my faucet (its pretty soft).

I guess I don't have hundreds of years of brewing experience with it like the Germans do...

I'm not surprised. I've read a few posts where someone has stated they've had better luck brewing extract Hefe's than they've had with all grain. I've never brewed with extract, so I am determined to make one with grain that tastes like the Hefe's I've had in Germany. It seems there's a bit more to it going this route, as opposed to doing an extract brew. Like you, I figured this would be an easy style to do, but I found out pretty quick that it wasn't the case.

 

[TastyAdventure]

My best Hefe was my first Hefe, and the only one I did with extract. I also harvested some dregs from SN Kellerweiss but most of the yeast was S-33.
I've never done open fermentation for any of my previous 3 hefes, and I've never gotten sulfur. However, now just to be safe I'm going to go home and leave my fermentor open on my 3 day old Hefe...
This is a good thread here

 

[Double_D]

Pitching rate has always been what I thought was most imprtant to brewing a good hefe. I don't typically make a starter for my 10 gallon batches of hefe. I've had great results with wlp 300, 380, wyeast 3068, and 3638.

The 3068 I just use 1 pack in 10 gal of .050 wort usually, assuming it's fresh.

As for the open fermentation and all that other stuff, I think it's more work than is necessary. I start off at 62 ambient for about 3 days then just let it free rise to 65 ambient and let it finish. Never had a sulfur problem or a problem with not getting enough esters.

 

[ed007]

I have brewed quite a few batches of Hefe with 3068 yeast at different pitch rates, temperatures etc. All I can say is that 3068 needs two weeks. It finishes fermenting in 3 to 5 days but has a terrible sulfur smell at that point. The second week is cleanup time. You will still smell some sulfur even after two weeks but once it is cold crashed and carbonated, the banana-clove balance starts to come out and sulfur disappears. My best hefe came out after fermenting with 3068 for two weeks at 62F and cold conditioning and carbonating in the keg for another week. So 3 to 4 weeks overall. The yeast needs some time to clean up its own fart. Yes, it is better to underpitch. One smack pack without a starter would be ok.

 

[LLBeanJ]

I wish I could say I've had the same success as both of you, but unfortunately, I haven't and it's been very frustrating, as I love a good Hefeweizen. The Hefe's I've brewed over the years that did not have sulfur issues were ones where I used the standard .75 ale pitch rate, but those beers were seriously lacking any of the expected yeast character (no clove, little if any esters). The more recent brews I did with a reduced pitch rate were the ones where sulfur became an issue. Based on much trial and error, I have concluded that the lower pitch rate, while producing more of the signature Weizenbier flavors, is also responsible for producing significantly more sulfur, so much so that it needs to be mitigated with more than just time.

This PowerPoint presentation has a lot of good info that has helped me in my quest to brew an authentic-tasting Bavarian Weizenbier. The link to Kai's Weissbeir Hell page in my first post above has also been very helpful, as well as the book, Brewing with Wheat.

 

[yeastylad]

I have brewed quite a few batches of Hefe with 3068 yeast at different pitch rates, temperatures etc. All I can say is that 3068 needs two weeks. It finishes fermenting in 3 to 5 days but has a terrible sulfur smell at that point. The second week is cleanup time. You will still smell some sulfur even after two weeks but once it is cold crashed and carbonated, the banana-clove balance starts to come out and sulfur disappears. My best hefe came out after fermenting with 3068 for two weeks at 62F and cold conditioning and carbonating in the keg for another week. So 3 to 4 weeks overall. The yeast needs some time to clean up its own fart. Yes, it is better to underpitch. One smack pack without a starter would be ok.

This gives me hope. I'm into week 2. I'm just going to let it ride for at least another week. Gravity has been stable at 1.012 FG for a good 4-5 days now, but there is still slow steady airlock activity, and I'm thinking that's the sulfur getting pushed out. I don't think its the yeast still metabolizing sugars because the gravity isn't moving. I still smell sulfur in the fermentation chamber, but it's getting less and less strong by the day.

So, it's also interesting that anecdotally some people have had better success with extract brewed Hefes. I wonder if there's something to do with part of the extract manufacturing process that makes it easier to brew with hefe yeast than all grain wort? I wonder if the additional evaporation steps to produce liquid or dry malt help remove and extra potential sulfur containing compounds? I don't mean to side track my own thread, it's just my brain working....

 

[WildHopHunter]

I have not brewed a Hefe in sometime but the last time I did I used WLP300 (equivalent to Wyeast 3068) and I ended up with a very bland beer just as you have described.

The only recommendation that I can give is next time try using Wyeast 3333 German Wheat. I brewed a Hefe with this yeast years ago and was amazed by the amount of banana and clove flavor that I got from the beer.

Good Luck

 

[TastyAdventure]

My fermentation fridge broke before I brewed, do I've been using various methods and places in my house to control temp for this one.
Here's how the temperature has progressed so far on my Hefe with this strain:
Pitched at 67
18 hrs later: 69
1.5 days: 71
2 days: 71-72
2.5 days: 69
3 days: 68
3.5: 71
4: 72
4.5: 74
5: 73
6: 74

Did mean for it to get to 74, but I am a firm believer that lowering the temp won't fix any problems, and could just make yeast go dormant early.
Didn't mean to drop it to 68 after it had already been at 71... But controlling the temp on this batch actually went better than most with out using the Fermentation Chamber.

What do you guys think of my temps?
I'll be sure to report back, this is a good thread you got going here

 

[Double_D]

I have not brewed a Hefe in sometime but the last time I did I used WLP300 (equivalent to Wyeast 3068) and I ended up with a very bland beer just as you have described.

The only recommendation that I can give is next time try using Wyeast 3333 German Wheat. I brewed a Hefe with this yeast years ago and was amazed by the amount of banana and clove flavor that I got from the beer.

Good Luck

Yeah, with 300/3068 I have to really push the yeast with a large under pitch to get anything good ester wise, but it does make a good hefe for me.

I think I'll check out 3333 next time:rockin: give me a good excuse to make another hefe.

 

[TastyAdventure]

My fermentation fridge broke before I brewed, do I've been using various methods and places in my house to control temp for this one.
Here's how the temperature has progressed so far on my Hefe with this strain:
Pitched at 67
18 hrs later: 69
1.5 days: 71
2 days: 71-72
2.5 days: 69
3 days: 68
3.5: 71
4: 72
4.5: 74
5: 73
6: 74

Did mean for it to get to 74, but I am a firm believer that lowering the temp won't fix any problems, and could just make yeast go dormant early.
Didn't mean to drop it to 68 after it had already been at 71... But controlling the temp on this batch actually went better than most with out using the Fermentation Chamber.

What do you guys think of my temps?
I'll be sure to report back, this is a good thread you got going here

So this upcoming Saturday will mark two weeks in the fermenter for this batch. It is currently sitting at 75 F. I will be going out of town for a week starting Saturday and I was wondering what temperature I should leave this at while I was gone. I plan on kegging it when I get back, which will be three weeks after brewing.

 

[BrewSavage]

In previous years I've had success with 3068, but my first batch of wheat this spring was a big disappointment. Flat and none of the fruity scents I expected. Maybe they shipped a bad batch?


I brewed a second batch this past Sunday so we'll see how that goes.

 

[yeastylad]

OK, so as the OP, I have an update on this last batch. It's actually decent. The sulfur is all but gone now, you get a very faint whiff when I pour a glass from the keg, but it's gone within seconds. I get a soft breadiness from it, and the esters are still very restrained, but it's turned out to be an ok beer. It's funny, the occasional glass will have a nice amount of banana to it depending on whether I've roused the yeast in the keg before pouring to give it "mit Hefe". I would still like consistently more banana (not too much, just a little more detectable) and clove. My next batch will be made without a starter and probably fermented at the same temp, so I can try changing just one variable (pitching rate). I'm pleased. I have a nice summer drinker in the keg now as opposed to the previous sulfur bomb I made last summer.

So my 0.02c is - with the Weihenstephan yeast, give at least 2 full weeks in the primary to help it clear as much of the sulfur as possible. It definitely made a difference for me.

 

[Oldskewl]

Thanks for the follow up! Glad it turned out good. I'll definitely go without a starter and give the yeast 14-21 days to clean up.

 

[TheHopfather]

In my experience there are a few steps you need to take to coax out those clove and banana notes.

• Step mash (ferulic acid rest @ 45C - 15min, beta-amylase rest @ 61C - 30min, alpha-amylase rest @ 69C - 30min)
• Stress your yeast/under pitch
• Ferment warm (I've been pitching at 19C (66F) and letting it free rise to whatever it wants in my ferm chamber, last batch hit 21C (70F))

The acid rest will help you get the clove character, fermenting warmer will help you get the banana character. If you read up on advice on hefe's from the pro's they always recommend using lots of yeast. I've had the best results pitching less than recommended, your results may vary.

 

[rhys333]

I've never been able to get banana esters out of 3068 and to be honest, the beers turn out decent but they're just sorta "meh". I also don't really care for the clove that it kicks out (although I wouldnt' really call it clove either. I've tried overpitching, underpitching, warm, cool, water adjustments. Same crappy results.

I have had success with WB-06 dry yeast though. It does everything I want in a hefe that 3068 has been unable to do for me.

 

[BrewSavage]

I"m reporting back on my two 3068 experiences this year:

Batch 1: It was flat after some weeks in the bottle, so I moved all the bottles to a much warmer location for a couple of weeks and it carbed up. It is a decent wheat beer now, but no big banana hefeweissen character.

Batch 2: I just tried my first bottle and it was a very good wheat beer, but the fruity notes were a little lacking I thought. I had my wife try some and asked she thought it was very "hefe" like.

 

[g-star]

I have always been underwhelmed with my own attempts until I found the secret this last batch. To produce a great weizen with a good balance of banana/clove and zero sulfur, I did the following:

-50/50 Pils/Wheat
-Single decoction with ferulic acid rest at 112F for 15min
-Pitch about 0.5M cells/*Plato, but first increase yeast vitality by spinning on a stir plate for 4 hours prior to pitching in 10 Plato starter wort
-Chill the wort to 60F. Do not add extra oxygen, 8ppm from whirlpooling alone should be enough.
-Ferment at 62F. Key: Perform an "open" fermentation by going with no airlock, and a piece of sanitized foil lightly resting over the opening of the carboy.
-When krausen drops, bump the temp up to about 66F to finish off and clean up.

Before this approach, my weizens were always OK, but sort of bland. This got me much closer to quality commercial examples of the style.