Underpitching Hefeweizens
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singybrue
Well-Known Member
The idea is more/stronger esters from the lower pitch. The clove/banana balance is more fermentation temp related, I believe.
Stress on the yeast, whether by temperature or underpitching or underaeration or sulfite additions or whatever, will cause off-flavors. Interestingly, in a hefeweizen, we actually WANT the "off-flavors", which are an excess of banana esters and clovy phenols. So we WANT to stress out the yeast on purpose! By severely underpitching like 1/4 of the normal amount, and maybe skipping aeration and just racking the wort into the fermenter quietly, we can really kick the crap out of the yeast and get them to produce more of these desired characteristics.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm actually going to run some experiments in the next couple of months on this topic to confirm. But I already believe it's true based on past experiences. The experiments will just tell me for certain how much it matters or not.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm actually going to run some experiments in the next couple of months on this topic to confirm. But I already believe it's true based on past experiences. The experiments will just tell me for certain how much it matters or not.
People are going to freak out when I say this, but I find all Belgian and German ales to be fantastic when underpitched. I never make starters, not even for quads or tripels. These are all yeast driven styles so you want the yeast to do their thing and propogate and produce their natural flavors.
When in doubt, keep it simple. Aeration, starters, etc.... they might be great for reaching ultra high ABV's or for making ultra crisp dry lagers... but for making delicious Belgian and German ales in the 6-11% range... screw it! Save all your effort and just direct pitch 1 wyeast pack and be done with it. In blind tastings my beers I do this with are always picked as the favorites over beers that were much more carefully crafted, so I do this as my intended method now when at first it was ignorance to "proper internet brewing technique".
I've found most of the complicated practices people promote so heavily online are not nearly as helpful as people think. In some cases they are even deleterious.
When in doubt, keep it simple. Aeration, starters, etc.... they might be great for reaching ultra high ABV's or for making ultra crisp dry lagers... but for making delicious Belgian and German ales in the 6-11% range... screw it! Save all your effort and just direct pitch 1 wyeast pack and be done with it. In blind tastings my beers I do this with are always picked as the favorites over beers that were much more carefully crafted, so I do this as my intended method now when at first it was ignorance to "proper internet brewing technique".
I've found most of the complicated practices people promote so heavily online are not nearly as helpful as people think. In some cases they are even deleterious.
My .02 is to never underpitch a beer..I have had way too many taste oddities/off flavors I chased from batches earlier in my brewing career that I know (now that I have been brewing for 5 years) that the problem was an underpitch of the yeast.
I control flavor/aroma (especially with an American or Bavarian Hefe) with fermentation temp as someone else mentioned.
YMMV but my thoughts are always pitch enough yeast..I dont think I have ever heard Jamil or any of the well known homebrewers/pros I grew in this hobby listening to that have been around for a while mention underpitching as viable practice..They always preach to pitch the right amount of yeast..everytime.
I know in my beers its has made a huge difference in a positive way.
I control flavor/aroma (especially with an American or Bavarian Hefe) with fermentation temp as someone else mentioned.
YMMV but my thoughts are always pitch enough yeast..I dont think I have ever heard Jamil or any of the well known homebrewers/pros I grew in this hobby listening to that have been around for a while mention underpitching as viable practice..They always preach to pitch the right amount of yeast..everytime.
I know in my beers its has made a huge difference in a positive way.
Here's a really good read. I have followed Jamil's suggestions with great success.
http://byo.com/body/item/2265-german-hefeweizen-style-profile
http://byo.com/body/item/2265-german-hefeweizen-style-profile
Jamil does not know everything. No one does.
so I just made a hefeweizen, and I was going for a strong clove flavor.
I gave an appropriate pitch rate (i.e. not underpitch) and fermented on the cooler end (I think 60 or 62) and it is a strong clove flavor, just what i was aiming for.
I have not experiment with this but I have heard that underpitching or warmer ferment leaves to more banana esters while over pitching or cooler ferment leaves to more clove esters. personally I would not want to underpitch just because you really don't know what is going to happen. Personally I believe Temperature will have more of a positive and CONTROLLED effect than underpitching.
I gave an appropriate pitch rate (i.e. not underpitch) and fermented on the cooler end (I think 60 or 62) and it is a strong clove flavor, just what i was aiming for.
I have not experiment with this but I have heard that underpitching or warmer ferment leaves to more banana esters while over pitching or cooler ferment leaves to more clove esters. personally I would not want to underpitch just because you really don't know what is going to happen. Personally I believe Temperature will have more of a positive and CONTROLLED effect than underpitching.
flars
Well-Known Member
I have always achieved a very good balance of clove and banana with WY 3068 by over pitching and fermenting at 63° to 64°F. Next brew I will ferment even lower after reading this article to compare the results.
D
Discovery
Guest
I think there is some truth to under pitching. When I first started doing Hefe's I didn't do a started and pitched directly with great results. I recently started buying smak packs and have been trying to figure out why my beer hasn't turned out as good as it has in the past. Going to brew a batch this weekend to test the theory!
One of my favorite commercial Hefe's is brewed at Gordon Biersch.
I had a chance this last fall to sit down with the head (Yeast Wrangler) "Brewer" and talk about his Hefe. He gave me all sorts of advice including under-pitching to cause stress in the yeast.( Or just not using a starter, which he swears by for every other brew.) Another interesting tip was to primary ferment with more than normal amounts of head space. This, according to him, allowed the clove / banana esters to be re-absorbed into the finished product.
Good luck!
I had a chance this last fall to sit down with the head (Yeast Wrangler) "Brewer" and talk about his Hefe. He gave me all sorts of advice including under-pitching to cause stress in the yeast.( Or just not using a starter, which he swears by for every other brew.) Another interesting tip was to primary ferment with more than normal amounts of head space. This, according to him, allowed the clove / banana esters to be re-absorbed into the finished product.
Good luck!
Underpitching may well be useful in some instances, but I think the thing that Jamil et al. are really getting at is to master the fundamentals first. That is, if you underpitch but also have other poor fermentation practices such as no temperature control, how do you really know what you're going to get? If you have tight control of all your other processes, then you can absolutely experiment with a single variable like pitching rate and be confident in what it does for you. However, for most folks, it's probably not advisable to go down that route when there may be so many other things in your beer making process that need to be tightened up first. As my coaches way back when always were keen to say... "It's all about the fundies"
yeastylad
Well-Known Member
I followed this recipe pretty much to the letter and it turned out very underwhelming, even quite sucky to start with. The fermentation was very reserved, and as a result most of the sulfur produced which usually gets blown off during active fermentation at higher temperature hung around like a... bad smell. For a long while. I struggled through a batch of sulfury wheat beer which had no real esters, phenols etc to speak of.
This is just my experience with this recipe. Jamil obviously had good success with it other wise Im sure it wouldn't have been published, but mine wasn't great.
On the topic of underpitching - I did NOT underpitch this particular beer. I made an appropriate starter.
Did you even read the article? Hard to argue against both Jamil Zainasheff AND Matt Bryndilson of Firestone Walker--two incredibly successful home and commercial brewers. However I'm open to discussion if your 1/4 pitch rate hefeweissen really has had any success in competitions.
The best three hefeweizens I have brewed were between the years of 1999 and 2001 with a teeny tiny little vial of Yeastlabs Weizen yeast, with no starter. The last couple I have made with a full size starter both sucked. Time to get back to basics, and ignore those who deserve not to be worshipped.
I would think you would want plenty of oxygen to push growth. Limiting oxygen seems it would give you the opposite result. For example, Scottish ales purposefully limit oxygen so the growth phase is slow which minimizes esters. They pitch a healthy amount of yeast though...
motosapiens
Well-Known Member
i've been brewing hefeweizen for decades now (after living in bavaria for 6 years in the 80's). I finally started making starters for everything because trying the no-starter batch next to the harvested-yeast batch made it clear that the underpitched patch was thinner, less body, less flavor.
Frankly I think underpitching is a dumb idea, partly because it's so difficult to actually control. OTOH, you have total control over the malt bill, and the yeast, and the fermentation temps, and the mash, so why not use those to get the flavor you want?
If you want to learn more about hefeweizen, check out the oft-linked article to brau magazine (german homebrew mag). Really explained alot of my results, like why my hefeweizen tastes better when I ignore the water spreadsheets and mash and ph levels that would render an all-barley beer unpleasantly astringent.
strongly recommend this article. These guys actually do know everything about hefeweizen in my experience.
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/
Frankly I think underpitching is a dumb idea, partly because it's so difficult to actually control. OTOH, you have total control over the malt bill, and the yeast, and the fermentation temps, and the mash, so why not use those to get the flavor you want?
If you want to learn more about hefeweizen, check out the oft-linked article to brau magazine (german homebrew mag). Really explained alot of my results, like why my hefeweizen tastes better when I ignore the water spreadsheets and mash and ph levels that would render an all-barley beer unpleasantly astringent.
strongly recommend this article. These guys actually do know everything about hefeweizen in my experience.
http://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/
I did a 3 way test on under pitching hefes a while ago. The underpitch was I think the equivalent of 30ml of decanted starter in 5 gallons of 1.050 wort. It had full krauesen within 24h and I couldn't taste any differences from the full pitched version. Unfortunately I still can't make a good hefe, about to give up after 6 tries. It's beyond me how people call this a beginner style.
Motosapiens... thanks for that link... it was a great read and will be very helpful as it gets warmer and I start brewing SWMBO her summer staple Hefe!
What don't you like about your hefes? What are they missing?
I made a 50% munich, 50% wheat hefe (or I guess it's closer to a very light dunkelweizen) as my 3rd all grain beer and it is delicious. Loads of flavor, wheaty, banana, a little clove.
But it's not perfect... what I don't understand is how people get that creamy taste in their hefe's. I've brewed two dunkelweizen and one hefe and none are creamy in the least. They all taste good to great, but I'm missing that creamy texture to be exactly what I want.
Not creamy enough, eh? I dare you to replace 1.5 lb of non-wheat base malt with rye malt (per 5 gallons). That should help.
I've yet to use Rye in any beer so I have zero clue how it functions, never even researched it. It doesn't usually fit the styles I brew. Guess it's time to research
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