AirLock Sniffer
Active Member
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2020
- Messages
- 31
- Reaction score
- 28
Newby extract (DME) brewer here. Made 4 batches since November, and I would judge they are excellent beers in a practical sense, but they aren't really true to style. Totally drinkable, and I like them very much, but they just don't grab me the way a good Bavarian Hefe does. Can I really expect a dramatic difference if I use a liquid yeast like 3068?
I used a dry yeast - Safale WB-06 . Now here's what's kind of weird. On the very first brew I was impatient. I let it ferment at about 62F in the basement for around 5 or 6 days and sort of cold crashed it for a day or two in the garage and bottled with DME for priming. I tasted a bottle at 13 days - and I was pretty impressed with myself - carbonation was OK, tasted a little green or rough around the edges of course - BUT, it had a pronounced bananna and clove note, VERY authentic tasting - I was stationed "over there" and I know what Hefe's on tap taste like, I drank a lot of them. So I figured it would improve in the bottle, with conditioning.
Except, that isn't what happens. The Hefe flavors are gone, I still have a couple bottles left of the first batch in the back of the fridge, and while they are good, perfectly drinkable beers, I'd not recognize them as a Hefe. To me they just taste like a good crisp craft beer. Good and strong. But any of the banana/clove isn't really there. In subsequent batches I kind of messed around with a little warmer fermentation temperatures, using a starter, aerating heavily, not aerating, letting it go for a full 3 weeks in the fermenter.
I would say that every batch has improved with longer aging in the bottle. A week or so at room temperature is enough for carbonation but they definitely seem to smooth out at and lose the green beer overtimes about 3 weeks or so and cold conditioning. Can I expect better results with the liquid yeasts? They sure are proud of them.
I used a dry yeast - Safale WB-06 . Now here's what's kind of weird. On the very first brew I was impatient. I let it ferment at about 62F in the basement for around 5 or 6 days and sort of cold crashed it for a day or two in the garage and bottled with DME for priming. I tasted a bottle at 13 days - and I was pretty impressed with myself - carbonation was OK, tasted a little green or rough around the edges of course - BUT, it had a pronounced bananna and clove note, VERY authentic tasting - I was stationed "over there" and I know what Hefe's on tap taste like, I drank a lot of them. So I figured it would improve in the bottle, with conditioning.
Except, that isn't what happens. The Hefe flavors are gone, I still have a couple bottles left of the first batch in the back of the fridge, and while they are good, perfectly drinkable beers, I'd not recognize them as a Hefe. To me they just taste like a good crisp craft beer. Good and strong. But any of the banana/clove isn't really there. In subsequent batches I kind of messed around with a little warmer fermentation temperatures, using a starter, aerating heavily, not aerating, letting it go for a full 3 weeks in the fermenter.
I would say that every batch has improved with longer aging in the bottle. A week or so at room temperature is enough for carbonation but they definitely seem to smooth out at and lose the green beer overtimes about 3 weeks or so and cold conditioning. Can I expect better results with the liquid yeasts? They sure are proud of them.