Wyeast 3068 REQUIRES nutrient or beer is a disaster?!?

[cloudybrewer]

I've made about ten batches of hefewiezen, improving my process along the way. I've done extract and all grain, starters and no starter, tap water and distilled water, partial and full boils, exact temperature control during fermentation, you name it. Every batch had the same tiny krausen and thin, swampy flavor. Always the same, undrinkable. What I improved made no difference. I was at my wit's end. So I decided to try yeast nutrient. Made a very simple extract batch which I'd done before, but add nutrient to the starter.

BOOM!! Huge krausen through the airlock, wonderfulsmell during fermentation, and a truly great hefe. Not,"Hmm, that seems a bit better." I mean night and day, every other batch got dumped and this one is kegged, carbed, and almost gone.

Ive made other styles with success and researched the crap out of hefe brewing for over two years. Most people say nutrient isn't needed and I believe them, which is why I can't explain this.

 

[Bostrows128]

Generally, all nutrient does is give a boost to the yeast cells. It's not required mainly because of the yeast, no matter what it will still make some pretty good beer. I would recommend trying a different yeast as there are plenty of hef yeasts out there. Maybe one will be better than the one you're using now, experiment, that's what brewing is all about.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I've also been struggling to produce a good hefe. Tried a couple of different yeast strains including 3068, both with- and without wyeast nutrient and had results similar to yours. I'd give anything to be able to master this style. A lot of people here insist that doing a decoction is a big piece of the puzzle, but whether I ferment at 62, 72, or 82 it never tastes right. My latest batch I chose 3638 fermented quite warm and it has a nasty fusel flavor which I know from past experiences won't age out. My next attempt will be from a kit as a last resort, since I don't buy kits. If that fails I'll just have to buy hefeweizen at the liquor store like a plebe.

 

[Qhrumphf]

There's a lot of pieces to a good Hefe. Step mashing is a huge one, and meticulous yeast management is another (temp, pitch rate, DO). If you want authentic character everything's gotta be perfect or it goes south fast. A LODO brewing setup is probably the last stretch. I haven't played with that part yet.

That said I haven't found yeast nutrient to be required with that strain (or really any strain that I've used for anything). I'm generally anti yeast nutrient unless the wort is ridiculously low FAN (read- using lots of sugar). All malt wort usually shouldn't need it and it can easily do more harm than good if overused (and it's almost always overused). But if it improves it for you then by all means use it.

 

[eadavis80]

I've always put a pinch of yeast nutrient right on top of the DME I use in my starters. It doesn't seem to hurt anything that's sure and I made (what I think was) a good wheat with 3068 using this technique as I always do.

 

[Staylow]

I've made good hefes and dunkelweisse with the Omega yeast version of 3068. I tend to like more banana than clove, so I intentionally underpitch, do not oxygenate, and ferment a little on the cooler side, around 66, as to not get a total banana bomb. I use the White Labs nutrient, Servomyces, and always have an explosive fermentation.

 

[mongoose33]

Time out. You say you used two different processes--one all-grain, one extract--and attribute the difference in the beers only to the addition of yeast nutrient in one's starter?

When you do the same process twice, differing only by the addition of yeast nutrient, and get a big difference between them, I'll sit up and take notice. But honestly, you lost me at using different processes.

****************

"Scolding" is over. I use a pinch of yeast nutrient in all my starters. I believe the better that starter is doing, the better the yeast will do when I pitch them.

What's more, I do starters in a very unusual way. I boil DME in the flask for 10 minutes along w/ the yeast nutrient and a single drop of Fermcap-S so I don't get a boilover.

Meanwhile, I have the yeast on my kitchen counter warming so that I can get the starter wort to be the same temp as that yeast, or within a degee or two. I do not want to shock the yeast when I pitch it into the starter.

Once I cool down the starter, I then oxygenate that starter. Boiling has removed virtually all the oxygen from the starter and while the stir plate is supposed to facilitate air exchange so oxygen can get in the wort, I'm not waiting for that. I use 30 seconds of bubbling of my O2 aeration stone, which coincidentally also saturates the air above that wort.

On the stir plate it goes. Now here's the weirdest part: I pitch the whole starter into the fermenter. No crashing, no decanting, no having to rewarm the yeast--right in. What's more, I try to time it so I'm pitching at between 14 and 18 hours, so the yeast is active at the time it's pitched into the fermenter.

I have great results with this--the yeast is active from the get-go, and I tend to have relatively quick fermentations. I even do this with lagers, and make only 1-liter starters for lagers, but I pitch into approx 70-degree wort, and hold it there for 6 hours before bringing the fermenter down to 50 degrees.

I brewed a dark lager Saturday. I'm now--on Friday, six days later--beginning to crash it down to 32. I used a fast fermentation schedule, but still..... My plan is to keg it Saturday night or maybe Sunday morning.

If you treat your yeast right, it'll treat you right.

 

[cloudybrewer]

When you do the same process twice, differing only by the addition of yeast nutrient, and get a big difference between them, I'll sit up and take notice. But honestly, you lost me at using different processes.

Actually, I did exactly that. The way I wrote my post makes it easy to get confused. Sorry for that. I shouldn't have made it look like I was only comparing two batches.

I've made about ten batches of hefewiezen, improving my process along the way. I've done extract and all grain, starters and no starter, tap water and distilled water, partial and full boils, exact temperature control during fermentation, you name it. Every batch had the same tiny krausen and thin, swampy flavor. Always the same, undrinkable. What I improved made no difference. I was at my wit's end. So I decided to try yeast nutrient. Made a very simple extract batch which I'd done before, but add nutrient to the starter.

BOOM!! Huge krausen through the airlock, wonderful smell during fermentation, and a truly great hefe. Not, "Hmm, that seems a bit better." I mean night and day, every other batch got dumped and this one is kegged, carbed, and almost gone.

Ive made other styles with success and researched the crap out of hefe brewing for over two years. Most people say nutrient isn't needed and I believe them, which is why I can't explain this.

Edit: this is a much better explanation than my original post, so I might copy it in

 

[dmtaylor]

I've also been struggling to produce a good hefe. Tried a couple of different yeast strains including 3068, both with- and without wyeast nutrient and had results similar to yours. I'd give anything to be able to master this style. A lot of people here insist that doing a decoction is a big piece of the puzzle, but whether I ferment at 62, 72, or 82 it never tastes right. My latest batch I chose 3638 fermented quite warm and it has a nasty fusel flavor which I know from past experiences won't age out. My next attempt will be from a kit as a last resort, since I don't buy kits. If that fails I'll just have to buy hefeweizen at the liquor store like a plebe.

I am in the same boat. WB-06 and 3638 yeasts both sucked in my last trial. Since then, I have learned of this:

https://braumagazin.de/article/brewing-bavarian-weissbier-all-you-ever-wanted-to-know/

I intend next time to incorporate a long ferulic acid rest at high pH of 5.8 or so, and try WLP380 again or maybe 3333. Also I'd heard previously not to aerate, so I don't think I did on those last experimental batches, but looks like in future I should for more clove. Love the clove.

This article was inconclusive on nutrient additions. Personally I think nutrients are unnecessary for nearly all beer recipes.

 

[Lefou]

A small amount of Fermaid in the starter wort can definitely give your liquid yeast a boost.
I've done this a couple times and the hefe yeast starter itself literally takes off. Before pitching my carboy would get quite a bit of vigorous shaking to get a good aeration. When using WLP351 in a cool fermented wort with a ferulic acid rest, the yeast gave off clove esters like crazy, so my preferences for yeast run toward WLP 300 and 320.
Chris Colby also has a great section on German-style weissbiers on his blog that covers quite a bit of ground on grains, water, and method. Here's a link.
http://beerandwinejournal.com/german-wheat-beer-intro/