Are Bav Hef's slow to start fermenting?

[Dale Gauthier]

Hi all, got about 8 batches under my belt but this is the first Bavarian Hef. I haven't had a brew so slow to date. Some details on the brew:

Bavarian Hef All Grain
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan
I did a 1000ml starter for 36hrs before pitching
Brewed and pitched on 5/14/19, today is 5/16/19 virtually no visual activity
Room temp between 70 and 72 degrees F and has been since the start.
Used a wort chiller so it was nice and cool when pitched

So because the Hef is a little different for me, I was wondering if it takes off slower or maybe is just a little more subtle than some of the Ales and IPA's I've been doing. Shouldn't I see something after 2 days?

The IPA I did on the same night is sitting right next to it and chugging away....

Thanks!
hd

 

[Dale Gauthier]

I should clarify. I do think it's fermenting because the airlock bubbles every now and then, its just very calm in the beer. No crazy froth ontop like I'm used to, no particles going up and down and all kinds of action in the liquid. Just seems very calm and quite. Just wondering if this is normal for this kind of beer, yeast, temp combo. Still learning as you can tell

 

[CalhounsCrazyAle]

My last batch was a hefeweizen and the initial fermentation period happened overnight. For the next 3 days I didn't see a single bubble so I took a reading and found the gravity had dropped by .045. I used a different yeast that I can't remember off the top of my head... the beer ended up at 6% ABV

 

[Dale Gauthier]

Interesting. Mine seems similar. Very strong alcohol smell, I’ll take a reading tonight. But no bubbles or action.

 

[Miraculix]

It is called Hefe if you want to shorten the name, otherwise it's a Hefeweizen or you can also say only Weizen but not hef not weiss or weisen or weis or whatnot I have read in his forum

 

[kh54s10]

 

[rburrelli]

I should clarify. I do think it's fermenting because the airlock bubbles every now and then, its just very calm in the beer. No crazy froth ontop like I'm used to, no particles going up and down and all kinds of action in the liquid. Just seems very calm and quite. Just wondering if this is normal for this kind of beer, yeast, temp combo. Still learning as you can tell

That yeast temp range should be on the cooler side. I ferment Hefeweizen in the mid 50’s then into the low 60’s. If it had been that warm all along then it might have fermented out already.

 

[Lefou]

I'm going to assume the fermentation was done in a bucket.
My primary is a glass carboy. With no leaks, this yeast's activity is very vigorous and with a starter it should take very little time to get going. Matter of fact, I had a large cap of yeast on the beer's surface and it produced quite a bit of CO2. White Labs counterpart for this yeast is WLP300 and it was not quiet or mild even in the low to mid-60's range.

 

[Bassman2003]

Usually this type of beer is explosive if fermented at 72 degrees. So I think something is odd if your starter was normal and showed activity. The start time of any yeast should remain constant. What changes is temperature and pitch rate. If you threw lager yeast on a beer at 72 degrees it would start and go relatively crazy compared to the same pitch rate at 50 degrees.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I wouldn't be surprised if WY3068 could get to 80F in a 70 to 72F room. Fermented from a nice, fresh starter, I concur that it's probably finished. Either that or there's a problem with your yeast. It's most definitely not a slow, calm yeast!

 

[Lefou]

One of my first beers was a WLP300 German-style ale done in the kitchen.
I added a blowoff on the advice of a more savvy brewshop employee who laughed when told what was brewing. The escaping CO2 that bled off made a "bloop bloop bloop" noise for a few days. It was loud enough to notice from other rooms in the house and kept my nosy cats at bay - especially the paranoid one who'd be terrorized by a simple bag of rice or new sack of onions in his space. In his old age the cat would avoid the kitchen entirely and walk a route around it to get to the sliding door to the back yard, eyeing the rice and potato bags as if they were going to jump him on the way out.