Cold crash a hefe?

[whoaru99]

Is there any point to cold crash a hefe, or is doing so sorta contrary to the cloudy wheat beer thing?

 

[zachattack]

I wouldn't. The cloudiness is partially from protein (from the wheat malt) but primarily from the yeast. Most people go out of their way to keep their hefes cloudy.

 

[W0rthog]

If you want a cleaner Hefe, you should consider Wyeast 3333. My beers come out cleaner with that yeast.

 

[jhall4]

If you want a cleaner Hefe, you should consider Wyeast 3333. My beers come out cleaner with that yeast.

You're making a Kristallweizen at that point - same types of banana, clove, etc. esters but good flocculation, so you don't get the yeastiness in the finished product. Kind of strange at first since I generally associate those flavors with the cloudiness...

 

[PDX_T]

Opinions will vary. I would still cold crash it, and then just rack some yeast out with the beer to give the desired turbidity.

 

[jwalker1140]

I bottle condition and cold crash. Bottle conditioning will result in plenty of yeast in the bottle and the beer will still be hazy even after a 2-4 day cold crash (at least when I use WLP300 or 3068). The times I didn't cold crash I wound up with way too much sediment in the bottles which made for a thick, murky beer rather than an appropriately hazy beer. YMMV.

 

[whoaru99]

Well, it got two days of somewhat cold (50F), then I turned the temp back up to 68F after reading the initial replies. The beer is 64F, at present. Used the Danstar Munich dry yeast.

 

[whoaru99]

Bottled it tonight. Looks pretty clear for a hefe...

Attenuation is a bit less than I expected as well, only 69%.