Fermenting A Hefe

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Steve50

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I have been reading that in order to get the proper banana and clove flavor I need to have a temp of 70 degrees. My question is my home is at a temp of 65 will this be to cold for the proper fermentation to take place? Do I need to raise the thermostat? Ideas?? Thanks , Steve
 
The internal temp of your fermentation container can be 5°-10° higher than ambient.
I did a hefe back in the winter with ambient temps between 65°-68°and ended up with banana bomb.
 
The best temp for a hefe is actually 62, there are presentations on it. 68-70 tends to produce less balanced hefes than 62.

After judging hefes, I can tell you that having banana bombs or clove bombs are the most common flaws. That and not carbonating them enough. I can't count how many nearly flat hefes I've had.
 
I also agree 70 is a little high. When I do a starter for a heffe the higher temps of my kitchen make the whole kitchen smell like banana ice cream. Chopps
 
I ferment my Hef (WLP300) at 62*, get some clove and a hint of banana. It's an amazing beer, IMO

Toy4Rick
 
Try getting your temp down to 60-62 then pitch and let it naturally ramp up. I have found for myself that I get a better balance when I let it ramp up and finish.
 
There is a video somewhere where a guy from wyeast is talking about the clove/banana thing. He basicly said this: If you want clove => pitch correct or overpitch. If you want Banana => underpitch. This should tell you whether you get clove or banana or how it will be balanced between the two. Then you get more flavor/smell from higher temps, whatever flavor you chose using this over/under-pitching method.

Just what he said. Not my opinion or anything. Hope that helps :D
 
last time I did a hefe I didn't have any temperature control and it ended up fermenting in what was closer to 75-78 degrees. It wasn't bad, per say, but it was a lot more spice than it was banana, which I did not like since I really like the bubblegumy banana flavors.

68-70 is a good way to go for a hefe, good balanced brew, but I think I might move for more of a 66-78, jsut because I prefer banana in my hefe.
 
get the temp after the boil down to 62? then pitch the yeast?

Yes, or lower than 62. And if it were me, I'd try to keep it at 62 during fermentation. It's usually better to pitch at a low temp and let it rise to where you want, some strains of yeast can crash out if you pitch them warm then cool it down a bit.

D3ling, a hefe is best at a fairly high level of carbonation (I'd arbitrarily say 3.5-4 volumes). I wouldn't go higher than 3 volumes in a standard glass bottle, but if you keg or use thicker bottles you can bump it up a bit. The amount of priming sugar will depend on your volume and the post-fermentation temperature, I'd recommend using a priming calculator and adding the priming sugar by weight.
 

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