Help! heavy banana and clove bready AF hefeweizen

[joegibs]

Sitting out on my deck smokin a fat ass cigar with a nice glass of whiskey to join it, I've decided to reach out to the interwebs for help with a recipe that has frustrated me beyond belief. For years, I've been trying to recreate something similar to Paulaner Hefeweizen or something along those lines. Ya know, the big heavy AF tastes like your chewing bread not drinking beer kind of hefeweizen. It's not everyone's preferred variant of the hefe, but damnit I want to be eating bread when I drink my hefeweizen!!! Every time I visit a brewery and try their hefe, and it's THE RIGHT ONE, I order the biggest mug they got which is promptly followed by rolling eyes of my girlfriend. I've tried so many recipes that i'm ready to give up. The end result of my brewing experiments are never bad, they're always drinkable and enjoyable (even this last one that I accidentally over-hopped, giving me more of a pale wit, oops?) so I'm not too upset about that, it's just getting frustrating trying so hard to get to a specific end result and not getting it no matter the variable.

I've tried so many different grain bills, fermenting temperatures, hop additions, blah blah blah, the only thing i've determined is the wyeast 3068 is the correct yeast for what i'm trying to achieve. I just need someone who knows what I mean when I say drinking this beer is like chewing banana/clove flavored bread to give me a solid recipe down to the exact detail so I can brew a beer that'll be the ONE beer that i'll be so excited to brew and drink the **** out of for the rest of my life.

PS in my experimental failures i've accidentally built a recipe that's pretty got'damn close to a clone of hoegaarden belgian wit. A year ago I was preparing to be the bartender at my cousins wedding, which included bringing a double batch of homebrew to serve up. On a complete gamble without time to re-brew incase it didn't turn out, I chugged a 12 pack of hoegaarden, saving that liiiitle bit of murky goodness a the bottom of every bottle. I poured that into a yeast starter, let it do its magic, then re-built it three more times giving me one hell of a yeast starter. My logic was maybe harvesting the yeast and giving it a hefeweizen grain bill would get me something close to what i've been trying to achieve, but it turned out to be damn near spot on for what hoegaarden is, minus the forward coriander flavor. Tested the gravity and it ended up about 5.5, and everyone at the wedding loved it, with only one gallon out of the ten left over. (which we promptly killed the next morning) So all my experimental "failures" haven't been a complete waste.

Thanks in advance, and thank the beer gods for another day to drink the fermented greatness.

 

[Barbarossa]

Schrodinger weisbier
That's the recipe that made me understand Hefeweizen beers. I brewed both version a few times.
What I learn from it is that the fermentation temperature can favorise banana or cloves. You can also favor cloves with step mashing. You can double favor cloves with step mash and temperature and have a strong clove taste.

I guess for your personal taste, you'll have to find your sweet spot. And I'm guessing maybe a bit more wheat for the bread taste.

 

[Rippchen]

I've tried so many different grain bills, fermenting temperatures, hop additions, blah blah blah, the only thing i've determined is the wyeast 3068 is the correct yeast for what i'm trying to achieve. I just need someone who knows what I mean when I say drinking this beer is like chewing banana/clove flavored bread to give me a solid recipe down to the exact detail so I can brew a beer that'll be the ONE beer that i'll be so excited to brew and drink the **** out of for the rest of my life.

I think I know what you mean. I have the following recipe for such a Hefeweizen and can also say, the Wyeast 3068 is the right one. I hope i translated all the ingredients correctly from German. It is for a 5 Gallon Batch

Original Gravity: 13 ′Plato --> 1.0526

Grain bill
Wheat malt 70%
Vienna malt 20%
Munich Malt 10%

Mash plan
Mash-in at 70′C - 158′F
35 Minutes at 63°C - 145′F
30 Minutes at 72′C - 161′F

Boil: 60 Minutes
15g(0,53oz) Spalter Select for 60 Minutes
10g(0,35oz) Spalter Select for 40 Minutes
8g(0,28oz) Spalter Select for 20 Minutes
Result in roughly 18 IBU

Ferment: Wyeast 3068 at 20-24′C 68-75′F

 

[joegibs]

Schrodinger weisbier
That's the recipe that made me understand Hefeweizen beers. I brewed both version a few times.
What I learn from it is that the fermentation temperature can favorise banana or cloves. You can also favor cloves with step mashing. You can double favor cloves with step mash and temperature and have a strong clove taste.

I guess for your personal taste, you'll have to find your sweet spot. And I'm guessing maybe a bit more wheat for the bread taste.

Thanks for the link, that was a good read that gave some distinction between the two flavors that might lead me in the right direction. I'll have to try doing it both ways to see what exactly it is that i'm after. Interesting that one calls for under-pitching. That's the first i've heard of something like that. So only pitch half the pack of yeast? It also mentions having a fermenter that's wider than it is tall to keep the height of the wort spread out more horizontally. How is that achievable? Using a 16.5 gallon or 20 gallon fermenter, or just splitting a 5 gallon batch between two 6 gallon buckets and re-joining them for secondary?

All I know is I gotta start chugging my kegs so brewing can be done.

 

[couchsending]

And don’t forget about the carbonation method. That can have a much larger effect on the final beer than you think, especially when it comes to mouthfeel.

I’m sure someone here knows but Paulaner is probably Krausened with a lager fermentation or spiese is added pre packaging with an alternate yeast.

 

[joegibs]

And don’t forget about the carbonation method. That can have a much larger effect on the final beer than you think, especially when it comes to mouthfeel.

I’m sure someone here knows but Paulaner is probably Krausened with a lager fermentation or spiese is added pre packaging with an alternate yeast.

you have my attention, i'm intrigued

 

[Bramling Cross]

Stan Hieronymus' Brewing with Wheat goes into gory detail about German packaging methods.

It's a good book.

Edit: I've also been chasing the banana bomb thing (I want to recreate the Franziskaner Weissbier that I used to drink in the early 90s. Of course that stuff likely tasted the way it did because it had been tortured to within an inch of its life by terrible shipping conditions. At any rate, I plan to use this as my weapon of choice on my next go around.

 

[Rippchen]

Here is also Aber good article in hefeweizen and how you get banana/clove flavours.

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

 

[Indian_villager]

I'm one that chases the clove flavors and I found the yeast that suits me is WLP380, maybe try underpitching WLP380 to push it on the banana end too?

 

[deuc224]

Honestly I try and keep it simple now, pils, wheat, and melanoidin. Ferment at 74-76 and keg at 14 psi, one important thing i think doesnt get talked about is let it condition for 2 week, it helps mellow that yeast bite and bring the banana forward.

 

[hottpeper13]

I think you should take the recipe you had the closest profile and do an open ferment. We(club ) did one 3 ways ,normal "S" lock, decoction "S"lock, and a pail with tin foil just lain on top. The decoction was everyones fav, the open one had what you're looking for.

 

[Bobby_M]

Stan Hieronymus' Brewing with Wheat goes into gory detail about German packaging methods.

It's a good book.

Edit: I've also been chasing the banana bomb thing (I want to recreate the Franziskaner Weissbier that I used to drink in the early 90s. Of course that stuff likely tasted the way it did because it had been tortured to within an inch of its life by terrible shipping conditions. At any rate, I plan to use this as my weapon of choice on my next go around.

A combo of traditional Hefe and Bonanza is my plan as well, fermented at 72F. I made a Bonanza blonde and it was a banana bomb.

 

[Bramling Cross]

A combo of traditional Hefe and Bonanza is my plan as well, fermented at 72F. I made a Bonanza blonde and it was a banana bomb.

That's good to hear. I haven't had the opportunity to use mine yet and, at least initially, it was difficult to find reports on it from brewers that had used it in an actual hefe.

Thanks for taking the time.