Safbrew WB-06 for a Belgian Golden Strong ale

[VikeMan]

Wb-06 is wit yeast, but is far from great.
It not has the right aroma balance, between clover and banana, needed for wit bier.

I think you'll find that most people on this forum (and in this thread), when they say "wit" they mean Belgian Witbier. Clove and banana are characteristics of German Hefeweizen, but are not really typical in a Belgian Wit.

 

[Pie11]

The original document not listed yeast origins. I'm not sure that alla are well decoded.
We known by duvel history that duvel strain is a son of mcewan's (wlp028) that exactly in the opposite side of the graf

 

[Pie11]

I think you'll find that most people on this forum (and in this thread), when they say "wit" they mean Belgian Witbier. Clove and banana are characteristics of German Hefeweizen, but are not really typical in a Belgian Wit.

Witbier (hoegarden) is base on an subtle balance aroma beetween clover, orange, coriander, english hop... all based on a fermented wheat acid flavour.
Hefeweizen have a more bold clover aroma.
You can't do a decent wit without the right yeast profile, that include a gentle clover and banana.

 

[dwhite60]

Thinking I had an S-04 in the fridge I proceeded to brew a stout. Pulled out that packet, and surprise surprise, it was WB-06. Had no choice but to use it.

I keep meaning to make it again. Was real interesting in a good way.

 

[dmtaylor]

I don't like my witbiers tasting like banana.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

The original document not listed yeast origins. I'm not sure that alla are well decoded.
We known by duvel history that duvel strain is a son of mcewan's (wlp028) that exactly in the opposite side of the graf

Don't think like that.

WLP028 may have come from McEwans, or maybe not, we don't know. But even if it did, then WLP028 is a great, great, great.......grandchild of one of the 10-20 strains in the original McEwan yeast, and if you believe the origin story for Duvel, then the two yeasts used by Duvel are also descendants of two of the 10-20 strains in the original McEwan yeast - but mathematics alone would suggest that they're unlikely to be the same ones. And basic knowledge of the character of WLP028 would tell you that it's very different to Duvel's yeast.

When you're talking about traditional British yeasts, you have to remember that they are complex blends of 10+ strains that have evolved together over decades. Don't think one strain "is" "the yeast" from a particular brewery, you need the blend to get the full character in many cases. And don't think that yeasts stay the same from one generation to the next, let alone over a period of years. The Edinburgh breweries (which include McEwan's) were particularly active in exchanging yeast, so that instead of a "brewery" strain you had more like an "Edinburgh blend" of yeasts.

If you're wanting a fairly authentic source of British yeasts then Brewlab is a much better choice than the US companies. Their Borders yeast allegedly came from McEwan's Fountain brewery in Edinburgh, and sounds far more Duvel-ish than WLP028 :
This Scottish ale yeast has moderate fermentation abilities, prefers low mineral wort and can produce a sulphur flavoured beer. Good ester flavours and phenolic characters are produced. It flocculates moderately well producing a light head initially and cells sediment well at the end of fermentation.

 

[Mark yeah]

Well it's been 10 days, so I've taken a hydro sample and it's stabilised at 1.007, pretty much right where I wanted it. Now begins the 3 week lagering and clearing phase at -1C, then I'll tackle carbonation. So far, so good!
Apologies for the poor quality of the photo

 

[Protos]

10 days? Wow, that's pretty fast.
I leave all my Diastaticus brews in the primary for no less than 21 day, whatever's the fermentation dynamics. I do that after two or three bitter suprises involving "resurrections" in the warmed up bottles.

 

[Zambezi Special]

I didn't realise WB-06 was a diastaticus
Decided I better google it and found quite an interesting article SafAle™ WB-06: Give the character you want to your wheat beer styles (nothing about Belgian Strong though)

 

[Miraculix]

10 days? Wow, that's pretty fast.
I leave all my Diastaticus brews in the primary for no less than 21 day, whatever's the fermentation dynamics. I do that after two or three bitter suprises involving "resurrections" in the warmed up bottles.

Off topic:
Can you please point me to the thread where we discussed low hopped farmhouse Voss beers? You were recommending me one recipe with rye, I bought everything and want to brew it this weekend but forgot where the recipe was.... A bit unfortunate. It was a link to a page with multiple recipes and you were recommending a specific one for Voss, if I remember correctly.

 

[Mark yeah]

10 days? Wow, that's pretty fast.
I leave all my Diastaticus brews in the primary for no less than 21 day, whatever's the fermentation dynamics. I do that after two or three bitter suprises involving "resurrections" in the warmed up bottles.

I'll be keg conditioning this beer, so bottle bombs won't be an issue. The primary ferment was pretty fast though, being mostly done in 5 days.

 

[Mark yeah]

I didn't realise WB-06 was a diastaticus
Decided I better google it and found quite an interesting article SafAle™ WB-06: Give the character you want to your wheat beer styles (nothing about Belgian Strong though)

Interesting article, it may dry out even further during carbonation

 

[Miraculix]

Interesting article, it may dry out even further during carbonation

They lost their credibility and my interest when they tried to convince me that it is possible to brew a German wheat beer with the diastatic wb06.

 

[Protos]

They lost their credibility and my interest when they tried to convince me that it is possible to brew a German wheat beer with the diastatic wb06.

That is an overt blasphemy, though it's not completely a NB's fault.
It's the producer who markets this yeast as a legit WeizenBier strain, recommends it for the style in their brochures and even has hardcoded this dubious statement into the product name, WB. Fermentis are known for strange misleadning marketing sometimes: take S-33 for example, presented as a strain for "Trappist" beers, resulting in a lot of wheeping and gnasting of teeth from those who believed and tried to brew anything Belgiany with it, multiplying the bad rap.

Off topic:
Can you please point me to the thread where we discussed low hopped farmhouse Voss beers?

I guess it was somewhere around this post?

 

[Pie11]

I think wb means witbier.

Fermentis communication departement has an orrible reputation, even here in France.
It will propose any yeast ad well fitted for quite every style.
Fermentis sells some excellents yests (w34/70, s-189, us-05, k-97, ...) but imho wb-06 is not in this group.
I used several time wb-06 tring a decent wit, and I was never satisfied. When I changed to lallemand wit and FM23Magical garden I quickly found the rignt balance.
I have done a split batch with wit and wb-06, and the difference is remarquable.

The link on Wb-06 usage is very interesting, but those are only standard pratice for any yeast management.

 

[Miraculix]

That is an overt blasphemy, though it's not completely a NB's fault.
It's the producer who markets this yeast as a legit WeizenBier strain, recommends it for the style in their brochures and even has hardcoded this dubious statement into the product name, WB. Fermentis are known for strange misleadning marketing sometimes: take S-33 for example, presented as a strain for "Trappist" beers, resulting in a lot of wheeping and gnasting of teeth from those who believed and tried to brew anything Belgiany with it, multiplying the bad rap.


I guess it was somewhere around this post?

That's the one! Thank you! This weekend shall be kveik time!

 

[Protos]

I think wb means witbier.

I think they mean Weizenbiers in the first place, unfortunately, as they elaborate that further in their brochure where they advertise the strain as the first and only choice for "Weissen" and only after that they mention Blanche and Saison as the styles to ferment with this yeast too.

I wonder why they're doing that. By default, they must know about yeasts, styles and history way more than we do. And still they market a diastatic strain as a "Weizenbier" and an English one as a "Trappist".

 

[VikeMan]

By default, they must know about yeasts, styles and history way more than we do.

Hmm. They certainly know about yeasts from the perspective of how to turn small amounts of yeast into large amounts of yeast, and getting it into the supply chain in good shape.

Style? Well, I've read enough (IMO) questionable information in various yeast manufacturers' literature, blog posts, packaging, etc. that I'm not even tempted a little bit to believe they know more than the very basics about brewing, including brewing style choices.

History? They know (or should know) where each strain that they propagate came from. But if you mean general brewing history, I see no reason to assume that.

I'll add that a yeast manufacturer who only makes dry yeast, and therefore a limited range of strains, may have an incentive to overstate the range of styles that a strain is suited for.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I wonder why they're doing that. By default, they must know about yeasts, styles and history way more than we do. And still they market a diastatic strain as a "Weizenbier" and an English one as a "Trappist".

Commercial necessity - they will have had lots of people asking them for a yeast to brew wits or Trappists, and if they didn't have anything suitable (perhaps they had problems drying them or something) then they offer up the least-bad option they have available - the S-33 as Belgian thing dates to before they had eg Be-256 IIRC. And it's not completely ridiculous as WLP540 (allegedly from Rochefort, who don't use a traditional strain but something they got from the Palm yeastbank in the 1960s) appears to be quite closely related to eg Ringwood.

But WB-06 for wheat/wit beers and S-33 for Belgians are the two notorious examples from Fermentis. That's OK, you can ignore them, there are better options out there.

That's the one! Thank you! This weekend shall be kveik time!

Surely you will be drinking Asahi.....???

 

[Pie11]

Probably if appelled hb-06 is the yeast is addressed mainly for hefeweizen

 

[Miraculix]

Surely you will be drinking Asahi.....???

I will hopefully have a few of my newest invention, the (hazy?) Cheapskate. It consists of 2/3 wheat flour and 1/3 pilsner malt. Plus sabro hops. I bottled it last weekend and the sample was so extremely delicious, it's unbelievable. I have high hopes for this utterly beer-law-defying beauty of an adjunct ale. Will make a post in the recipe section if this works out as it looks like. I biab and during the bag squeeze, my bag burst (it was a bit ripped before, to be fair), so it's lautering again for me for the time being. It was an extreme brew day.

 

[Protos]

Probably if appelled hb-06 is the yeast is addressed mainly for hefeweizen

Nice subject! A joy to discuss.
I'm not a linguist, not a native speaker of German and overall I'm quite a dumb old slug, but I have a linguistical gut feeling that the word "Hefeweizen" as the primary term for the style is rather a specifically American term for the brew that in Germany herself is predominantly called Weizenbier or Weissbier, rather than Hefeweizen - which term is used as well, but way less common than the first two. Herr @Miraculix knows better.
In all European languages I know (and I know quite a few of them - albeit most are not-so-wide spread, and French is missing among them, to my ashamement) the naming of this style generally follows the German pattern: "Wheat Beer" rather than "Yeast Wheat". How this style is called in French, to distinguish it from the Belgian Blanche? Hardly Hefeweizen, I guess?

I mean, I doubt a French producer would name their product "Hefeweizenbier", so it's most probably the English words "Wheat Beer" that they encoded into those ominous W. B. From another side, who knows them, the yeast producers, after the spree of American-themed renamings in Mangrove Jack's product line...

 

[Miraculix]

Nice subject! A joy to discuss.
I'm not a linguist, not a native speaker of German and overall I'm quite a dumb old slug, but I have a linguistical gut feeling that the word "Hefeweizen" as the primary term for the style is rather a specifically American term for the brew that in Germany herself is predominantly called Weizenbier or Weissbier, rather than Hefeweizen - which term is used as well, but way less common than the first two. Herr @Miraculix knows better.
In all European languages I know (and I know quite a few of them - albeit most are not-so-wide spread, and French is missing among them, to my ashamement) the naming of this style generally follows the German pattern: "Wheat Beer" rather than "Yeast Wheat". How this style is called in French, to distinguish it from the Belgian Blanche?

I mean, I doubt a French producer would name their product "Hefeweizenbier", so it's most probably the English words "Wheat Beer" that they encoded into those ominous W. B. From another side, who knows them, the yeast producers, after the spree of American-themed renamings in Mangrove Jack's product line...

Although your reasoning seems logically, the most used terms in Germany are actually Hefeweizen, Weizenbier, Weizen, Hefe and Weißbier which all describe a classic German wheat beer. What is never used is the American "weisse" or "weissn" or "weissen", which does not exist in German. There is "Berliner Weisse", but this is something completely different, it is a sour. Another American invention is a "Stein". It is actually a Maßkrug. Stein means stone in German and nobody calls a beer glass a stein. It is called a Maß (which is the unit of 1 litre) or a Maßkrug, which is a Krug (drinking vessel) with 1 Maß in it.

Finally I had the chance to say it, everytime I read German weiss or weissn, something dies a little inside of me.

Thanks for that chance!

 

[Protos]

Great!
So, since Fermentis use exactly "Weissen" in their booklet as the sole name for the style, we might deduce they speak American English there, so any continental linguistic expertise is redundant in the case of their yeast nomenclature!

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

the most used terms in Germany are actually Hefeweizen, Weizenbier, Weizen, Hefe and Weißbier which all describe a classic German wheat beer

Forgive me, my English and German is a little rusty. I mostly use heiroglyphs.

How would one pronounce Weißbier in English? The symbol of interest being ß.

 

[Protos]

I'm only 1/4 part German and my English and German are pretty rusty too, and I don't know a single hieroglyph (I do read and write the Arabic script, does that count?) but I just can't prevent myself from bragging my knowledge that the Eszet letter (ß) is pronounced like S.

I'm open to be corrected if I'm wrong.

UPD:
Sorry, I recalled, I know a single hieroglyph.
It's "茶", that means "Tea".

 

[CleanEmUpIves]

I'm only 1/4 part German and my English and German are pretty rusty too, and I don't know a single hieroglyph (I do read and write the Arabic script, does that count?) but I just can't prevent myself from bragging my knowledge that the Eszet letter (ß) is pronounced like S.

I'm open to be corrected if I'm wrong.

UPD:
Sorry, I recalled, I know a single hieroglyph.
It's "茶", that means "Tea".

What is never used is the American "weisse" or "weissn" or "weissen", which does not exist in German.

I'm not an expert but not sure that "weisse" or "weissn" or "weissen" is used alone in English either and if the ß is S then wouldn't the meanings be equivalent?

In hieroglyphs it's pretty simple just

 

[Protos]

I'm not an expert but not sure that "weisse" or "weissn" or "weissen" is used alone in English either and if the ß is S then wouldn't the meanings be equivalent?

There's a difference which Miraculix has referenced above. However similar meanings both names might bear, in German they mean different styles: Weissbier aka Weizenbier aka Hefeweizen is the "common" top-fermented German Wheat Beer while Weisse is a rare regional sour ultralight wheat beer from Berlin.

Fermentis uses "Weisse" as the official English name for the German Wheat Beer (Weissbier) style in their brochure, which is grossly incorrect, as the diastatic WB-06 stands very far from the yeasts traditionally used both for Weissbier and for Weisse.
Here my German expertise ends, let's wait till Miraculix comes to elucidate the question further.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

All this talk about Duvel reminded me that it has been a while since I tried one. It sure is a light colored and pretty beer! Could this be made with WB-06? Maybe. It is not a yeast dominated beer like many Belgians. I get classic noble hop character with a solid bitterness up front, with some bready pilsner malt character and I have to search a little to get yeast character. There is a little bit of fruity aroma and just a touch of phenolic character. Way too crushable for a 8.5% beer!

@Mark yeah: I am curious how your version will compare!

 

[Mark yeah]

Me too! Unfortunately, it'll be a while as I'm determined to do this properly and not take any short cuts to give WB-06 a fighting chance.
It'll be oxygen-free and naturally carbonated and conditioned a la the real deal. I've gone from thinking I'd knock out a quick-and-dirty beer to kind of obsessing over it now.