Weihenstephaner Vitus Recipes Thoughts

[slarkin712]

I'm going to brew a clone of Weihenstephaner Vitus Weizenbock this weekend. I've done some research, but haven't found a recipe that has been executed and reported back with results. So, here's the recipe I am going to use:

Batch size: 5.5 gal
OG: 1.070
Color: 6 SRM
IBU: 17
7.5 lb White Wheat Malt
3 lb Belgian Pilsener
3 lb German Vienna
3 oz Melanoidin Malt

1.5 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh (3.4% AA) 60 min

Yeast: Weihenstephaner 3068 (with yeast starter for appropriate cell count)

Mash: 148F 75 min
Boil: 90 min
Ferment: Pitch at 62F and raise to 68F as fermentation progresses. Cold condition at 45F for 3-4 weeks after fermentation has completed. Bottle to 3 vols CO2.

I'm hoping that the FG gets to 1.009-10, as this is about where Vitus gets to. I'm sure they use decoction, but this is my first attempt at this clone so I'll just stick with single infusion. I chose to go with Vienna malt, as it gives a nice bready, light sweetness that I think I taste in Vitus. I'm doing the cold conditioning because that is what Weihenstephaner does. They then bottle with lager yeast, but this info I'm unsure about. I'll probably just add priming sugar after cold conditioning and hope that it carbs.

Any thoughts on my recipe? Thanks.

 

[stikks]

This is a bit ironic for me.Yesterday I bought a single bottle of Vitus just to try,I thought
it was excellent.I am going to keep an eye on this thread to see where it goes.I wish
I could help you out here but cant.Maybe some of the other members will chime in.
I would like to give it a shot myself.

Cheers

 

[slarkin712]

Vitus is my favorite weizenbock. I like the amount of banana you get with the sweetness up front and dry finish. And it's surprisingly light for a 7.7% ABV beer. I plan to brew this every 4-5 months until I get a recipe that I am happy with. I'll either update this thread or start another once I've got some results.

 

[Blumpkin01]

This is a bit ironic for me.Yesterday I bought a single bottle of Vitus just to try,I thought
it was excellent.I am going to keep an eye on this thread to see where it goes.I wish
I could help you out here but cant.Maybe some of the other members will chime in.
I would like to give it a shot myself.

Cheers

I love when people say ironic instead of coincidental. Vitus is great. I can't wait to hear how this turns out. Well, actually I'll wait. Thats fine

 

[starman]

Nothing substantial to add about the recipe, but a local place has this on tap and its a dangerously great beer. Let us know the outcome and good luck.

 

[stikks]

I love when people say ironic instead of coincidental. Vitus is great. I can't wait to hear how this turns out. Well, actually I'll wait. Thats fine

Maybe I should have used a litote.I only got a B in english 40 years ago.

 

[slarkin712]

Brewed this up yesterday. Almost everything went as planned. OG was 1.069 and pitched yeast at 62F. Had tons of hot and cold break in the boil kettle. So much that it kept clogging my braided SS filter on my dip tube. I had to take the filter off and just ran most of the break into the fermentor. I'm going to use a secondary for cold conditioning, so this shouldn't be much of an issue. And I'm going to top crop the yeast, so I won't need to worry about rinsing the trub out to save it. Airlock is bubbling away this morning!

 

[slarkin712]

Moved to secondary yesterday with the gravity at 1.011. Tasted the hydrometer sample, and it doesn't taste much like Vitus. There is hardly any noticeable banana, and not a lot of clove either. Something about my fermentation process must be off. My last weizen tasted a lot like this, with almost no banana and clove. I get some wheat flavor, a little bubble gum and strawberry, some tart sourness, and some tangy flavors. I'm wondering if I'm overpitching or over-aerating. I use yeastcalc.com to calculate cell counts and just pitch the normal ale rates. Perhaps this is too high for Wyeast 3068. Also, I use an aeration stone and pump pure oxygen for 45-60 seconds into the wort. Perhaps I'm not "stressing" the yeast out enough to get the banana flavors. Any thoughts?

 

[starman]

Never used 3068 but fwiw I think you're right. As I understand it, hitting the wort with an O2 stone would be counter productive to ester production since it ultimately increases the total number of cells. Maybe a smaller starter with no O2 the next time around. For posterity do you know how many cells you calculated to pitch?

Also, how were temps? Did you let it rise to 68 per your initial recipe?

 

[slarkin712]

I pitched ~260 billion cells. I fermented at the stated temps. I pitched at 62F and did the bulk of the ferment at 62-64F. Then when it was almost finished I raised it to 68F over a couple of days. It was held at 68F for 5 days and then transferred to secondary.

I think next time I'll underpitch the yeast, maybe 150-170 billion cells, and then just give a short 10 sec blast of oxygen (or maybe none). My only concern is that it will not attenuate as well. I'd like for it to finish between 1.012 and 1.008, so that it has a dry finish like Vitus. Anyone get 3068 to attenuate well after underpitching?

 

[starman]

All right, well I'm jumping on the bandwagon. The 3068 is spinning up, but will only be pitching 75% of the starter (~200m cells) and probably little to no 02 stone.

Likely the fermentation will be in 64-68 ambient air, which still should fall in the Wyeast range is 64-75. Hopefully that high of a temp doesn't swing the pendulum too far the other way.

Obviously you're not tasting finished product but how do you feel about your grain bill so far?

 

[slarkin712]

From a tasting a few weeks ago it had a good wheat flavor with some nice breadiness, but not overly malty. I was so disappointed in the lack of banana and cloves that I didn't really analyze the grain flavor as much. I'll taste another sample tonight and post. It's aging in a secondary at 50F and has been for almost 2 weeks. I'm doing this because Weihenstephaner does cold conditioning. I'm wondering if they do this in the bottles or in bulk.
After doing some reading over the weekend I think that the main issue is that I over aerated. I had the same lack of banana in my last hefe, but I was using the Safale wheat yeast. I'm thinking it wasn't the yeast, but over aeration. I'm already planning on brewing this again in August, and as many times as needed to get an accurate clone.
Also, I'd keep the ferm temps below 70F, which means your ambient will probably need to be below 64F. I made a hefe with 3068 and fermented at 75-77F to try to get more banana, but all I got was bubble gum, strawberry, and a little butterscotch flavor. Not good.

 

[slarkin712]

I just tasted a sample. It has a good sweetness, maltiness and wheat flavor. The sweetness is up front and then has a dry finish. The body is about right considering it is not carbonated. And the color is very close to Vitus. If I would change anything, I might replace some or all of the pilsner with vienna malt to add a little more maltiness. I think the grain bill is good, so right now I'm going to focus on the yeast derived flavors, which is the most important part of this beer.

 

[starman]

Great thanks, Ill bump the Vienna % up a bit.

Reading Ed Worts Heffe thread for insight on 3068 temps and ester info. It looks like this yeast really puts out the heat - 8 to 10 degrees over ambient is a lot of BTU!

 

[slarkin712]

Yeah, you'll need some kind of temp control. It also makes a big krausen, so you might need a blowoff tube if you don't have a lot of headspace in your fermentor.

 

[starman]

Brewed a lower gravity variation of this last night. Its out of style guidelines and wont be a true clone but hopefully guests can have 2 or 3 and not get a DUI.

I bumped up the Vienna % and scaled it up to 8 gallons of a hopefully less sneaky 1.055 beer. Its split in two 6g carboys both in a 62 degree swamp cooler. Pitch rates are the same for both but I plan on letting one free rise to 66-68 ambient after 48 hours for comparison.

I'll probably do the 7% version of this with the cake.

Did you do any water profile alterations?

 

[slarkin712]

No, I don't usually do any water modifications except for hoppier beers. Water in st. Louis is pretty good for brewing other than the chlorine/chloramines. How did you oxygenate your wort?

 

[starman]

Chicago water is pretty solid too but beersmith has the water profile tool and it caught my eye. I made no alterations.

I waffled on using the O2 stone as the variable between carboys but ultimately skipped it for both. I went with the low tech carboy shake for aeration. The pitch rate was under by about 20% (for 1.055 sg 328m actual /403m BS rate)

 

[starman]

Pulled a hyrdo sample off of the carboy that was in the 62 degree swamp cooler for the first 4 days and then ambient of 65 for the last 7. It's very promising. There is reasonable amount of banana and still underlying cloveishness. I'm digging the vienna / wheat combo so much that 1L is chilling to be force carbed to see how it works as hefe.

 

[slarkin712]

Finally bottled this over the weekend. Unfortunately, a sample still lacked the banana flavor. I tasted a little more clove than last time. Still just has a generic ester fruitiness. I'm going to brew this again in August. I'm going to split a batch into two fermentors. One I won't aerate at all (just the splash from emptying my kettle and then carrying into my basement) and use 75% of the standard pitching rate. The other one I'll probably give a 15-20 sec aeration with full pitching rate.

 

[dtfeld]

I'm attempting something similar...trying to replicate Ayinger Ur Weisse. Its very similar to Vitus. but a little darker, sweeter, but great malt banana and clove.

I used:

5# 10oz German Wheat malt
2# 13oz German Pilsner malt
1# 4oz CaraMunich II
4 oz Carafa II
.75oz Hallertau (60 min)
.25oz Hallertau (15 min)

Double Decoction - Acid rest at 111F and sacc rest at 154F. (Probably should have done 158...Ill do that next time). Made 5.5 gallons at 1.054 and split into (2) 2.75 batches using White Labs 300 Hefeweizen and the other 380 Hefeweizen IV. Pitched at 62 and let rise to 65 for the main ferment. Did not oxygenate.

Tasted both after a week in the primary and I was disappointed...both were "thin" and lacking malt character, very dry and minimal clove or banana.

I think next time I'm going to simplify...wheat and munich malt. Decoction mash still up in the air. It was a lot of work and not sure the results were worth it.

What am I missing?

 

[starman]

Did a preliminary side by side with Vitus and my lower grav version. Its not fully carbed yet for a full eval but after a long primary the clarity is perfect and the nose has a similar amount of banana sweetness.

With the bump in Vienna, this makes an nice hefe by the way. Half of the 8 gal batch was gone thanks to an inlaw party 14 days after brew day. Most of the people were default BMC CAP drinkers and plenty of that was available but they kept coming back for "more of that heferwiser".

 

[slarkin712]

Good to hear it turned out well. I served a low strength version for a party that the BMC drinkers really enjoyed. That one had good banana flavor, but I haven't been able to recapture that since. I'm going to brew this again at the end of August. I'm trying to get a huge banana flavor without so much strawberry/bubblegum. I'll go with the carboy shake, pitch at 65F, and underpitch by 25%. It's got to work!

Did a preliminary side by side with Vitus and my lower grav version. Its not fully carbed yet for a full eval but after a long primary the clarity is perfect and the nose has a similar amount of banana sweetness.

With the bump in Vienna, this makes an nice hefe by the way. Half of the 8 gal batch was gone thanks to an inlaw party 14 days after brew day. Most of the people were default BMC CAP drinkers and plenty of that was available but they kept coming back for "more of that heferwiser".

 

[starman]

Rebrew yet? My keg is about done for but it's finishing well. This beer is definitely better at higher volume of carbonation.

 

[slarkin712]

I should be doing a rebrew within the next month. A few weeks ago I did a hefe with OG 1.050 as a test of some pitching and oxygenation rates. I had not been getting the banana or clove in my hefes lately, so I decided to change it up a bit. I didn't oxygenate with my aeration stone, but rather poured between bucket a couple of times. I also underpitched by about 25%, and fermented at 65F. The beer came out with a nice light banana and clove flavors. So, I going to follow the same procedures for the Vitus rebrew and see how it goes. Also, I used a little more wheat in this past hefe and I really like it. I think I'm going to up the wheat % and drop either the vienna or pilsner %. This should give a lighter colored beer anyway, which should get me closer to Vitus.

 

[CAbrewing]

Hi slarkin712,

Any updates on the Vitus clone? Did the recipe change from the one in your initial post? I'm looking to start this soon and wanted to make sure I had the most accurate recipe based on all the conversations between you and starman.

thanks.

Cheers,

 

[slarkin712]

Hi slarkin712,

Any updates on the Vitus clone? Did the recipe change from the one in your initial post? I'm looking to start this soon and wanted to make sure I had the most accurate recipe based on all the conversations between you and starman.

thanks.

Cheers,

I think the original recipe is a very good start. As mentioned you might add a little more vienna or a little more wheat and it'll be good. Still no rebrew for me yet, but as I stated before I mad a hefe with the right yeast flavor profile last month, so I'm ready to try the Vitus recipe again. I'm going to slightly under pitch the yeast, add no oxygen when in fermentor and pitch at 62 and let raise to 65-66F.

 

[merfizle]

Yes, definitely underpitch this yeast. I use a smack pack for 5.5 gallons w/o the yeast starter. No need to boil this or hefe for 90 minutes....just 60 is fine. Make sure you have a very hard boil. Also, mash at 155 and ferment around 70º.

Mark

 

[CAbrewing]

Thanks slarkin712.

Can you give me the malt breakdown with the successful recipe? E.g. Wheat malt X lbs etc.

 

[cpz28]

I'd try fermenting this at 68-70. That's where I seem to get bannana esters with the 3068. A lot of people subscribe to the Jamil 62F ferementation theory, but I tried this several times and it made the most dissapointing hefes I've ever done; they just seem pretty subdued in the esters of the finished beer despite smelling awesome during fermentation. You could even split a batch and due half at 62 and half at 68 and decide for yourself.