Wheat beer kicking my ass

[TinyBubbles]

This is my third attempt at an American wheat. I have plenty of other beers under my belt issue free, but I keep running into issues with this beer! I'm perceiving strong acetadelhyde two weeks into fermentation. Temp is controlled in a chamber, I believe pitching rate was adequate. I'm going to let it ride longer but none of my others beers take this long to clean up.... Any thoughts?

 

[eastbaybrewer]

What yeast are you using?

 

[TinyBubbles]

Safale 05. After some reading and reflection I think maybe I'm under pitching, and just have gotten lucky with previous batches. Today and into the future I think I'll be doing starters for every batch.

 

[eastbaybrewer]

What your OG. Do you rehydrate?

 

[Jeffinn]

Underpitching with US05 seems unlikely especially for a wheat beer.

 

[TinyBubbles]

OG 1.054, I wouldn't think under pitching either, I just can't think of anything else.

 

[TinyBubbles]

No rehydration, fermentis says it's not needed.

 

[Talgrath]

Acetaldehyde you mean? As in green apples? If so, usually all that means is the beer needs to ferment longer. Alternatively, your beer is either getting infections from acetobacteria or you aren't oxidyzing your wort properly before fermentation. How are you getting oxygen into your wort before you start the fermentation? Are you following best practices for sanization? And finally, have you tried letting the beer just sit another week?

 

[TinyBubbles]

It's aerated with a stone and pure oxygen. I think I'm pretty thorough with sanitation. Even when sampling anything that comes near the beer is sanitized. The plan is to continue to let it sit. It just seems like an unusually long time for the beer to clean up compared to all the others. I really think I'm having a yeast issue.

 

[paperairplane]

You said temp controlled - what temperature?

S05 will chew through a 1050 beer in a couple days... rehydration not necessary and aeration not really either at that gravity.

 

[TinyBubbles]

Temp is a steady 64.8,

 

[TinyBubbles]

The beer is fermented out, it's just not cleaning itself up

 

[JLeuck64]

Hey I am brewing my very first attempt at an American Hefeweizen right now so your thread really caught my attention! One thing I would be curious to ask if you transfer to a secondary or just go straight to bottling/kegging?

 

[day_trippr]

No rehydration, fermentis says it's not needed.

That's not really what they "say". They give the user two options, and rehydratation is listed first, with simply "sprinkling" second...

Cheers!

 

[Talgrath]

The beer is fermented out, it's just not cleaning itself up

Well, a couple of things, first and foremost, you should rehydrate your yeast. Technically it is not required and the beer will ferment, but you're still shocking your yeast if you don't rehydrate, and that's bad. One question I have is how strong is this flavor? If it's subtle, it's probably just going to go away once you keg or bottle the beer. I honestly never taste my beer in process unless it just absolutely smells horribly off before bottling; the flavors you get from samples are rarely accurate to what you'll taste once the beer is carbonated.