Wheat beer

[Furious_Tea]

I did a wheat beer on Wednesday (around 5 days ago) in a small 12L fermentation bucket. It's extract with a mini mash and I'm using Lallemand Abbaye and fermenting at 16-17C. It started fermentation within 12hrs and was pretty steady for a few days.

Yesterday when I looked at it and it was completely still. No bubbling (the airlock was level - with no pressure) so I took a reading and it was showing as 0.001 under my estimated FG (1.010 rather than the est 1.011), took another reading today and it's the same. There is a good 2 inches of trub (around 2L out of 12L looks like trub) but it is suspended in liquid at the bottom (gave it a gentle stir and it mixed up, but it settled back to the same place) rather than the compacted trub that I've had on the other brews I've done using S-04/05 etc.

Never had a brew finish in that amount of time but I've read it is possible to finish in 4 days with this yeast. Had a taste and it tastes a little yeasty but overall pretty good for only 5 days since brew day.

Questions:
1. This is my first wheat beer, is this amount of trub a normal occurance or have I f'ed something up?
2. Anyone have experience of this yeast or similar?
3. Should I leave it in primary for longer or is it ready to bottle now?
4. If I do leave it longer will the trub settle out, or will I lose that 2L?
5. I don't have a brew fridge but I could do a cold crash with an ice bucket, is that likely to settle the trub?

Ta

 

[HB_ATL73]

Everything is fine- if you look at the yeasts brewing properties it says 4 days is likely the timeframe for fermentation- and you checked your fg and it appears to be done. Its only been 5 days you can give it 3-5 more days and it should settle more. This is a low flocculating yeast so you can cold crash or use finings like gelatin before you bottle/keg- But really no need to as wheat beers typically are cloudy

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I have not used that yeast. I often have beers that ferment 98% in a few days (a guess...I don't take a reading) so that is not too surprising. I use S-04 yeast often, and that yeast settles out quickly and forms a very dense, gooey layer of trub. More so than other yeasts. (I have not used S-05...tend to use WL001 or Wyeast 1056 for whatever reason...not sure how it compares).

I am not sure I would have stirred up the batch, but whatever. It might settle a little more, and cold crashing might help a little, but I suspect it is just lost trub that you just have to expect. It could be that the Wheat extract just settled out more trub than your other batches, but this looks normal to me.

 

[HB_ATL73]

I am not sure I would have stirred up the batch

I don't believe this is an issue, I may be wrong, but a gentle stir in a sealed fermenter will only rustle up the trub into suspension again- I have done this to a dry hopped beer to make sure the settled hops are exposed to the beer. I have read of others doing this as well for stuck fermentations. Either way just my thoughts

 

[RPh_Guy]

1. This is my first wheat beer, is this amount of trub a normal occurance or have I f'ed something up?
2. Anyone have experience of this yeast or similar?
3. Should I leave it in primary for longer or is it ready to bottle now?
4. If I do leave it longer will the trub settle out, or will I lose that 2L?
5. I don't have a brew fridge but I could do a cold crash with an ice bucket, is that likely to settle the trub?

It's all good. Bottle it now.

As soon as you open that bucket there's suddenly 4-5L of air (with oxygen) that will diffuse into the beer.
Oxidation is beer's enemy #1.

 

[Furious_Tea]

Bottle it now.

Ah well, can't do anything until tomorrow anyway now. Bit of a catch 22/Schrodinger's cat at times isn't it. Had to open it to get a hydrometer reading...

 

[thehaze]

Danstar Abbaye is not a Hefeweizen yeast. It will not be a Hefe, nor a Wheat. The yeast is Belgian and it will make Belgian beer, with Belgian driven esters and phenols.

For German Hefes, use Munich Classic, which is Weihenstephaner and Munich Wheat for Wheat Ales, etc.

 

[Furious_Tea]

Danstar Abbaye is not a Hefeweizen yeast. It will not be a Hefe, nor a Wheat. The yeast is Belgian and it will make Belgian beer, with Belgian driven esters and phenols.

For German Hefes, use Munich Classic, which is Weihenstephaner and Munich Wheat for Wheat Ales, etc.

Thanks for that but I never said it was a Hefe, I was actually going for a Belgian Witbier style, which this yeast can do. It's not exacly in that style and I won't be entering it into any competitions, but it contains wheat so I'm calling it a wheat beer. One of the things I love about homebrew is that you can play with mixing different ingredients, yeasts, temperatures and almost infinite other variables to see what the results are. Sometimes you want to recreate a style within the official guidelines and sometimes you want to experiment and put together something yourself. As long as you get a drinkable beer at the end then it was not in vain, and you could stumble across something that ends up being really good.

This is my first time using wheat so I did a small test batch so I can see what the results are, then maybe I'll try another yeast or tweak the recipe in some other way and compare the results. That's how you learn and how you grow as a brewer and it's what drives innovation.

 

[GPNewBrew]

I do American wheat all the time, and use S05; in fact I have a small batch in a Brewtech right now. Mine finished bubbling in 3-4 days as well, but it is done with the growth phase. I would advise you be patient, and leave it in the bucket for a full 14 days. It doesn’t hurt anything, and that yeast needs a full maturation to clear things up and get rid of some of those yeasty flavors you are tasting. After that it will be a little hazy (it’s Wheat), but will be good to bottle. Let it age in the bottle for two weeks (if bottling) to let it age and condition at room temp before chilling and drinking. By the way, it’s ok to let the beer creep up to room temp after the first 4-5 days ( assuming the bubbling has stopped)