What are you drinking ?

[jt]

Ok, so What Are You Brewing was a hotty, as topics go.

Now I'm 15 pints into a keg I only filled on Tuesday and wondering if anyone else has a favourite at the moment ?

It's my second brown with US-Oh05 and it's better than the forst, maybe Ikept the temps down a bit during the scorcher we had in januray

[JoKing]

Tony - LMK if you want some wlp300. This stuff makes gret Hefeweizens. I have a boomer of a recipe if you want too - requires step mashing though.

[Tony]

Thanks Joking, would love to see your recipe. When I am ready to do another Weizen, I'll give you a yell. I have used Weihenstephan and Bavaria Wheat yeast previously. I have one conditioning as we speak, it was still rather yeasty a week ago, so I released some pressure, in the hope of getting the yeastiness down and letting it ferment a bit longer.

Cheers

[Doublehoppy]

I'm planning on a hefeweizen this weekend, so I'm keen to see your recipe too Joking. I've a packet of Weihenstephen (Wyeast 3068) that's getting on a bit (made 9/08), so fingers crossed in that department.

[JoKing]

It's pretty simple:

2.5kg Wheat
2.5kg pilsner Malt
200g Caramunich II

15 IBU of Noble hops for 60mins, 90 min boil

step mash:

52 15min
62 30min
72 30min

Pitching instructions:

500ml Starter into 12 - 14 degrees wort
raise temp naturally and ferment at 18 degrees.

Beauty Mate!

[Mike Neilson]

Try getting alot of body into the beer!! and up it to 60% wheat!!

[JoKing]

I still want one of those Cigars that you are smoking, Mike.

[Doublehoppy]

Thanks fellas.

Is the point of the small starter size to stress the yeast?

I'm planning to repitch the yeast into a Dunkelweizen @ 1.070 or thereabouts. Would stressing on its first outing limit its reuse? If so I suppose I could split the yeast prior to use.

[JoKing]

A starter of 500mls is a good size pitch for most ales around the 1.050 mark. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that you dont need to stress the weizen yeat at all. I'll give you a bit of background to this comment.

In 2008 I brewed 8 wheat beers with 6 different strains of yeast. Out of the 8 only two were drinkable. It took me an age to figure this out, but after going through my notes there were 3 constants:

1. 60min boil
2. Pilsner Malt
3. Ferment & Pitching temps.

All in all, the pitching rates were the same. Of the 2 that were drinkable, one was the result of changing the base malt. This was still an average beer. The last was Pils Malt, 90 min boil and pitching temps + fermenting temps being the other change to the constants. I even corresponded with the Pope JZ himself on this matter - and he too was at a loss.

In my experience, it is the stressed yeast itself that makes the beer undrinkable. It produces just as much sulphur (if not more) as any other stressed yeast. Fermenting at 25 degrees just isn't a good idea. In the end, it was advise that I got from a true and true German Brew Master (travelled the world brewing professionally) and he told me the following:

Healthy yeast, happy yeast and the right amount of yeast.

This beer is all about the yeast. Pitch the correct amount for an ale. At the worst you want to "shock" the yeast. This is the reason for pitching at 12 - 14 degrees. Fermentation temp is equally important. 18 degrees is well within the correct range for all of these yeast strains. The last wheat I made, I followed these simple guidelines, and the beer was spot on for style. I loved it.

Anyway - thats enough of a rant... hope it helps.

P.S. If the yeast is happy - it'll go round as many times as you feel comfortable with. If you collect from the top, you can keep re-using for 100 years. Many breweies in Germany have been.

[Doublehoppy]

OK, I brewed this yesterday. I was going to follow your recipe exactly but then realised I was short of pilsner malt. duh!. So I went this this

German Wheat 2.9kg (55%)
Bohemian Pilsner 1.4kg (26%) - all I had
Munich 1kg (19%)
Tettnang 28gm 5.2% 60 min 14.9IBU
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan

Probably far to much Munich, so goodness knows how it will turn out.

On a happy note, no issue with a stuck sparge. My previous wheats both stuck. I've since changed to a cooler/copper manifold mash tun set up, it worked like a dream. The higher finishing mash temp (71C) probably helped too.

[Mike Neilson]

Cohiba? Montecristo or Romeo and Juliet?

[JoKing]

Montecristo my man... all the way.

[Mike Neilson]

Shit it worth a trip back there just for them!!