Lawrence Brewers Guild

The other night at the meeting I noticed that no one was drinking what I thought was a pretty darn good hefe that we had tried an experiment on. I finally went around and asked people if they liked hefe and if they?d like to try some. After some trepidation in people they tried and they liked it. I am not tooting a horn, but making an observation. Many said they had to be in the mood for hefe?sometimes it is ?over the top.? We tried something different than what is typically done with hefe. Instead of pitching and maintaining temps in the mid to upper 70?s, which is standard practice for this strain, we pitched at 62 deg and maintained that throughout fermentation (14 days in primary-- straight to keg). It took off and fermented just fine at this temp. At 62 deg, instead of stressing the yeast like at higher temps, you allow the yeast to work its banana and clove accents without all the sulfur compounds and fusel alcohols that can be produced at higher fermentation temps. I think it is these sulfur compounds, mingled with what the Weinstephan strain?s magic already does, that gives hefe that sometime ?over the top? profile.
So if you have been afraid of playing around with this yeast strain you may want to give a cooler ferment a try.




cheers

Jeff, was this strain the WY 3068 Weinstephan? This strain is usually pretty finicky. I tasted your beer and was shocked at how balanced the clove/banana was when i found out how cold it was fermented. When i get back around to Weizens, im gonna try this.....thanks for the tip Jeff, it worked well!

It was the WYeast strain. I am sure the White Labs would be similar-- but I may just have to try to make sure...