Ok, let's talk about Wheat Bier
Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:27 am
Chris started talking about wheat beer on the CAP thread but I thought it would be good to start a new thread for this style (one of my favorites).
His issue was that he had no trouble getting clove but wants bananna and can't seem to get any (see the CAP thread). Well, first of all, let me say that Richard Harris is the undisputed king of wheat beer, he has forgotten more than I will ever know on the subject. Before we get into this, it is worth mentioning that it is possible to get big bananna and very little clove but a beer like that will not do very well in competition. Richard made a batch a couple of years ago that had the bananna in spades and almost no clove. I thought the stuff was great but the beer did very poorly in competition because it was not balanced. What you really want is a good balance between the two flavors and if you can get some vanilla, bubblegum, plumb and pear (or a combination of those), so much the better.
Here is everything I know about making this style (which ain't much) but here goes:
It's all about the yeast and how you run your fermentations. My weapon of choice is WLP300 because it will give you the bananna and the clove under the right conditions. I believe that Richard is screwing around with combinations however he told me this at a brewer's party and frankly I don't remember the details. Anyway, I like to ferment at 68F because you get more bananna that way. If you want clove, go lower, down to 62F (by the way, the great Jamil recommends the lower temperature). You can also get more clove by doing a protein rest however, be warned that I have had problems with head retention doing this (and God knows you want a great big head on this beer). By the way, I would try to mash in the 152F range, any higher and you will get too much body in the beer. I never make a starter and I don't oxigenate the wort because I want to stress the yeast so it throws off as much in the way of pheonols and esters as possible. You will find that this strain is an active fermenter, you will be cleaning up a mess at the end of primary fermentation. Resist the urge to ferment higher that 68F however, you will start getting fusels which in my opinion screws up the flavor of the beer.
Wheat beers really get better if you go to the trouble of decocting them. It's not so much a flavor issue as much as it affects the body of the beer and seems to make it just a little creamy, sort of like a bannna milk shake (although the beer is not heavy). I suppose you do get some melanoidin reactions going which I also really like. I also naturally carbonate in the keg (or bottle) and I do it by adding wheat DME once I get the stuff into the serving container (kind of like a poor man's krausen I recon). I want alot of yeast in there, it makes a big difference to the taste, and is a good source of vitamin B (although flatulance can be an issue). The other reason I do this is that I carbonate pretty agressively and it is hard to bottle beer with that much CO2.
Well, that is all I can think of. I believe Richard is using a different yeast when he carbonates and that might be a way to get more complex flavors going however I have not tried it myself. I do know that a couple of the other wheat beer strains are known for bubble gum (which is really neat in my opinion) and kind of a plumb/pear type flavor. I have found however that judges are looking for the clove/bananna combination and if they don't get it, the beer just will not do that well in competition. Richard also told me that fermenter geometry plays a role in flavor development. That makes sense as this is an issue with some of the Belgian ale strains and by the way, you can learn alot about yeast handling which will serve you well doing Belgians messing with this style.
My plan is to do a couple wheat beers just before the Bluebonnet (if I can manage my stock correctly that is). I have alot of experience with Heffe but I also want to make a Dunkel Weizen, does anybody have a good formulation out there?
His issue was that he had no trouble getting clove but wants bananna and can't seem to get any (see the CAP thread). Well, first of all, let me say that Richard Harris is the undisputed king of wheat beer, he has forgotten more than I will ever know on the subject. Before we get into this, it is worth mentioning that it is possible to get big bananna and very little clove but a beer like that will not do very well in competition. Richard made a batch a couple of years ago that had the bananna in spades and almost no clove. I thought the stuff was great but the beer did very poorly in competition because it was not balanced. What you really want is a good balance between the two flavors and if you can get some vanilla, bubblegum, plumb and pear (or a combination of those), so much the better.
Here is everything I know about making this style (which ain't much) but here goes:
It's all about the yeast and how you run your fermentations. My weapon of choice is WLP300 because it will give you the bananna and the clove under the right conditions. I believe that Richard is screwing around with combinations however he told me this at a brewer's party and frankly I don't remember the details. Anyway, I like to ferment at 68F because you get more bananna that way. If you want clove, go lower, down to 62F (by the way, the great Jamil recommends the lower temperature). You can also get more clove by doing a protein rest however, be warned that I have had problems with head retention doing this (and God knows you want a great big head on this beer). By the way, I would try to mash in the 152F range, any higher and you will get too much body in the beer. I never make a starter and I don't oxigenate the wort because I want to stress the yeast so it throws off as much in the way of pheonols and esters as possible. You will find that this strain is an active fermenter, you will be cleaning up a mess at the end of primary fermentation. Resist the urge to ferment higher that 68F however, you will start getting fusels which in my opinion screws up the flavor of the beer.
Wheat beers really get better if you go to the trouble of decocting them. It's not so much a flavor issue as much as it affects the body of the beer and seems to make it just a little creamy, sort of like a bannna milk shake (although the beer is not heavy). I suppose you do get some melanoidin reactions going which I also really like. I also naturally carbonate in the keg (or bottle) and I do it by adding wheat DME once I get the stuff into the serving container (kind of like a poor man's krausen I recon). I want alot of yeast in there, it makes a big difference to the taste, and is a good source of vitamin B (although flatulance can be an issue). The other reason I do this is that I carbonate pretty agressively and it is hard to bottle beer with that much CO2.
Well, that is all I can think of. I believe Richard is using a different yeast when he carbonates and that might be a way to get more complex flavors going however I have not tried it myself. I do know that a couple of the other wheat beer strains are known for bubble gum (which is really neat in my opinion) and kind of a plumb/pear type flavor. I have found however that judges are looking for the clove/bananna combination and if they don't get it, the beer just will not do that well in competition. Richard also told me that fermenter geometry plays a role in flavor development. That makes sense as this is an issue with some of the Belgian ale strains and by the way, you can learn alot about yeast handling which will serve you well doing Belgians messing with this style.
My plan is to do a couple wheat beers just before the Bluebonnet (if I can manage my stock correctly that is). I have alot of experience with Heffe but I also want to make a Dunkel Weizen, does anybody have a good formulation out there?