Wyeast Wheat Yeasts

[Scott Miller]

I did NB's Bavarian Hefeweizen kit, which included 3333 German Wheat Yeast, done with a starter, fermented it around 65 degrees, and ended up with a crystal clear very slightly fruity tasting beer, with not much bready, yeasty flavor. The bready yeast flavor was there when I sampled some when bottling, but it was'nt very pronounced. And now seems to have conditioned away. Is this typical of that yeast strain?

I have put together a similar recipe with 1.049 o.g., and got a smack pack of 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast, I like their flavor for a wheat beer, so I'm going to try that and see if gets me what I want. Any likes/dislikes on that strain?

Also, since I'm doing extract, can I do short 5 gallon boils, like 20 minutes, timed from when I add my extract and some hops to the boiling water, to keep the color lighter? Or is extract already too dark to make a light colored wheat beer?

Whew.

[markaberrant]

I've never heard of any yeast contributing a bready character.

3068 and 3333 are german wheat yeasts. The character of these yeasts is banana and clove (warmer temps create more banana, cooler more clove, mid-point is approx 68F). 3068 has a bolder character, but also introduces a slightly sour citrus character that doesn't work all that great with dunkelweizen and weizenbock, but is fantastic in a hefeweizen.

If you are looking to lighten up your extract brews, look into adding the bulk of the extract towards the end of the boil... but this will affect your hop utilization, so you need to adjust accordingly. You could just do a shorter boil and adjust the hops accordingly, but adding your bittering hops to a shorter boil will generate more hop flavour and aroma, instead of just bitterness.

[Scott Miller]

What flavor I descibe as "bready" is the flavor that I am used to getting in a Hefeweizen, a mouthfull of flavors, wheat, yeast, byproducts, like liquid wheat bread.. That flavor was there before bottling. The fruit flavor that I have now is in front of any other flavor, and very, very slightly sour. Maybe it's the clove flavor and I'm not used to it without any banana flavor. It tastes absolutely great, but at the same time it's not a great Hefeweizen, it just lacks all the Hefeweizen character.

[markaberrant]

How long ago did you bottle it?

[Scott Miller]

I brewed on Oct 20th, bottled November 10th, 8+ weeks in the bottle. Primed with 5 oz priming sugar. The first one I opened after 3 weeks, tasted like I described, So I had been letting them age thinking I was tasting priming sugar shock . It's probably a combination of the yeast strain and my fault for fermenting too much on the cool side. I'd definately try that strain again if that's all it was, try it at 68-70 degrees.