WLP300 Hefe Yeast Questions

[Bubbles]

Lads, I'm looking for a bit of advice on an extract wheat beer I'm doing at the moment. It's been in the fermenter for 2 weeks now and although I wasn't seeing any bubbling going on (I don't use an airlock) the kreusen looks like it's still fermenting, i.e. it's still frothy and bubbly on top, a huge layer. I've never seen a yeast take this long to finish. It's fermenting at a max of 20 deg which although a bit high for a hefeweizen, does not explain it taking so long to ferment out.

I just took a gravity reading and it's at 1020, so I'll take a reading again in a couple of days.

Had a taste too and it's got plenty of banana character and a little bit of bubblegum going on. All fine there, but it's also seems quite astringent, just the large quantity of suspended yeast I hope. Any thoughts? Relax and have a homebrew??

[Partridge9]

I have just bottles a weiss tonight that was using WLP300.

Its strange that you have the yeast active yet not fermenting in an optimal fashion.

This yeast is a little odd - in that it doesnt really flocculate out -
you should really be getting down to the 1010 - 1014 range before fermentation is complete.

Was some of the extract old
Did you aerate the wort
Was there big fluctuations in temperature (in the kitchen perhaps)

At this stage - your right relax and have a home brew.

Try it in 3-4 days.

FYI - once you are happy that fermentation is complete - you can chill this beer to attempt to knock some of the yeast out of suspension (maybe for two days) - its really hard to bring the yeast levels down to hefe levels in my opinion.

Best of luck !

[Bubbles]

Yes, it's a moderate gravity hefe so I'd expect a FG of around 1010.

I may have screwed things up by not aerating much. To be honest, I completely forgot but I didn't think it would matter much. Some people under-aerate their weizen yeasts in order to emphasize certain aspects of the flavour. I figured I'd be okay, but looks like I was wrong. The extract was well within date, but probably not stored in optimal conditions. So yeah, it could be either of those things. The temperature has been stable, at the very least.

I checked it this morning and I though I saw a couple of bubbles but I could have been imagining it. Even though there's not much sediment in the bottom of the fermenter I gave it a gentle rouse.

Is it possible it's just fermenting really slowly? Would warming it up do any good? Pitching some US-05 to get it down a few points?

[Bubbles]

Reassuringly, other people seem to have a similar experience with the WLP300 slowing down. A poster on this thread seems to think that the WLP300 tends to sit on top of the wort without doing anything and swirling/stirring the yeast back in can kick it off again. At this stage it's worth a try..

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=&t=24950

[ColmR]

I split a batch of hefeweizen: half with wlp300 and the other with the dry wb-06 yeast. Same wort of identical amounts with correct pitching rates, both fermented in identical containers in the same place. Both beers atenuated fine but the difference in floculation was so different. The dry yeast beer was almost clear. I bottled on Saturday so won't know results for a while (I'm trying not to judge too early). Will bring both beers to the next north county brewers meeting.

[Partridge9]

One more thing - when I racked my beer -

I had very little yeast in the bottom - and thats AFTER cold conditioning !

[Bubbles]

One more thing - when I racked my beer -

I had very little yeast in the bottom - and thats AFTER cold conditioning !

Same here, very little in the bottom of the FV, though it is an extract beer.

Happily, there seems to be a bit of activity now - a few bubbles breaking through the layer of yeast on top. I moved the FV to a warmer room to help it along also. I'll leave it until the weekend and take another gravity reading. Then it's either for the bottle or the plughole. Too risky if it's still 1.020.

[Bubbles]

All's well that ends well. This thing finally got down to 1.010 but it took the best part of 3 weeks. The sample I drank from the trial jar was really good; it even had a nice sparkle in it. Bottled up now.

So, another question! I'm going to roll over the WLP300 slurry into another beer while it's fresh. A dunkelweizen seems like an obvious choice, but has anyone got any other ideas? I was thinking I might do a partial mash recipe along with a little biscuit malt, do some late hopping. Maybe some coriander seed. Anyone got any suggestions?

[Jacob]

Anyone got any suggestions?

If you want to experiment I would recommend Weizenbock or Rye beer.