National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => All Grain Brewing => Topic started by: imark on June 13, 2013, 08:59:51 PM

Title: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: imark on June 13, 2013, 08:59:51 PM
When you brew a weiss or a wit do you crash cool it before you keg it? I want to try and get the right amount of yeast into the keg so that it serves properly and I'm afraid that if I do my usual routine I'll end up drinking pissy looking yeast free beer after the first few pints.
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: Hop Bomb on June 13, 2013, 09:29:18 PM
I kegged my wit with no cold crash. I used wlp400. Its low floc so looked good & cloudy.
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: mr hoppy on June 13, 2013, 09:30:07 PM
I bottle condition but I can say that wit and weiss are a bit different to each other. With weiss the cloudiness is supposed to come from yeast, whereas with a wit it is more from the grain bill. If you went with the recipe you posted awhile back featuring 45% raw wheat and oats I'd imagine you should probably be fine.

Randy Mosher says one of the advantages of using marmalade in a wit is that the pectin in it will create a permanent haze. Appreciate you wouldn't be bottle conditioning with a keg but I'd imagine a bit of jam sugar would do the same thing as well.
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: imark on June 13, 2013, 09:31:13 PM
Cheers guys. Good advice a wit newbie like myself.
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: mr hoppy on June 13, 2013, 09:46:16 PM
Malted wheat is kind of strange though - I made an Orval inspired beer with 50% malted wheat and it was crystal clear after awhile!
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: imark on June 13, 2013, 09:54:34 PM
I've a few litre more than a keg full so I'll bottle the remainder. My kegs are dry  :-[
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: Will_D on June 13, 2013, 09:56:03 PM
In Southern Germany the Hefe Weissen in the kegs is just given a good shaking up before the bar opens!

Unlike a bar on Ulm railway station that had one pump with two clips; Hefe oder Krystal? WTF?

So I asked for hefe and he pulled a glass of Kristal and then gave me a squirt of yeast from a little pump yoke (like they had in UK next to Lager taps containing Lime Juice) but this was HW yeast!!

I kid you not
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: imark on June 14, 2013, 07:49:09 AM
I think I'd take the kristal if that was my option. Maybe irrational but the sludge pump doesn't doesn't appeal.
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: imark on June 14, 2013, 09:42:29 AM
BTW I found that WLP400 to be a strange yeast. It fermented like crazy for a couple days with a huge krausen and stalled until I agitated it in. Had to do this again after few more days. Appears to be pretty common behaviour looking at the White labs site. I was reluctant to do this in case I ended up with high levels of acetaldehyde. Has anybody got advice on using this yeast or do you normally expect to shake it up every few days?
Title: Re: Conditioning a Wit
Post by: Eoin on June 14, 2013, 12:44:54 PM
Yeah kegging bottled styles leads to issues like clarity. It's very rare to get Hefe on tap in Germany at all, it is done, but rare as hens teeth up North in any case.