Hi guys, first time using WLP400. Started at 1.060 ish and after 2 weeks it's at 1.010. Is that about right? should it go any lower than that? Simple recipe: 50% 2 rows, 50% wheat, mashed started at 155F and after 60 mins ended up at 149F. I want to bottle asap (no patience), but at the same time I don't want any gushers or bombs. Thanks.
You have 83% attenuation. 75% is average for this yeast. It's probably done. One way to find out is to wait three days and check the gravity again. If it's still 1.010, then bottle.
I bottled half and kegged half. It end up tasting like a German Wheat rather than a Belgian Wit. It tasts like a Paulaner with heavy banana, which I HATE!! It doens't have the sharpness of Wit. I put half oz bitter orange peel and half oz coriander. Any suggestions on what I did wrong?
Fermented too warm = more banana and less clove Didn't do an acid rest = less clove Mashed too high = less crisp Carbonation too low = less crisp
That was my first reaction, I double checked the tube and it IS 400 and not 300. But to Brew_Betty's reasoning, correct, I did not do an acid rest, never done one either...
If you want more clove and don't wan't to bother with an acid rest, using DME instead of AG will work. The maltster did the acid rest for you.
I guess. Esters come in many varieties, depending on the acid and the alcohol that formed them. The banana ester is Isoamyl acetate, which smells like banana. The others don't smell like banana to me.
I think I did a decent starter. so I don't think thats the issue. I may have mashed a bit too high @155 And about that acid rest thing, I've read from various places that you need to rest it for 1 hour @ 110. That's what turns me off. What a waste of time. Does it really contribute a lot to the taste?
A 20 minute rest at 110-113 works for me with respect to getting more clove phenol. When I don't do it, I get very little clove or none.
Acid rests are one way to reduce the PH, but are fairly outdated due to a more sophisticated understanding of water chemistry than brewers did a century ago when dealing with pure water often devoid of minerals. You can simply make PH adjustments to your mash in the first ten minutes with a PH stabilizer, gypsum, or calcium carbonate, depending on what you're going for and bypass the long wait for phytase to break down the ion buffers and produce weak acid with an acid rest. As for the banana esters, as mentioned earlier, that primarily comes from a hot ferment. High temperature fermentations result in fusels, which esterify in secondary into banana like aromas. A hot ferment can also produce high amounts of diacetyl. If you don't have access to a lagering box, try swaddling your carboy in a blanket, putting your carboy ina tub full of cold/ice water, or even bunjeeing/taping/tying ice packs to the outside of your carboy. A stick on fermometer is a great way to monitor your fermentation temps. Mashing at 155 degrees is just going to lead to a higher concentration of dextrin than maltose from your starch conversion. Beta Amylase functions up to 158 degrees, but it tends to convert more unfermentable sugars the closer you get to 158. This will result in a different mouthfeel, but shouldn't have too big of an effect on the type of ester production you get, though it will affect the how prolific your esters are. Esters come from the conversion of maltose inside yeast cells into Acetyl CoA. A higher percentage of Dextrin, which unlike Maltose, a disaccharride, is the joining of four sugar structures, and is not easily convertible into fusels that can be esterified. So, technically, a high mash temp would have lowered your ester production, not increased it. In the end, there are five main factors in the volume of your ester production. High ester production can be the result of any combination of high gravity wort, low aeration, low pitching rate, high fermentation temperature, and high free nitrogen. The inverse of all of those factors results in low ester production. The type of esters you produce is largely determined by the strain of yeast you use and what temperature it is fermented at. So, in summary: Lower temperatures tend to produce the sharper end of whatever flavors the yeast strain is capable of. The more you deprive the yeast of oxygen and nutrients the more esterifiable fusels will be produced. Proper mash PH will result in a better chance at getting sharper esters. And lastly, but most importantly, pick the right yeast for the esters you want.
"A ferulic acid rest is not the only — or even the primary — way to manipulate the levels of 4VG in your beer. You can skip it altogether and compensate for this when choosing your yeast and fermentation temperatures." - Chris Colby
