I brewed a hefeweizen the weekend before last, and I am thinking about bottling it this weekend. Normally I leave my beers in primary for three weeks, but I have been advised that hefeweizens should be bottled quickly. It is my first hefeweizen. I haven't yet done a gravity reading, so it's possible I won't bottle this weekend. But so here's my question: there is still a reasonably thick krausen on top of the beer, and it has been there for a while. I don't think it's going anywhere. Has anyone encountered this before? If so, how do you deal with it? Just stick the auto-siphon below the krausen and stop siphoning before sucking any of it (or the trub on the bottom) into the bottling bucket? Or would it be unlikely for there to be a layer of krausen if the beer is truly done fermenting? For what it's worth, the airlock is not bubbling anymore.
In my experience wheat heavy beers the krausen tends to take a long time to drop. It may indicate that fermenting is not quite done yet. However, best bet is to take gravity readings once, wait three days and if they are the same, its done.
The only way to know is to take a hydrometer reading. I brewed a hefe last week also, mine is doing the opposite-the krausen has dropped and it quit bubbling, but the gravity is still high. I hoped to keg this week but I'll let mine sit another week.
A couple of wheat beers I've feremented with the lid off. This tends to dry out the krausen and it never really falls. Take a gravity reading and decide from there.
Brewed one 3/3 and it had an explosive fermentation (literally). Took a reading last night (so 2.5 weeks) and it was down to 1.008. Tasted pretty good to me. Kegged it up. There are strains of yeast that can have stubborn krausen that just sticks around. As for siphoning, yes, you can rack from under the krausen. There is a topic from about a week ago that mentioned that the krausen does have some proteins in it that are beneficial to head retention, which from what I can tell is true, but I don't think it's a deal breaker to leave it behind as some of the proteins must have never been blown-off in the first place. But yea, take a gravity to know for certain.
You're bottling, you'll have sediment in each bottle, and you won't lose haze. I'd let it ride for the standard 2-3 weeks. I never thought hefes tasted any good intill about 5 weeks after fermentation finished up anyway.
